There’s no month quite like October. Halloween decorations are going up, leaves are falling down, and the smell of hot apple cider wafts through the crisp au- tumn air. Once the sun sets, Americans retreat to their living rooms to watch… football? What happened to the MLB postseason? Is this 1994?

e fact of the matter is that seemingly ordinary NFL and NCAA football games have been getting the bulk of the airtime on the major networks over the most important games of the MLB season. e sport dubbed “America’s pastime” is quietly being phased out.

On ursday, Oct. 5, the ursday Night Football game was a match up between the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tampa Bay had not made the postseason since 2007. e last three meetings between those two teams were decided by 20 points or more. Neither of those teams were in a postseason spot at the time of this week ve match up. is game was broadcast on network television on CBS.

Same time, same date. e New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians are facing each other in the rst game of the American League Division Series. After winning a playo game for the rst time since 2012, the 27-time World Series champion Yankees are looking to advance to the next round. Aaron Judge, arguably the most exciting player in baseball, is coming o of a regular season where he hit an American League-leading 52 home runs. e Cleveland Indians nished the season with the best regular season record in the American League, winning 102 games, and going on a 22-game winning streak at one point during the season, which was the longest winning streak in the history of the American League. After losing the World Series in seven games to the Chicago Cubs last season, the Indians are looking to win their rst World Series since 1948, and break the longest active championship drought in baseball. is important game was broadcast on Fox Sports 1, a channel that, according to Nielsen, is only received by 71 percent of Americans.

is trend continued in the later rounds of the postseason as well. While the World Series is broadcast on network television, the League Championship Series were aired on FS1. Game seven of the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros, the rst game seven of the ALCS since 2008, was aired on FS1. At the same time, a Big XII college football game between the TCU Horned Frogs and the Kansas Jayhawks, a team that is 1-6 this season, has won just one out of their last 30 games against Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams, and has not nished with a winning record since 2008, was aired on FOX.

Baseball may be buried, but there is an unconventional way to make sure it is not dead.

e MLB postseason started on Oct. 3, and should the World Series go seven games, ends as late as Nov. 1. e current format begins with a one-game, winner-take-all Wild Card Game, followed by a best-of- ve Division Series, followed by a best-of-seven Championship Series, followed by a best-of-seven World Series. During the Division Series, there are as many as four games on in one day, all at di erent times and all on dif- ferent non-basic cable networks. Even for the avid fan, it can be a lot to take in.

For a small yet drastic change to the postseason schedule, what if MLB cut some of these games out and shortened the postseason? MLB has not shortened its schedule for a non-strike season since 1922, when the league cut the World Series back from a best-of- nine to a best-of-seven. If it has not shortened the season in roughly a century, why do it now and risk losing revenue?

In reality, MLB is not gaining much by showing these playo games on networks that people barely know exist. It shows in the ratings for FS1’s programs that are not live sporting events. Even though FS1 had an audience of over nine million viewers for game seven of the ALCS this year, every program FS1 ran that day that was not the ALCS had an 18-49 rating below 0.2. For some perspective, the 2:11 a.m. version of SportsCenter on ESPN, the 3:15 a.m. version of College Football Scoreboard on ESPN, and a 1:30 a.m. Adult Swim cartoon had a rating of at least 0.2 in the 18-49 demographic.

How would this new system be formatted? e Wild Card Game would remain. While this game is relatively new, it has already had some memorable moments, from the con- troversial in eld y rule in the 2012 National League Wild Card Game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves, to the walk-o home run by Edwin Encarnacion in extra innings in the 2016 American League Wild Card Game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles. Additionally, this winner-take-all game gives teams an incentive to win the division to avoid playing in this game.

e Division Series would be shortened to a best-of-three, while the Championship Series would be shortened to a best-of- ve, just like it was from 1969-84. Nothing would change about the World Series, as the Fall Classic should never be tampered with.

Not only does this new alignment look better on paper (1-3-5-7 instead of 1-5-7-7), but this format allows the entire postseason to be played in October. is means there would be no need to worry about what would happen if the Colorado Rockies hosted an early November game in the World Series where it was snowing and less than 30 degrees. While MLB would lose as many as 12 postseason games per season, all of the games would now be able to be played on network television, or on basic cable channels.

By having too many games and expanding too many times, the postseason has lost a bit of its luster in recent years. If MLB implements this idea, they too could be yelling “Santa Maria” all October long like Matt Vasgersian.