TV Turns Game Into National Past Time

It’s a clear, breezy Saturday night, a perfect baseball night and nearly 200 fans expectantly crowd the Edison Field ticket windows.

One is cursing. One is shouting. Another is bouncing a crying baby on his shoulders, shutting his eyes, shaking his head.

It’s a perfect baseball night. Problem is, there is no baseball.

To the shock of those gathered, the game between the Angels and Boston Red Sox was over before it started.

The 7 p.m. starting time on their tickets had been changed to 1 p.m.

For what has sadly become a perfectly acceptable reason.

Television.

“It stinks,” said Jo Ann Vizzi, who drove more than 90 minutes with her family from Ventura to spend a wasted evening in a long line. “It stinks a lot. It’s unbelievable.”

But it’s not uncommon. Rarely a season passes in this town that some paying customers are not inconvenienced by their favorite team’s answering to a higher authority.

In this age of billion-dollar network contracts, fans have grown to sense that they don’t matter. When TV can change the starting time on their ticket weeks before that game, their feelings are confirmed.

The national Fox network simply thought last Saturday’s Angel-Red Sox game would be a better regional telecast than the Astros-Pirates.

So, 23 days earlier, it made the Angels switch starting times, as allowed by contract.

“What is happening speaks volumes about to whom sports is trying to market itself,” said David Carter, sports management consultant who teaches at USC. “Clearly, that is corporate America, and the everyday fan gets lost in the shuffle.”

Every day, everywhere.

Want to plan now to attend a local college football game? It’s amazing how so many of them are starting at the same time--TBA.

Fans wishing to be at USC for the Halloween homecoming against Washington are going to have to wait until as late as 10 days before the game to find when it’s going to be played.

Want to go to what could be the most important Dodger game this season? Look at your pocket schedule, the final Saturday, at home against Milwaukee.

Yep, it’s that time again. TBA.

According to its agreement with major league baseball, Fox doesn’t need to announce which games it wants on that final Saturday--or when--until five days beforehand.

The NBA rarely changes its regular-season schedule, but then things get weird. During the playoffs, teams and fans sit around waiting for last-minute updated game dates and times from . . . NBC?

‘This shows how media dollars are so critical to these leagues,” Carter said. “So critical, they will change their games even if it impacts the fans.”

In other words, Conal and Amy O’Neill had to watch their 6-year-old son Trevor break into tears Saturday when they walked up to locked gates at Edison Field simply because Fox pays baseball more money than they do.

“They made an announcement? With this many people here, they made an announcement?” Amy asked.

The Angels said they made several announcements since learning of the time change on July 9. They said they sent letters to season-ticket holders. They put messages on radio and TV. They asked local newspapers to help.

“It’s one of those tough things,” said Tim Mead, Angel vice president. “Any time you are dealing with thousands of people, you can’t walk in and put up a bulletin board.”

For the record, 29,893 fans showed up at the game, an 11-3 Red Sox victory.

But some in that long line later were season-ticket holders who said they never saw a letter or heard anything.

“I was here Wednesday night to watch them play the Yankees, and I never heard a word,” said Mary Ellen Murphy, a season-ticket holder.

Others said they just never thought to call to check.

“You don’t expect the tickets to say something, and the game to say something else,” Vizzi said.

We expect games to start later because of TV. We expect games to last longer because of TV. We even aren’t surprised when a sport like hockey changes its most basic piece of equipment, the puck, to make it more viewer friendly.

Where it hits us hardest is those tickets. Fans who have long since been unable to trust the owner to stabilize prices or the general manager to acquire good players . . . those fans can now can no longer even trust what is printed on the tickets.

Oh, except for the part that legally restricts them from doing anything about it.

That part reads, “Game Time Subject To Change. No Refunds/Exchanges.”

The Angels, however, took care of their customers Saturday. They offered similar tickets to other games, and refunds for some. Others in town react similarly in those situations.

And as much as we hate TBA’s, at least the local colleges aren’t filling their tickets with worthless times that they have to change later. Heck, by comparison, college football is downright fan friendly.

“Fans call and complain about our TBA’s, but all you have to do is tell them it’s because of TV,” said John Tamanaha, USC assistant sports information director. “Then they say, ‘Oh, yeah, OK. We understand.’ ”

As if we have a choice.