© Jordan Johnson | 2019 May 14
We’re all for thinking outside the box here at KNBR — especially during a time like this — but some ideas are best left unsaid.
Case in point: The Los Angeles Times reached out to three television executives for suggestions on how Major League Baseball, which is almost certain to initially return without an in-house audience, can optimize the viewing experience for the fans at home amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Absent of spectators, baseball stadiums will be giant television studios as much as arenas that house competitive events, the thinking goes.
One of the executives quoted in the piece is Mike Fleiss, who is most famous for creating and producing ABC’s hit reality-television series, “The Bachelor”. Fleiss argues that one of the fundamental issues with an MLB restart that requires quarantining players for an extended period of time, is that the players simply won’t be able to do it.
“These guys are never going to be able to go cold turkey,” Fleiss is quoted as saying. “You’ve got to be able to embrace that truth and make that part of the game.”
His solution? Reward the players with human contact.
“What you do is, each game, you load up the stadium with their wives, at a distance from them and at a distance from each other, so there is no quarantine violation. The winning team gets to have their wives tested, and then essentially a conjugal visit.
“You can [film] all the girls. They’re beautiful. They’re in the stands, separated in their own sections or whatever. Those guys are now playing for more than the pride of winning a baseball game. If you go on an eight-game losing streak, that’s not good.”
The idea is fraught with a number of ethical issues, most notably that the players must earn the privilege of seeing their loved ones by playing good baseball, and that the women are essentially prizes to be won. Not to mention the fact that none of the players’ significant others are employed by MLB, and thus not incentivized in any way to participate in this peculiar spectacle.
The most charitable interpretation of Fleiss’ suggestion was that it was said in jest, and maybe that’s the case. Either way, this is going to be hard to top on the growing list of bizarre ideas to get baseball going again.
