EXPANSION COUSINS CLASH IN CONTRAST OF WEEK’S TRENDS
Hard-charging Mariners take on Jays in suddenly crucial three-game series
BULLS OF THE WEEK
After the NFL mismanaged its concussion protocols on a tough opening night for Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers a week ago Thursday, commissioner Roger Goodell took the league in the right direction on player safety by doubling its investment in research and technology around brain injuries. The additional US$100-million commitment won’t solve the problem over- night and — like the $1-billion legal settlement for retired players — won’t turn back the clock on CTE, but it is a solid step by a league that for too long played a game of denial. Twitter also had a good week with its successful NFL video stream, pretty well everywhere but in Canada, where it was blacked out because Rogers holds digital rights for Thursday Night Football.
Yet the most bullish team in the most bullish league in North American professional sport was Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners. Written off two weeks ago, the Mariners used an eightgame win streak to come into this weekend just two games out of the second wild-card spot, making their current homestand at Safeco Field the most important since the end of 2014 and one of the biggest in 15 years.
The big question is whether the M’s can translate a relevant September into crowds of more than 30,000 next season. At an average home attendance of 27,800 this year, they are only 2.7 per cent up on last year’s 27,081 — and well south of their halcyon years of 2000 through 2002, when they averaged 43,500, or more than 92-per-cent capacity at their then-brand new ballpark.
BEARS OF THE WEEK
The Mariners will not have problems filling Safeco Field on Monday for the start of what could be an epic three-game set against their 1977 expansion cousins, the Toronto Blue Jays. That’s largely because at least 15,000 Canadians will make their way to the border city, with many of them wearing the Blue Jays’ maple leaf. The Seattle-Toronto series has only gained in importance because, for the first time in more than a year, the Jays had a bearish week both on the field and off. The buzzkill of a brutal first half of September limited the walk-up crowds to 35,000 for each of three games against the Tampa Bay Rays earlier this week. It was the first time in six weeks that Toronto had drawn fewer than 45,000 at Rogers Centre and was well south of their impressive average of 41,456 for the season (tops in attendance in the American League; fourth overall in MLB). The Jays are still very much in the mix in the race for the post-season and could very well turn things around, but losing as many games as they have to teams behind them this month could haunt the new regime of team president Mark Shapiro for months, if not years, if they don’t. Listen to The Sport Market on TSN 1040 AM Saturdays, 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Bulls & Bears airs at 9 a.m., followed by Weekend Extra with Sun Sports at 9:30 a.m. Follow Tom Mayenknecht at: Twitter.com/TheSportMarket