[Barry]: The Marlins made changes to the broadcast because the old crew wasn’t doing a good job selling subscriptions

[u/RCocaineBurner]

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/mlb/miami-marlins/article317569895.html#storylink=mainstage_lead

Using some nebulous metrics like Twitter followers, the Marlins made a change with Minervi. Sielaff called fans “brain dead,” on social media, which seemed to hurt him. They also like the prospect of the radio guy so they bumped him up and sent Sielaff packing. Sielaff was never my favorite so I don’t care but it’s stupid reasoning.

Nelson was deemed too old school. Gaby stays because they say he’s analytics-minded. Ok. But the worst part about these explanations, if they’re true, is the idea that the broadcast has to be a propaganda arm of the team.

Reading just a little between the lines, the Marlins want broadcasters who will agree with their decisions more often than not. They equate that agreement and willingness to sell to more subscriptions to their tv package. I think that’s idiotic short-term thinking that will sacrifice the quality of the broadcasts while not doing anything for their bottom line unless the team starts winning. Like everyone will say, that’s their choice.

But in reality, especially as compared to other baseball broadcasts, whether the Rays or the Dodgers, the Marlins already do way too much selling of themselves on the broadcast. Toward the end of the season, they had an interminable half-inning-long interview with some head of customer service or something. Unlistenable garbage, zero to do with baseball, and it just would not end.

I don’t think the Marlins executives understand that they look really pathetic when they force the broadcasters to say “come to the ballpark, we need fans here!” And it sounds like they just want more of that garbage.

It’s ok. I’m gonna get good at watching games on mute, not because the broadcast will be better or worse, but because this idiot team can’t get out of its own way and sacrifice the maybe short-term gain of more subscriptions to the long-term gain of having a good broadcast if the team ever gets good.

[u/catscratchfever305]

Until this cycle of inept ownership ends nothing will change it seems.

[u/FLMarlins85]

This is an even dumber explanation for these firings than I expected

[u/RCocaineBurner → u/FLMarlins85]

The idea of some shit head MBA making a presentation about improving the ROI of the broadcast by $8 and everyone in the room nodding along, truly nature’s stupidest franchise

[u/Bobb_o]

The Heat are a much better team and all non national games are free to watch on WPLG plus the free ones on ABC/NBC. The Dolphins suck but it's the NFL and all their games are on CBS or FOX. Inter Miami is available with a whole bunch of other content (including all MLS) on an Apple TV sub. The Panthers local games are OTA. The Marlins trying to sell Marlins.tv subs is crazy on its own, but when you compare to every other South Fla team it's even worse.

[u/_gastly]

SELL THE TEAM

[u/FLguy3]

Maybe I'm crazy, but i bet if they put a better product on the field they'd get more people to come to their games and buy their subscription package.

[u/Catsaremyeverything → u/FLguy3]

Exactly that.

[u/jigokusabre → u/FLguy3]

Hell, even if the product was mediocre and the team kept and marketed its players it would be better. Teams like Angels, Pirates and Guardians know that their not going to see Trout/McCutchen/Ramirez dealt next season.

[u/One13Truck]

Doesn’t mean that Bentdix and Sherman don’t still suck but all team broadcasts are shills for the team. They’re just less successful at it because we’re constantly an ass team. If they rolled out winning teams they would sell more.

[u/RCocaineBurner → u/One13Truck]

It’s funny that the idea is to try to squeeze more out of their meager audience than improve the product for that audience. This is absolute private equity death spiral thinking, except applied to something inconsequential like a baseball broadcast.

But watch other teams, even the fucking Rays. Their broadcast has a reporter/commenter in a booth in the stadium, their segments are actually about baseball mechanics instead of poor Kelly Saco zooming with the Jacksonville manager. It’s a budget product and now it’s gonna have more ads.

[u/KarmaDistributor → u/RCocaineBurner]

Plus they've had Dwayne staats forever. Continuity is something we have nowhere outside of Sandy.

[u/meahoymemoyay]

By that logic can we get rid of Bruce Sherman for not selling tickets to games?

[u/Catsaremyeverything → u/meahoymemoyay]

You’re asking the real questions here.

[u/Prestigious_Bag_428]

Caroline O’Connor. Yeah, she is the teams “money person”. Her and Tony Brasile have both saved this organization millions of dollars with moves like these.

A major league organization would stand by their employees in spite of these 2. The Marlins are not a major league organization.

[u/CandleOk436]

Bit of a headscratcher for the logic. I get the Sielaff leaving because they wanted to use their radio broadcast guy (again, Sielaff was radio before he moved in). However, trying to sell a subscription? If you're out of the market, you'll either get MLB.TV (which is what I did when I wasn't in South Florida) because the value is negligible or you had T-Mobile and get it for free. It isn't like bally sports did much better with their subscription model either. Is this like what Jeter thought that the previous users are stupider than me decision?

If you want more people to watch, add more games on OTA. If you want to sell your subscriptions there, that would make the most sense. However, the biggest and easiest way to get more people to watch is simple. Win more games. I'm a Marlins lifer, but just like the Florida Panthers before who were also a weak team/low attendance/etc etc. ,they were able to find success once it was consistent success. Once again, we need either Bruce to sell the team (Which is not going to happen any time soon) or the higher odds is to get the Salary Cap/Floor established to force the Marlins to deal with the floor.

[u/Kino900]

Mufucka is this gamestop? Fuck outta here with this bullshit.

[u/RCocaineBurner]

Just in case this all sounds like criticism only with the benefit of hindsight, I dug out this old comment thread talking about this exact thing

[u/TheMarlinsOnlyFan]

Yeah it’s totally their fault ownership refuses to field a competitive team.

[u/FinalPercentage9916]

Bruce will try every trick in the book to gin up revenue, except fielding a good team

[u/UnlimitedDisciple]

Funny how the internet insiders with their podcasts in mom's basement defend ownership for these moves failing to address how they canned Minervini instead of at least giving him a graceful exit path option. The fact a franchise fires people (for obvious money saving reasons) to push the narrative that they have to have influencer media to sell tickets and interest is laughable. It's like having influencers for Long John Silvers, expecting your base to eat cheap seafood in a smelly restaurant and enjoy it when ownership does not invest in long term product on the field.

These internet insiders will peddle the claim of oh they extended Sandy. But when they have addressed the offense? They get cute with these contracts to unproven bats or try to land a value relief pitcher only for it to back fire. Rather than actually going after generational talent.

[u/Tough-Thanks109]

Minervini is not a loss

[u/Jonjon428]

Nobody is going to subscribe in this day and age

[u/Smoothsailing4589]

I don't know what new announcers can do about terrible attendance because it's a logistics issue rather than a marketing issue. A lot of fans cannot get to that particular ballpark for gametime deep in Miami, especially the 4:10 starting times. Yes, the Marlins historically have bad attendance, but their decision to put that ballpark where it is was a terrible decision. It was a very expensive blunder. They never ssked, "Wait, is this stadium location easily accessible?" If the ballpark were on the northern side of Miami and was just outside of the city limits and was next to the interstate then a lot more fans could get there.

And the team sucks and sells off top talent in exchange for a few bags of baseballs. There is that too.

[u/AnxiousHeadache42]

This team’s ownership continued to be godawful, bye Marlins 

[u/MapExpansion]

They want subscribers but won't ever spend the money on free agents or put out a team that's consistently competitive. Bruce Sherman wants the Rays method so bad but forgetting that despite how good the Rays are, people don't show up to games there