Do Wine & Baseball Have the Same Problems?

Take me out to the ballgame, take me out with the crowd. Buy me some sauv blanc and Cracker Jacks, I don't care if I never get back.

It's finally baseball season again. I suppose it's always wine season. What do baseball and wine have in common that's giving both businesses headaches?

She's a keeper!

Cost

Wine prices keep going up. Sure, producers have the same supply issues as others with price pressures. This doesn't explain the $75 cabernets, $50 tasting fees, or $400/night lodging in popular wine tourist spots. 

Then there are the $75 baseball tickets, parking fees, and overpriced food. Okay, not everyone is quite this expensive; maybe I'm comparing Napa Valley and the NY Yankees prices.

Image the price of a game for a family of four. Imagine the cost of three days of wine tasting and purchases in Napa.

Market saturation

There are wines available from around the world. Good wines are sold almost everywhere. This is great for the consumer, but drives winery owner in more expensive parts of the world crazy when they try to compete with the likes of South Africa. 

Baseball has a 162 game season, making it difficult to maintain interest except maybe at the beginning and end of the season. There are baseball games on TV every day, multiple games even.

Lack of interest

With the thousands of wineries just in California, you might expect more variances in the product, but there seems to be more sameness as many try to copy what they've read is popular. Oaky chardonnay or acidic chardonnay? Zinfandel at 15% alcohol or 16?

Baseball games are boring. That's not me saying that, it's the occasional fans that baseball needs. Though I'll agree that televised games can get really boring.

Plagued by their past

This is what really links baseball and wine. Baseball is stuck in the past, as many fans want "pure" baseball and no rule changes like those implemented this year. When asked who are the best baseball players ever, the list will include the likes of Ruth, Cobb, Mays and possibly go as current as Ken Griffey Jr. There won't be a mention of Shohei Ohtani of the Angels who is doing things that couldn't have been imaged in the good ol' days. This is because he's current and baseball heroes are all from the glorified past. 

Wines glorified past is about the good ol' days of Bordeaux and Burgundy and how nothing else compares. Nobody alive has had one of these wines on release, but only heard stories and maybe had an old one from someone's cellar. And from this they proclaim that these old French wines cannot be matched today.  We're still stuck with the glass bottle, the cork, and the foil from the past. There's the same half dozen main varietals because from France because there's nothing quite as good from anywhere else.

Today

You know, it just might be that wine and baseball are both better now than they've ever been. The wine world has pretty much gotten rid of all the technical faults. Did you know that decades ago before our 100 point grading scale got popular, there was a ten point system that just looked for faults? The more faults found, the lower the score. Noticeable wine faults were fairly common.

Baseball players are in the best shape in history because of modern physical training. MLB gets the best players from all over the world; not just the best white kids from America. Modern surgery brings back players that would have been lost to baseball forever in the golden era that maybe wasn't that golden.

Young consumers

It's funny/sad that both can't seem to attract a youthful audience. Wine marketers wander in the weeds thinking the problem is craft beer, or cocktails, or some other alcoholic product. Baseball is sure it's just because the game is too slow. It's cost. 

What can they do? Quit worrying about what the other guy is doing, fix the obvious problems where you can, put up your best, and tell people about it!