Major League Baseball Expansion

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Bill Giles’ proposed that “teams from corresponding divisions of the two leagues would play a three-or-four-game series, with home fields alternating each year” but still needed the approval of the owners and the players association (Lord, 137). With the 1996 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the players agreed to Interleague play in both the 1997 and 1998 seasons but used those years as a trial period to decide if Interleague play was something they would like to continue with further into the future (Lord, 137).
The case for interleague play was strong and backed by support from all different ends of the spectrum. Financially, the players, owners, and the game would benefit from the revenue increases (Lord, 137). From an entertainment supported standpoint, implementing interleague play was necessary. Fans wanted to see the “Fan Favorite Players” from both the National League teams and the American League teams posted head-to-head against each other on the same field (Lord, 137). Not only would implementing interleague play allow baseball to create new rivalries of interest, but it would also allow fans in all cities to see players from different parts of the nation (Lord, 138). Many doubts arose about how popular games between teams of different leagues but the same city would be. However, this excited the fans even more (Paul, 13). The original goals and intentions for Interleague play differed from the actual outcomes and many doubts were raised over the 1990’s, but Interleague Play ended up being a success for Baseball.
The 1996 Collective Bargaining Agreement was the start of Baseball’s strides toward Interleague Play and was a milestone moment for Baseball as the American League and the National League had only e...

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...raham. “Testing Market Efficiency in the Major League Baseball Over-Under Betting Market”. Journal of Sports Economics. 2002: Vol 3 no. 4. Retrieved Online. 12 April 2014. http://jse.sagepub.com/content/3/4/311.full.pdf

Lord, J. (2014). Chapter 6: Expansion, Realignment, and Interleague Play: Bringing Baseball into the 1990s . Bill Giles & Baseball. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Paul, Rodney J., Andrew P. Weinbach, and Peter C. Melvin. “The Yankees Effect: The Impact of Interleague Play and The Unbalanced Schedule On Major League Baseball Attendance”. New York Economic Review. 2004: Volume 35 Pg. 3-15. Retrieved Online. 13 April 2014. http://nysea.bizland.com/nysea/publications/nyer/2004/NYER_2004_p003.pdf

Major League Baseball. Interleague History. (2014, March 27). Retrieved Online. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/interleague/index.jsp

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