MNB-Free It — WESII Creative

MONDAY NIGHT BASEBALL — FREE IT

Local Access Proposal from an Iron Fan

William Schmidt II
WESII Creative, Director
Iron Fan 1A

Executive Summary

Baseball is the American people's game.

A sport built on visibility, repetition, local identity, and habit has become increasingly difficult for ordinary fans to access.

This proposal seeks to restore baseball's visibility through a predictable weekly baseball-access initiative centered on Monday Night Baseball.

The objective is not to eliminate existing revenue streams, broadcasting agreements, streaming platforms, premium viewing options, or current partnerships.

The objective is to make baseball more accessible, period.

Monday Night Baseball becomes the opening step toward rebuilding familiarity, participation, attendance, regional baseball awareness, and long-term fan development.

Football survives scarcity.

Baseball survives presence.

The Problem

Modern baseball access has become fragmented through subscription stacking, exclusive streaming arrangements, blackout restrictions, platform confusion, and inconsistent in-market availability.

Many fans cannot easily watch their own local team.

That is a serious problem for a sport historically built on routine access, repeated exposure, and regional identity.

Baseball did not become America's pastime only because people made deliberate viewing decisions. It became America's pastime because the game was present. It was on television. It was on radio. It was in restaurants, homes, bars, garages, porches, and summer evenings.

People encountered baseball naturally. Exposure became familiarity. Familiarity became fandom.

Today, discovery often requires effort. For a sport that depends on repetition, that friction is damaging.

Core Principle

The objective is not simply to make baseball available on Monday night.

The objective is to make baseball more accessible, period.

Monday was chosen because it is already an established sports-viewing night across America. Rather than creating a new habit from nothing, baseball can claim an existing one. To answer the obvious fan question: late-season MLB games, postseason baseball, and NFL Monday night games already overlap. Baseball should claim its place within that habit the rest of the year to support deeper, season-long fan development.

Monday Night Baseball is the opening. It is not the destination.

The Monday Night Baseball Framework

The framework uses three layers.

National Layer: One nationally available Monday Night Baseball game. This gives the country a weekly baseball touchpoint and creates a reliable national conversation.

Local Layer: Every local market receives access to its local team's Monday game whenever scheduled. Home or away, the local team remains visible.

Neighboring-Market Layer: When practical, neighboring markets and regional clubs become available as supplemental broadcasts. This helps fill natural scheduling gaps and expands regional baseball awareness.

The objective is not replacement. The objective is predictable, recurring baseball visibility.

Regional Examples

This principle can work nationally because baseball is already regional by nature.

Examples may include Cleveland / Detroit / Pittsburgh / Cincinnati; New York / Philadelphia / Baltimore / Washington; Chicago / Milwaukee / St. Louis; Dallas / Houston; Los Angeles / San Diego / Arizona; Seattle regional opportunities; Florida market opportunities; and other regional combinations as practical.

These examples are not limits. They show the logic.

Baseball markets do not have to be isolated. Regional visibility can strengthen rivalries, road trips, player familiarity, and broader interest in the sport.

Keep The Existing Schedule

Keep the existing Major League Baseball schedule.

Do not force teams to add Monday games.

Do not eliminate off-days.

Do not redesign travel structures.

The proposal works with the schedule already in place.

When a local club is not scheduled, neighboring-market broadcasts help fill the gap and expand regional baseball awareness and divisional familiarity in some cases.

Exposure to nearby clubs, rivalries, cities, and ballparks encourages broader engagement with the sport and can inspire future attendance, travel, and participation.

Monday As A Series Opener

Whenever practical, Monday Night Baseball should serve as the opening game of a series.

The Monday broadcast becomes an invitation to continue participating throughout the week. Fans who enjoy Monday's game may choose to return Tuesday, Wednesday, or later in the homestand.

The objective is not merely to create a television audience for one night. The objective is to encourage deeper engagement with the series, the club, and the ballpark experience.

The best Monday broadcast does not end when the final out is recorded. It creates interest in the next game.

Regional Visibility Creates Participation

Visibility creates curiosity. Curiosity creates participation.

When fans regularly see neighboring clubs, neighboring cities, and neighboring ballparks, they become more likely to attend games, travel to ballparks, follow storylines, and deepen their connection to baseball.

A fan may decide to attend a future road game, visit another ballpark, experience another baseball city, introduce family members to baseball, or follow additional players and storylines.

Every ballpark has its own identity. Every city has its own traditions. Every baseball community has its own culture.

Regional broadcasts should show more than the score. They should show the ballpark, the food, the neighborhood, the local atmosphere, and the surrounding baseball culture as most do already but now nearly weekly.

Baseball should sell the full ballpark-area experience.

Attendance Benefits

Monday Night Baseball should not simply encourage people to watch. It should encourage people to participate.

The television audience is not separate from the stadium audience. The television audience is tomorrow's stadium audience.

Each club may use Monday as an attendance-building opportunity through promotions, family nights, youth sports nights, local organizations, appreciation nights, giveaways, food features, community events, and ballpark-experience showcases.

A fan watching from home may decide: Let's go tomorrow. Let's go next Monday. Let's make a weekend trip when our team visits that ballpark.

The broadcast should feed attendance, not compete with it.

Monday promotions should be coordinated with the broadcast so viewers see exactly why attending the next game is worth it.

Revenue Philosophy

This proposal is not anti-business.

This proposal is pro-access.

Do not nickel-and-dime the fan. Monetize attention.

Allow sponsors to sponsor, advertisers to advertise, broadcasters to broadcast, streaming partners to innovate, clubs to promote, and local businesses to participate.

The fan is not the product.

The fan is the reason the product has value.

Access creates attention. Attention creates inventory. Inventory creates corporate value.

Baseball is the American people's game. Stop charging fans for every doorway. Make corporations compete for their attention instead. Make it consistently available weekly.

Benefits To Fans

Fans gain easier access, increased familiarity, stronger connection to clubs, more regional awareness, and more opportunities for participation.

A fan should not need a map of subscriptions to find the game weekly.

Benefits To Clubs

Clubs gain increased consistent visibility, attendance opportunities, fan retention, regional awareness, and long-term fan development.

Monday becomes a predictable weekly tool to build habit, promote the ballpark, and support future attendance.

Benefits To Players

Players gain greater exposure, increased recognition, broader regional awareness, and a stronger future fan base.

More visibility can help fans learn names, faces, personalities, storylines, and careers earlier in the season rather than waiting for late-season races.

Benefits To Broadcasters And Sponsors

Broadcasters gain consistent weekly event programming and stronger advertiser value.

Sponsors gain reliable weekly visibility, audience engagement, and long-term association with baseball accessibility.

The Monday structure creates a recurring appointment instead of scattered exposure.

Implementation Path

Start with the existing schedule.

Use Monday as the weekly access point.

Prioritize national availability, local-market visibility, and neighboring-market coverage where practical.

Keep streaming and premium enhancements available, but do not allow exclusivity to block the in-market public-facing Monday access layer.

Allow clubs to develop local Monday promotions and ballpark-experience messaging.

Measure reach, engagement, attendance effects, sponsor response, and regional audience behavior.

Pilot the model in selected multi-team regions first, then expand leaguewide as audience, attendance, and sponsorship results are validated.

Then allow future schedules to evolve naturally if the model proves successful.

Conclusion

Baseball became America's pastime because it was present.

It was visible.

It was familiar.

It was part of everyday life.

FREE IT seeks to restore that visibility.

Not by replacing existing baseball structures.

By helping people find baseball again.

Monday Night Baseball is the beginning.

Increased baseball visibility is the goal.