Phillies bump up start times for some 2022 games originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The average length of regular season baseball games hit an all-time high in 2021, a bummer for any young Phillies fan trying to watch games on school nights.
Luckily, an announcement from the team Monday seems to indicate the team realized the games are getting longer with no immediate fix in sight.
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Starting next season, most Phillies games that take place Monday through Thursday in April, May, and September will start at 6:45 p.m. instead of 7:05 p.m., a 20-minute bump from the 2021 season, the team announced in a news release.
(Basically, school nights during the school year.)
This is definitely a step in the right direction as baseball tries desperately to gin up more excitement among young sports fans; frankly, they ought to go even bigger and move it up to 6:30. With more people working remotely than ever before, and 90 minutes still plenty of time to get from the end of the traditional work day to the ballpark, what's the downside?
This, of course, does not fix the fact that baseball games regularly feel like attention span-sucking marathons. Compare the 3-hour, 10-minute average from last season to the other big three:
The idea that baseball is approaching football levels is brutal, considering football is played once a week and basically has its own day dedicated to watching football. Committing three-plus hours to watching baseball several times each week from April until September? Yeesh.
The Phillies open the 2022 regular season March 31 in Houston against the Astros.
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