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Major League Baseball’s new pace-of-play rules this season have certainly been fantastic for television viewership — but may have an unintended negative consequence.
Because the games are around 30 minutes shorter, concession sales could decrease.
The Milwaukee Brewers and Arizona Diamondbacks appear to be the first teams to attempt a solution. They’re reportedly selling alcoholic beverages until the eighth inning — breaking with the league-wide standard of stopping sales in the seventh.
There’s no formal rule about when alcohol sales must end.
The Brewers told MLB.com that because of the quicker games, extending alcohol sales to the eighth inning will allow them to be sold for the same amount of time as last year.
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Through the first two series of the season, Brewers’ game times averaged two hours and 34 minutes, for example. In previous years, any game under three hours was considered speedy.
The change is mostly due to the new pitch clock, which only allows 15 seconds between pitches and 20 seconds when runners are on base.
MLB has already begun soliciting potential sponsors for the clock, which is already popular among fans, FOS previously reported.
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