From Night to Morning

What if sports teams decided to have midnight specials to attract the attention of the twenty somethings? Well an experiment at Detroit's Comerica Park could put this concept into reality. A four hour rain delay on Friday night caused the Tigers-Yankees game to begin at 11:06 eastern (Detroit) time. The eleven inning affair did not end until well past three in the morning Saturday. A surprisingly competitive game ensued and much of the sell out crowd stayed around to make the decision to play the game worthwhile. The visitors did enough stumbling in the late innings to allow the hardy fans to go home happy as the home team prevailed 9 to 6. No doubt sports marketers are going to look closely at this event. In addition, television schedulers (i.e. ESPN) hungry for live events might want to include some late night/early morning contests to expand their programming. Actually with college football being played all the way to Hawaii, games can be seen from as early as eight in the morning (pacific time) on to the wee hours of the next day. But the idea of having live baseball, basketball, and hockey games starting at ten or later might be catchy with young people who populate restaurants, clubs, and cinemas during those very same hours. What of the players and their own need for rest? Who cares-they are paid well to entertain us.