Coming up with baseball topics in February, especially in Boston given the current state of the Red Sox, is no easy task. When games start, there’s plenty to discuss, but while we stand around and poke the Sox with a stick to get them to do something, we’re about to get hypothetical for a minute here.
Before I attempt to zero in on a real number, let’s set some ground rules and define a few assumptions.
First, two assumptions. I’m assuming anyone reading this is at least a solid Red Sox fan, meaning watching baseball, in and of itself, is not a chore. Hence the 100-game threshold. The next assumption is that you’re not poor. If you don’t have any money, you’d take this challenge on from a monetary perspective. This idea is more targeted at regular folks who would be forgoing doing a ton of other things they’d rather be doing by committing to this.
Next, let’s get into the rules. First, let’s define what it means to “watch” a game. For the sake of this punishment challenge, to get credit for watching a game, you must watch at least 7.5 consecutive innings without any significant distractions. Sure you can have your phone and doom scroll between innings and during the immense amount of dead time, but you have to watch all of the action for at least 7.5 innings. You also don’t necessarily have to be at home to get credit for watching a game, but you can’t go to a bar and watch playoff basketball while talking to your friends with the Sox on in the background and still get credit. This is designed to hurt, people, but the 7.5 innings caveat does give you a little relief if you tune in late or want to bail in the bottom of the 7th when the Red Sox are losing 10-2.
Next, and this clarification just dawned on me while writing this, if you go to a game, you get credit for 2 games watched, but you still have to be there for 7.5 innings.
Lastly, you can’t stack games. Watching 3 innings on Tuesday and 5 innings on Wednesday may total 8 innings, but that doesn’t count as a game watched. This makes West Coast games hurt, a lot.
So how much would you have to be paid to commit to watching 100 Red Sox games in 2024? Let’s run some numbers.
The MLB season is 162 games played over 187 days meaning there are 25 days off sprinkled throughout the schedule including 4 days for the All-Star break. To complete this gauntlet, you’re committing 150 minutes a day in 53 percent of your days during the best time of the year in New England to watching a bad baseball team. From opening day, Thursday, March 28 (10 PM EST first pitch in Seattle) through the last game of the season, Sunday, September 29 at Fenway, there are 27 weekends, or 54 weekend games, which means you can theoretically reach 100 games watched without watching any weekend games – a strategy I’d look into using as I’d have a tough time sacrificing a Saturday round of golf to watch Kutter Crawford go 4 innings of 6-run ball. THAT SAID, I’d surely find myself at Fenway on a Saturday 5 or 6 times this year to take advantage of the double dip, so, assuming 5 trips to the ballpark, I’d only be committing to 90 games on TV.
The introduction of the pitch clock last year also makes this a bit more palatable. A Wednesday night game against the Indians Guardians will wrap up before 10 PM, and if I can bail after the 7th inning stretch, there’s a real possibility I’m going to bed right around 9 PM.
After taking all of this into consideration, I think the number for me is somewhere around $5,000. Here’s why. First, I like baseball and would probably watch at least 50 games on TV and go to Fenway 2 or 3 times, regardless. Sure, the Sox are going to stink, but I’m interested in seeing the young guys and even bad teams generally stick around the fringe of playoff contention through the All-Star Break, so the grind of the 100-game challenge won’t “hit” until more than halfway through the season. Also, $5,000, to me, is enough money that I’m okay with being inconvenienced a bit to attain it. Anything over $5,000 would be a no-brainer while anything under would not be worth it to me.
So, what’s my point? It’s simple. When the Red Sox were good, I probably watched 100+ games every year, willingly. But those days are gone, and even a born and bread, diehard, baseball fan like myself is so out on the current version of the Red Sox that I wouldn’t sit on my fucking couch and watch just 62% of their season without a $5,000 payday waiting for me, and that says everything you need to know about the state of the Boston Red Sox franchise.
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