For the first time in a very long time, Milwaukee Brewers fans are able to grab a beer through the end of the eighth inning. And they owe it all to the suits running the MLB show.
Major League Baseball’s rules changes to shorten the length of the games and speed up the pace of the play have been a raging success. Chief among the reforms is the establishment of a pitch clock which gives pitcher 15 seconds to deliver the ball (and 20 seconds if there’s a runner on base).
Already, less than two weeks into the season, game times have gone down. As a matter of fact, in just the first week of the season, the Milwaukee Brewers shaved nearly 45 minutes off the average game time as compared to last year at this time.
However, the fan-popular rules tweaks have not been so popular with the concession folk at American Family Field. It only stands to reason– less game time means less sales time.
So, to adjust for the shorter games, the Milwaukee Brewers management, acting first in the league in this matter, has decided to extend beer sales.
Formerly, one could buy their favorite adult beverage up until the seventh inning stretch. Now, they can grab a brew up until the end of the eighth inning.
The change was actually implemented during the final two games of the Brewers’ recent series with the New York Mets. No incidents or complications stemming from the extended beer sales were reported.
“This is [reflective] of the fact that the games are shorter. From a time perspective, we’re probably looking at selling beer for the same amount of time by extending to the eighth inning that we did last year through the seventh,” Brewers’ president of business operations Rick Schlesinger told MLB.com. “Obviously, the safety and the conduct of our fans has primacy. We’ve had no issues, but it’s a small sample size and we’re going to continue to test it and see if it makes sense. I know a number of other teams are doing the same thing.”
Schlesinger would then double down on the idea that safety takes priority over added sales.
“I’m comfortable that our people are going to be monitoring the situation well and making sure that people who shouldn’t be served won’t be served, regardless of what inning it is.”