Game Time Changes

Thursday September 3, 2009

For those of you who haven't heard, the Padres are changing the time games start for weekday day games and Saturday games.

Here is my take on it.

1st the day games during the week are being pushed from 12:35 to 3:35.

I like this change for many reasons, but lets start with the ones the Padres gave.

#1 - This time will bring more business into the Gaslamp Restaurants on Weekdays.

That is true, but how many of us will go out to dinner after sitting at a Padres game in the sun for 3 hours and probably having a dog and a beer or soda or two(or three or four) on a weekday?

#2 - more people will play hooky from work to go to a 3:35 game than a 12:35 game.

I think this is VERY true, but I still may play hooky from work at lunch time and go have lunch before a 3:35 game and I think that a lot of other season ticket holders AND downtown workers will be doing the same.

I really DO like the 3:35 weekday start time.

I just don't like the Saturday time change.

The Padres argument was that more people would go out after the game if it was earlier.

I don't think that it will make that much of a difference in bar traffic. Most of the people that go to the bars are going regardless of whether they went to the Padres game and most of the people that buy season tickets are older than the bar crowd.

I liked taking my family out during the day on Saturday, getting them home by 4-4:30 and still being able to catch dinner and the game on Saturday night.

Now I have to choose one or the other. The Padres are going to lose more often than not. Family comes first.

I don't do the bar scene anymore and since the average age of a season ticket holder is over 50, I doubt many of them do either.

Plus, a 5:30 start means that all the seats in the OF are now in the sun for an hour and a half. All you RF fans, how are you going to like staring into a setting sun for that long?

I have a feeling this will change back pretty quickly.

That is my take. Now what do you have to say about it?