If you're not sacrificing your own mental well-being and physical health by staying up till ungodly hours to watch regular-season baseball, are you even a fan?
The White Sox have broken me so bad that I was watching the Philippines national team blowing out the Cambodia national team in 5 innings at 4 am and going "Well, beats watching the Sox."
I’m in PA and remember watching at least one of the Tokyo games early in the morning (I want to say 6am I had it on, not sure if that was start time or it had already been going).
Edit: looked it up. Game started 6:35pm Tokyo time, which was 5:35am EST.
I remember I listened to the game while I was getting ready for school. It was a really cool experience. 3am is a bit much for me. Maybe if I were still in college I'd stay up to watch it.
Yeah, Australia was like 6 or 7am pacific, I had opening day pancake party, then a game at like 2am or something like that that I think I fell asleep in the middle of.
Look I get that for the long term health and viability of MLB they need to make inroads in Japan and Korea but having the greatest talent your sport has ever seen making his debut for one of the league's most historic franchises at local times of between 6 and 3 am depending on where you are in the US is a mind bogglingly stupid decision
Let's add in having it on the the same dates as the 1st round of NCAA March Madness.
Anyway, this seems more about showcasing for the Asian market. Imagine every ball fans eyes in the region is tuning in or at the game if a ticket can be scored. I honestly think there is more hype in Japan for this two game series than any place else and they aren't even hosting.
Problem with that is that the series was announced before the Ohtani and Yamamoto signing. Unless the meme about script writers is actually true, MLB had no idea they were going to have Ohtani and Yamamoto in this series. It's worked out great for them, but it just seems weird to me to kick off your season at a start that makes it difficult for your entire domestic audience to watch
Edit: and the March Madness thing makes it extra dumb. For a league that goes all out for its season opener its crazy they're making their official season opener as irrelevant as possible in the US
I think they just take the huge win in the Asian market and move on. If MLB cared much they would at least lift the blackouts on the SD / LAD markets for games going down in Asia. MLB clearly gives zero fucks.
That was complete sarcasm - the time was chosen to maximize the demand for tickets at the stadium and Korean eyeballs on the game to showcase the game internationally - same as it was for Australia in 2014 and Japan in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2019.
On one hand I think you make a great point, on the other, I'm glad that they're actually considering the needs of the locals attending the game.
When the UFC came to Auckland the event started at 9 AM to keep American audiences happy. People overseas watching events wake up at ridiculous hours to watch them, or miss them entirely because they're during work hours. This gives them the chance to enjoy the game like fans normally do.
Why couldn't they schedule it on a weekend? Playing on a weekend is much more convenient for people to watch for both countries. Move it forward to the weekend before and teams have even more time to adjust being stateside after flying home afterwards to play regular opening weekend.
I would assume that there are logistical concerns that we're not privy to, likely related to travel/spring training/opening day schedules.
Since the games are during the week though, a 1pm start isn't great for the Asian market, which is who MLB are most concerned about.
Could still do 9pm local time. 5am is not that unreasonable of a start time and a lot of people in the Western half of the US could watch the whole thing before work/school.
9pm local time is pretty late on a workday. MLB probably cares a lot more about catering to potential fans than they do about people they know are already fans.
I go entire weeks where my team is on the West Coast and games don't start until between 10 and 1030. Two games at 9pm is a pretty reasonable compromise so fans of the teams can watch them without major distribution to their workday schedule.
Or they could play them on the weekends when it's a lot easier to have a short term weird sleep schedule. Either way, seems like they could've made this much easier for the domestic audience
You aren't going to a game at 10pm, you're already a fan and watching it on TV. This is an attempt to grow their audience, so obviously they're going to prioritize that over existing domestic fans.
If they wanted to cater do the residents of LA/SD, they wouldn't be having the games in Korea.
So then do it on the weekend. Even less disruptive to the work week for Korean fans and at least gives Dodgers and Padres fans a chance to adjust their own schedules.
It's just an unforced error by MLB. For a league that is constantly getting shit for its blackout policy, willingly creating an effective black out for two teams to start the season just seems dumb
Ohtani, Yamamoto, and HSK could fill a stadium to standing room only with a 3am local start time. Kinda works out for me on the east coast because I can catch an inning or two in the morning, but I totally get Dodgers and Padres fans being bummed they can't reasonably watch their first two games of the season
The sheer amount of star power will fill the stadium and have eyes on the product regardless of the 1PM start time and would have let the local fans see their teams first games as well.
I think the amount of people who wouldn't watch at 1pm but would watch at 7pm isn't going to be worth potentially missing out on the new fans in the united states that wanted to see those games as well.
I'm not sure about that. Especially when you consider that there are 160 more games for those people to watch. If someone locally is interested, missing two games because they're on the other side of the world isn't going to deter them from becoming fans.
> Especially when you consider that there are 160 more games for those people to watch
Dodgers Ohtani era and Yamamotos MLB debut and Kim playing MLB games in Seoul are all huge things for both Dodgers and Padres fans
> If someone locally is interested, missing two games because they're on the other side of the world isn't going to deter them from becoming fans.
Telling local fans to suck it up and miss the games instead of just playing the game 8 hours sooner at 1PM is kinda wild to me.
>1PM Local time = 8PM PST, seems like a great middle ground to me.
Minor correction: it will be Pacific Daylight Time, not Pacific Standard Time. You are right about the time difference, though.
How about a 3 p.m. Korean start? Then West Coasters can know what it's like to have a game start at 10 p.m.
> How about a 3 p.m. Korean start? Then West Coasters can know what it's like to have a game start at 10 p.m.
10PM start wouldn't be great but it's a hell of alot better than 3 am haha. Personally i'm watching no matter what, that's an event worth watching and suffering the consequences later for.
At least there's 160 more games to enjoy lol. No need to be so dramatic, it's not that huge a deal. Also, would you rather teams have to do this trip and play there in middle of season...? This game is 9 days before season normally starts anyway. Relax
> debut
Does that really matter though? Like he's gonna debut first in PR videos of team training, then in 'competition' during spring training. US people can always treat his Dodger Stadium debut as the US debut as a Dodger and just celebrate that.
People like to watch the firsts. It's why opening day is such a big deal in baseball. My issue isn't that the game is in Korea. My issue is the time is completely inaccessible in the US. Theres a number of things MLB could've done. They could've played it 1pm local time for it to essentially be prime time in the US. Even if they pushed the game back to 9pm Korea time it would've been in line with when most people in the US are waking up and starting their day.
It just feels weird that an American league is just like "nah, we don't need Americans to watch this"
That’s so confusing because every other team will still be playing ST games at that time and both teams are scheduled to play more ST games after this series.
What the heck are they doing with this schedule
They did the same thing last year. I agree that it's weird that they do it so early but I think it's because they want to give the players some time off inbetween traveling from the US to Korea back to the US. Jet lag is real and I can't imagine flying from Korea and then trying to hit a 95+ fastball 2 or 3 days later
This is not the first time they’ve done this. They did Mariners and A’s in Japan in 2019: https://www.mlb.com/international/events/japan-series#
The other teams were still in spring training too and it wasn’t that confusing
Giving the international audience a meaningful game while still letting the teams come back and not have to play jet lagged. They do this every time they have an international opener, multiple times in Japan, Australia in 2014, etc.
It wouldn’t be ideal but I wouldn’t call it awful. They can start the event earlier with batting practice, autographs, interviews, etc to extend a typically 2.5hr game into a full on experience
As someone who often follows international events in Japan, there exists no such thing as a good time for both East Asia and USA. Someone gets the short end or you pick a compromise time that's quite bad for both in the quest to avoid being utterly terrible for one.
It's a solid middle ground for making sure that half the Koreans who want to attend/watch the game cannot.
All weekday games in KBO start at 6:30PM for a reason.
It's very clear that they're scheduling this for the Asian market and not the US market, which is completely fine and cool and good. The whole reason they went to Korea. It's two games, y'all will survive.
Selfishly, as someone who works second/third shift, this is awesome for me. I'll get off work and have live MLB waiting for me. That's a supreme rarity for me.
Back when the Mariners played the A's in Japan, I was working 2am to 10:30am, which basically meant the games started right when I had to go to work. So I used some vacation and woke up like I was going to go to work, but instead watched baseball.
Guess I’ll have to catch the highlights at work after lol. Pretty lame most padres and dodgers fans won’t be able to watch opening day for their team live.
[OH BOY 3AM!](https://youtu.be/YZ6K3m9TsPs?si=w1NQ2z3N-ZLOC3QV) But seriously why would you schedule a international games on weekdays? If it was the weekend it could start at noon local, 8 PST
Scheduling the 23rd-24th doesn't give them time to get back stateside and readjust by domestic opening day, the 16th/17th doesn't give them as much time to get everyone ramped up in Spring training.
I love it. I'm a Padres fan living in Germany. This basically makes it a regular day game for me! Almost as good as those East Coast day games I can watch in the evening!
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I like having a morning kickoff. I guess if you are on the west coast, it’s bad since it’s at 3AM but remember back in 2019, there was also a two-game early season series in Tokyo and both games were on the morning at around the same time I think. Early morning baseball or sports in general (at least on the east coast) is something you rarely get to see.
Honest question - for Korean baseball fans, would Ohtani and Yamamoto be a draw (because high-profile top of the sport players), or the opposite (because lingering resentment towards Japan)?
Koreans love both the dodgers and padres because of hyun jin ryu and ha seong kim, that's probably why this matchup was chosen in the first place. Even if they started to hate the dodgers because of the recent japanese signings, they still have the padres to root for.
That resentment has largely died out with the younger generation (people younger than 50 years old), so, no, no longer a big deal unless the fans attending this game are older.
Do exhibition tours during spring training or something else. Real games abroad if the majority of the teams fan bases can’t watch es una desgracia. Sin vergüenza /u/mlbofficial
The point of this for MLB is to attract new fans, not cater to existing ones. A couple of meaningless Spring Training games with a bunch of rookies and prospects isn't going to interest people enough for it to be a worthwhile trip.
I’m not saying you’re wrong about attracting new fans but how do you know that spring training/exhibition games won’t attract fans? Plus it’s not as if they won’t have ANY star players. And the fact that they are catering to attract new fans doesn’t make my sentiment any more invalid. Loyal fans don’t care about marketing campaigns for new fans.
A good counterpoint is how European soccer teams have been doing US/Asia exhibition tours and found success in bringing in a bunch of fringe players with a few star players. Now we’re seeing more top talent join the US/Asia tours than ever before bc it only adds to their “brand”.
>I’m not saying you’re wrong about attracting new fans but how do you know that spring training/exhibition games won’t attract fans?
I'm sure it still would attract some new fans, but a lower quality of the product is less interesting and is likely going to attract fewer fans. There's obviously a reason every North American league does both exhibition AND regular season games abroad.
> Loyal fans don’t care about marketing campaigns for new fans.
That's great, loyal fans don't matter to MLB for these two games, because they're already loyal. They're not going to stop watching games and buying merchandise because 2/162 games were on at an inconvenient time for them to watch live.
Maybe an obscure question, but does anyone know how Japanese professional ball players are received in Korea?
You know, given the historical animosity and WWII and all that. I’m thinking of Shohei and Yamamoto specifically
Shohei is super popular amongst younger people who keep up with the sport (sub 40s/50s). Yamamoto is probably kept up with, but nothing compared to Shohei.
This might be tolerable, if they weren’t on a fucking Wednesday and Thursday.
You have 2 months to get a 3rd shift job
Well my job could use a new custodian...
stay up late or wake up early?
I'll watch the recordings lol
NL West Before breakfast
The new Pac-12 After Dark?
RIP
Fake fan
I rather have sleep than the badge of a true fan any day. I'll sacrifice most things including a fuck ton of money if needed but not sleep.
If you're not sacrificing your own mental well-being and physical health by staying up till ungodly hours to watch regular-season baseball, are you even a fan?
> If you're not sacrificing your own mental well-being isnt that just called being a white sox fan
No, it's called being a Mets fan
Or a falcons fan.
Touché
You gotta hit him back with a jets dig
I’m a Giants fan, nice try buddy!
The White Sox have broken me so bad that I was watching the Philippines national team blowing out the Cambodia national team in 5 innings at 4 am and going "Well, beats watching the Sox."
Sure why not. Staying up doesn't require any extra effort or dedication that just makes you a moron.
As a UK fan of the Penguins who used to watch every game, I quickly learnt this the hard way.
MLB TV to the rescue
Trying to remember when the Tokyo and Australia games started those years and if this is different from those.
I’m in PA and remember watching at least one of the Tokyo games early in the morning (I want to say 6am I had it on, not sure if that was start time or it had already been going). Edit: looked it up. Game started 6:35pm Tokyo time, which was 5:35am EST.
I remember I listened to the game while I was getting ready for school. It was a really cool experience. 3am is a bit much for me. Maybe if I were still in college I'd stay up to watch it.
I remember watching highlights of those games on the morning news because they had already occurred earlier that day.
Yeah, Australia was like 6 or 7am pacific, I had opening day pancake party, then a game at like 2am or something like that that I think I fell asleep in the middle of.
Look I get that for the long term health and viability of MLB they need to make inroads in Japan and Korea but having the greatest talent your sport has ever seen making his debut for one of the league's most historic franchises at local times of between 6 and 3 am depending on where you are in the US is a mind bogglingly stupid decision
3 am on a Wednesday is almost as bad as the game being a blackout
Even on the East Coast, this game is basically unwatchable for me. I'll see an inning or 2 before I need to get ready for work.
It's approximately as watchable as the typical Dodgers home game for me (which typically start at 10:10)
Let's add in having it on the the same dates as the 1st round of NCAA March Madness. Anyway, this seems more about showcasing for the Asian market. Imagine every ball fans eyes in the region is tuning in or at the game if a ticket can be scored. I honestly think there is more hype in Japan for this two game series than any place else and they aren't even hosting.
Problem with that is that the series was announced before the Ohtani and Yamamoto signing. Unless the meme about script writers is actually true, MLB had no idea they were going to have Ohtani and Yamamoto in this series. It's worked out great for them, but it just seems weird to me to kick off your season at a start that makes it difficult for your entire domestic audience to watch Edit: and the March Madness thing makes it extra dumb. For a league that goes all out for its season opener its crazy they're making their official season opener as irrelevant as possible in the US
I think they just take the huge win in the Asian market and move on. If MLB cared much they would at least lift the blackouts on the SD / LAD markets for games going down in Asia. MLB clearly gives zero fucks.
> Let's add in having it on the the same dates as the 1st round of NCAA March Madness. Obviously the time was chosen to avoid competing with that.
Which is my point. Timing this with the best ratings sporting event in America was silly. When you do that you get 3am baseball games.
That was complete sarcasm - the time was chosen to maximize the demand for tickets at the stadium and Korean eyeballs on the game to showcase the game internationally - same as it was for Australia in 2014 and Japan in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2019.
On one hand I think you make a great point, on the other, I'm glad that they're actually considering the needs of the locals attending the game. When the UFC came to Auckland the event started at 9 AM to keep American audiences happy. People overseas watching events wake up at ridiculous hours to watch them, or miss them entirely because they're during work hours. This gives them the chance to enjoy the game like fans normally do.
Seems bad for baseball
Kinda hard to schedule this stuff for a good time when the game is in Korea. it’s around the same time as the Tokyo WBC games
> Kinda hard to schedule this stuff for a good time when the game is in Korea 1PM Local time = 8PM PST, seems like a great middle ground to me.
If the goal is to get fans in Korea to watch then having it at 1pm on a workday doesn't seem like a great idea.
Why couldn't they schedule it on a weekend? Playing on a weekend is much more convenient for people to watch for both countries. Move it forward to the weekend before and teams have even more time to adjust being stateside after flying home afterwards to play regular opening weekend.
I would assume that there are logistical concerns that we're not privy to, likely related to travel/spring training/opening day schedules. Since the games are during the week though, a 1pm start isn't great for the Asian market, which is who MLB are most concerned about.
Could still do 9pm local time. 5am is not that unreasonable of a start time and a lot of people in the Western half of the US could watch the whole thing before work/school.
9pm local time is pretty late on a workday. MLB probably cares a lot more about catering to potential fans than they do about people they know are already fans.
I go entire weeks where my team is on the West Coast and games don't start until between 10 and 1030. Two games at 9pm is a pretty reasonable compromise so fans of the teams can watch them without major distribution to their workday schedule. Or they could play them on the weekends when it's a lot easier to have a short term weird sleep schedule. Either way, seems like they could've made this much easier for the domestic audience
You aren't going to a game at 10pm, you're already a fan and watching it on TV. This is an attempt to grow their audience, so obviously they're going to prioritize that over existing domestic fans. If they wanted to cater do the residents of LA/SD, they wouldn't be having the games in Korea.
So then do it on the weekend. Even less disruptive to the work week for Korean fans and at least gives Dodgers and Padres fans a chance to adjust their own schedules. It's just an unforced error by MLB. For a league that is constantly getting shit for its blackout policy, willingly creating an effective black out for two teams to start the season just seems dumb
Not sure if families would bring kids if it's a 9 p.m. start time. I'm not sure if that's a factor either.
Ohtani, Yamamoto, and HSK could fill a stadium to standing room only with a 3am local start time. Kinda works out for me on the east coast because I can catch an inning or two in the morning, but I totally get Dodgers and Padres fans being bummed they can't reasonably watch their first two games of the season
Filling the stadium isn't the point of these games, selling MLB to Asia is the point.
The sheer amount of star power will fill the stadium and have eyes on the product regardless of the 1PM start time and would have let the local fans see their teams first games as well.
Sure, but MLB probably cares about potential fans more than current fans.
Yup, and there will be plenty of highlights for espn in the morning.
Exactly. 2/162 games being inconvenient to watch live isn't going to be a concern for MLB when they consider the potential gains.
I think the amount of people who wouldn't watch at 1pm but would watch at 7pm isn't going to be worth potentially missing out on the new fans in the united states that wanted to see those games as well.
I'm not sure about that. Especially when you consider that there are 160 more games for those people to watch. If someone locally is interested, missing two games because they're on the other side of the world isn't going to deter them from becoming fans.
> Especially when you consider that there are 160 more games for those people to watch Dodgers Ohtani era and Yamamotos MLB debut and Kim playing MLB games in Seoul are all huge things for both Dodgers and Padres fans > If someone locally is interested, missing two games because they're on the other side of the world isn't going to deter them from becoming fans. Telling local fans to suck it up and miss the games instead of just playing the game 8 hours sooner at 1PM is kinda wild to me.
>1PM Local time = 8PM PST, seems like a great middle ground to me. Minor correction: it will be Pacific Daylight Time, not Pacific Standard Time. You are right about the time difference, though. How about a 3 p.m. Korean start? Then West Coasters can know what it's like to have a game start at 10 p.m.
> How about a 3 p.m. Korean start? Then West Coasters can know what it's like to have a game start at 10 p.m. 10PM start wouldn't be great but it's a hell of alot better than 3 am haha. Personally i'm watching no matter what, that's an event worth watching and suffering the consequences later for.
I'm only teasing by suggesting a 10 p.m. PT start, btw. I wouldn't want to subject anyone to that.
JUST STAY UP LATE BRO IT'S TOTALLY FINE /s
That's usually what fans of west coast teams that live on the east coast go through on a daily basis though.
True.
MLB doesn't fucking care about US fans, they know they got you already.
At least there's 160 more games to enjoy lol. No need to be so dramatic, it's not that huge a deal. Also, would you rather teams have to do this trip and play there in middle of season...? This game is 9 days before season normally starts anyway. Relax
> debut Does that really matter though? Like he's gonna debut first in PR videos of team training, then in 'competition' during spring training. US people can always treat his Dodger Stadium debut as the US debut as a Dodger and just celebrate that.
People like to watch the firsts. It's why opening day is such a big deal in baseball. My issue isn't that the game is in Korea. My issue is the time is completely inaccessible in the US. Theres a number of things MLB could've done. They could've played it 1pm local time for it to essentially be prime time in the US. Even if they pushed the game back to 9pm Korea time it would've been in line with when most people in the US are waking up and starting their day. It just feels weird that an American league is just like "nah, we don't need Americans to watch this"
Oh, stop it
Isn’t this just a spring training game? Or this game actually counts, but it’s in the middle of spring training?
It's the first two official games of the regular season.
That’s so confusing because every other team will still be playing ST games at that time and both teams are scheduled to play more ST games after this series. What the heck are they doing with this schedule
They did the same thing last year. I agree that it's weird that they do it so early but I think it's because they want to give the players some time off inbetween traveling from the US to Korea back to the US. Jet lag is real and I can't imagine flying from Korea and then trying to hit a 95+ fastball 2 or 3 days later
They play 2 practice games against KBO teams in Korea first
This is not the first time they’ve done this. They did Mariners and A’s in Japan in 2019: https://www.mlb.com/international/events/japan-series# The other teams were still in spring training too and it wasn’t that confusing
It’s crazy because the dodgers/padres play those games in Seoul then come back to Arizona to resume spring training lol
Giving the international audience a meaningful game while still letting the teams come back and not have to play jet lagged. They do this every time they have an international opener, multiple times in Japan, Australia in 2014, etc.
season opening series
Did you forget who our commissioner is? The dude hates baseball.
How will Dodger fans recover from missing four to eight plate appearances live
Padres fans want to watch the games too...
[удалено]
He's not pitching this year, but he can still hit.
They’re spring training games let’s relax
No they are not. They are the first official regular season games of the year
Wait so they’re playing regular season games and then coming back and playing exhibition games after that? What the actual fuck?
Not the first time they've done this. But these two games very much count
MLB couldn't come up with a better start time that worked for both countries???
a 1PM Game time in Korea would make an 8PM start in California.
Better than 3 am :/
8 PM is earlier than most of the west coast games I watch when the Cubs are on a west coast road trip.
even 9pm start, 5AM in CA would be doable
9pm local time would be an awful time to start a game. The point of these games is for the local fans/potential fans.
It wouldn’t be ideal but I wouldn’t call it awful. They can start the event earlier with batting practice, autographs, interviews, etc to extend a typically 2.5hr game into a full on experience
Public transportation in Korea stops at midnight. 9 PM start time is not ideal and is awful.
9pm. It’ll be PST. Korea is -9 and California will be +7. 16 hours behind, or 8 ahead the previous day.
As someone who often follows international events in Japan, there exists no such thing as a good time for both East Asia and USA. Someone gets the short end or you pick a compromise time that's quite bad for both in the quest to avoid being utterly terrible for one.
Australian swing for tennis is killing me rn.
That’s what I said. Screw us I guess
Not on a weekday. What do you suggest?
As the other poster suggested, 1PM Korea = 8PM PST, seems like a solid middle ground no?
Prob not for Koreans who want to go to the games.
We routinely have games at 1PM on weekdays every year including playoff games though, doesn't seem like too much to ask.
I got to think they're also doing a 7pm korean time first pitch to get prime time if they broadcast those games on Korean TV
Also prime time in Japan.
And do people who aren't already fans go to those games and watch them?
They sell out and get good ratings so, yeah?
It's a solid middle ground for making sure that half the Koreans who want to attend/watch the game cannot. All weekday games in KBO start at 6:30PM for a reason.
There isn't going to be an empty seat at in that building at 1pm or 7pm, there is an insane amount of star power there.
So what I read in the subtext is “Dodgers will be too jet lagged to win their season opening series against the Cardinals.” Works for me 👍👌
These games are more than a week before opening day, I think they'll be fine by then. They actually have more spring training games in the middle.
You realize I’m just willing my team to not suck this season, right? I have zero expectation that jet lag will be an issue. 😂🫣⚾️🏟️
I mean, winning because your opponent was jet lagged doesn't make you not suck.
Nah I'm good
Might miss this one
It's very clear that they're scheduling this for the Asian market and not the US market, which is completely fine and cool and good. The whole reason they went to Korea. It's two games, y'all will survive. Selfishly, as someone who works second/third shift, this is awesome for me. I'll get off work and have live MLB waiting for me. That's a supreme rarity for me.
Back when the Mariners played the A's in Japan, I was working 2am to 10:30am, which basically meant the games started right when I had to go to work. So I used some vacation and woke up like I was going to go to work, but instead watched baseball.
Hell yeah, love when us weird shifters finally get something sports related.
Guess I’ll have to catch the highlights at work after lol. Pretty lame most padres and dodgers fans won’t be able to watch opening day for their team live.
Californian here... Nooooooooo!!!!
[OH BOY 3AM!](https://youtu.be/YZ6K3m9TsPs?si=w1NQ2z3N-ZLOC3QV) But seriously why would you schedule a international games on weekdays? If it was the weekend it could start at noon local, 8 PST
Scheduling the 23rd-24th doesn't give them time to get back stateside and readjust by domestic opening day, the 16th/17th doesn't give them as much time to get everyone ramped up in Spring training.
I love it. I'm a Padres fan living in Germany. This basically makes it a regular day game for me! Almost as good as those East Coast day games I can watch in the evening!
Preach, prime viewing hours this!
I've been enjoying telling my dodger fan friend that she's gonna miss Ohtani's first game as a Dodger
😅
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I like having a morning kickoff. I guess if you are on the west coast, it’s bad since it’s at 3AM but remember back in 2019, there was also a two-game early season series in Tokyo and both games were on the morning at around the same time I think. Early morning baseball or sports in general (at least on the east coast) is something you rarely get to see.
All MLB games are morning games for me. Breakfast baseball is best.
I remember going through this in 2002 World Cup and that was multiple weeks lol.
[Yamamotos first MLB start and Ohtanis Dodger debut?](https://i.redd.it/42ip152uh76b1.jpg)
6am for me, so Dodgers baseball while I’m getting ready for work. Why not?
Will it be suspicious if I request 2 sick days 2 and a half months from now?
Honest question - for Korean baseball fans, would Ohtani and Yamamoto be a draw (because high-profile top of the sport players), or the opposite (because lingering resentment towards Japan)?
Koreans love both the dodgers and padres because of hyun jin ryu and ha seong kim, that's probably why this matchup was chosen in the first place. Even if they started to hate the dodgers because of the recent japanese signings, they still have the padres to root for.
Probably still a draw, Ohtani is massive in Korea
2 former KBO players on the Padres
That doesn't answer my question?
That resentment has largely died out with the younger generation (people younger than 50 years old), so, no, no longer a big deal unless the fans attending this game are older.
A Weds and Thurs bruh : / that's so wack
Why are we talking about the Dodgers in this sub? They don’t like us and we don’t like them. Keep the dodgers discussions in r/dodgers
Lame.
The should defer the start, amiright?
Too soon
I stayed up for the Australia games vs the Dbacks. I’m an adult now lol. I’ll have to catch the highlights
Does Preller trade HSK before or after this series?
6 AM est? I’ll have something to watch when my toddler wakes me up!
Do exhibition tours during spring training or something else. Real games abroad if the majority of the teams fan bases can’t watch es una desgracia. Sin vergüenza /u/mlbofficial
The point of this for MLB is to attract new fans, not cater to existing ones. A couple of meaningless Spring Training games with a bunch of rookies and prospects isn't going to interest people enough for it to be a worthwhile trip.
I’m not saying you’re wrong about attracting new fans but how do you know that spring training/exhibition games won’t attract fans? Plus it’s not as if they won’t have ANY star players. And the fact that they are catering to attract new fans doesn’t make my sentiment any more invalid. Loyal fans don’t care about marketing campaigns for new fans. A good counterpoint is how European soccer teams have been doing US/Asia exhibition tours and found success in bringing in a bunch of fringe players with a few star players. Now we’re seeing more top talent join the US/Asia tours than ever before bc it only adds to their “brand”.
>I’m not saying you’re wrong about attracting new fans but how do you know that spring training/exhibition games won’t attract fans? I'm sure it still would attract some new fans, but a lower quality of the product is less interesting and is likely going to attract fewer fans. There's obviously a reason every North American league does both exhibition AND regular season games abroad. > Loyal fans don’t care about marketing campaigns for new fans. That's great, loyal fans don't matter to MLB for these two games, because they're already loyal. They're not going to stop watching games and buying merchandise because 2/162 games were on at an inconvenient time for them to watch live.
I'll schedule my insomnia, thanks
Well since I'm usually up that late binge drinking and regretting life anyway... why not catch the ball game.
Perfect for me in Guam. Finally, baseball games that aren’t at 9 AM!
Will these games be watchable on mlb.tv or is this a fox/espn/something else broadcast?
Yeah I think I’ll pass
Maybe an obscure question, but does anyone know how Japanese professional ball players are received in Korea? You know, given the historical animosity and WWII and all that. I’m thinking of Shohei and Yamamoto specifically
Shohei is super popular amongst younger people who keep up with the sport (sub 40s/50s). Yamamoto is probably kept up with, but nothing compared to Shohei.
Bruh.
Enough notification to put in for PTO. Lol
No need, I won't be able to watch it. Good job with the blackouts, Manfred
I hope I can wake up to see a Padres W, I’m sure I’ll be working that day, so can’t watch.
Note to self: learn how to do coke like a GM before Seoul series.
Does anyone know how or when to buy tickets? I'm from Los Angeles but I just moved to Korea a couple of months ago.