Sports Biz

AP Rained out Mets game.

So yesterday, I had tickets to the New York Mets game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. When I woke up, I looked at the weather and saw there was no chance for the game to be played.

I know meteorologists are more wrong than right, but when weather.com says 100 percent chance of heavy rain and thunder that, to me, seems to me to be pretty solid confidence.

So I watched the clock and made up a game. How long would it take the Mets to call this thing off? Rainouts are always a subject of controversy. Fans get angry because they either think the weather isn't bad enough to call it or they are mad because the team waited too long to call it.

In order to get to the game at Shea Stadium on time, I would have to leave CNBC HQ by 5:15 pm. Given the weather, I thought I would know by the time I left.

I went to mets.com before I left the office. Nothing. Fourteen minutes later, while driving in a light drizzle, I heard on the radio that the game was postponed.

Like many fans, my first instinct was anger. What took so long? But, after talking to a baseball insider, I realized that it's really all wasted breath for fans.

First of all, the reason it took so long was because the weather forecast is usually so wrong so many times. In order to give themselves the best possible chance to have a game, they wait until they think the weather people know what they are talking about.

They then have to figure out if they postpone it when they are going to play the game: remember this has to be collectively bargained.

Most importantly, the Mets have an extremely generous policy. If you really wanted to see the Pirates and can't make this homestand, you can use this exact ticket for the makeup game on Aug. 11. If you want, you can also exchange your ticket for a seat of a similar value or use the money towards a credit towards a seat for this year (the final season in Shea Stadium) or next year (in the new facility).

Fans, many of whom are the first to call in to sports talk radio stations, automatically think the team has some rainout conspiracy thing going. But after this experience, I'm convinced that the team and the fans want the same thing: The Game.

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