CLEMSON — Erik Bakich has long been a major proponent of pushing the college baseball season back.

In fact, he has been one of the head coaches leading the charge. Back in 2020, while still at Michigan and the baseball season was wiped out due to COVID, Bakich spent a couple of months doing what he called the “heavy lifting” on one of the proposals to push the season back. He did a deep dive into attendance numbers in an effort to back up his stance.

Why attendance numbers, you ask? Because, for Bakich, this isn’t about trying to avoid the cold weather routinely seen during the first few weeks of the season. This is about money, and how schools can make baseball more profitable.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, this is not about weather. Nobody cares about competitive equity. That is not the needle mover to push the season back,” Bakich said. “It is 100% about money.”

Every season, a large majority of schools in the north spend the first few weeks of the season playing away from home. Usually somewhere down south. Pushing the start of the season back into March would eliminate a lot of those issues.

“When you look at how it improves everybody’s bottom lines, the northern teams don’t have to get on commercial airlines and travel as much early in the year,” Bakich added. “That is a big savings when the average spend for those trips is $50 thousand plus per weekend.”

For a school like Clemson, where Bakich is about to begin his fourth season as the head coach, pushing the start of the season back means the home schedule doesn’t have to be front-loaded. The Tigers generally play a large majority of their home games in February and March, when attendance numbers aren’t as good.

“The warm-weather schools, the SEC and ACC, they average playing over half their home games In February or March, but their actual attendance is better in April and May,” Bakich said. “It just doesn’t make sense that when our actual attendance is showing up and the revenue streams associated with that, like alcohol sales, concessions and merchandise, and actual butts in the stands, is better when we are playing less home games, but we are stuffing all of our home games in February and March. This year, we have 20 home games in February and March and 10 home games in April and May. What the hell is that, right?”

Not to mention, February is considered basketball season. While there is really no realistic way for basketball and baseball seasons not to see some overlap, pushing the start of the baseball season back would greatly reduce that overlap.

There’s also the injury component. Pushing the season back would give players more time to prepare for the rigors of a long season, which in turn would reduce the number of preseason injuries, something the Tigers are currently dealing with.

“I just wish we could get the season out of February,” Bakich said. “It’s basketball season. You got a fan base that can only spread their energy so far at all these schools. It also gives the kids more ramp time for the season. 80% of those injuries happen during preseason, whether it is spring training or collegiate athletics, 80% is always in that volume increase ramp, where you see that spike in volume, especially the soft tissue stuff.”

At the end of the day, Bakich sees no downside to pushing the season back, and doing so could actually make some of the baseball programs that are currently losing money actually profitable.

“Most importantly, there is a real financial component to this,” Bakich said. “For the sport of baseball that is trying to be a little bit more relevant as a total player on the college scene, you got a handful of schools that operate in the black, but most of them are a cost model. In fact, they are a money-sucking drain on the department. So if we can be better contributors to the department — we are a major sport, let’s contribute like a major sport.”