The 2020 season will mark the first time since 1983 I have not attended a Mets game. It’ll also be the first time I haven’t attended at least one game with my father. It’s sad and depressing.

This year will also mark the first time I won’t bring my sons to a game. Both attended a game before their first birthday. The worst part is my oldest is at the age where he truly gets it, and he’s a big fan in his own right.

This isn’t an adjustment for me. It’s that way for all Mets fans. It’s also the same for players who will have to play games in huge stadiums and ballparks without fans.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way.

Across the country, there are pop-up drive-in movie theaters. Some are doing the old school double feature. Jim Gaffigan had a comedy special he humorously called a drive thru special. If we can see a movie or a comedy show, why not a Mets game?

Citi Field has a large lot abutting the stadium in addition to other lots in the general area. Why couldn’t the Mets set up a drive-in theatre in those lots to allow fans to “attend the game” with other fans from the safety of their cars?

The MLB teams saying they’re losing money by playing can get a revenue stream. The fans who miss going to games could get some part of the community feel of attending games. If the fans are loud enough, who knows? Maybe the crowd noise could carry into the stadium a bit and provide the players with some energy (not very likely, but then again who knows?).

Sure, there is a lot to figure out before going forward with such a plan. There are distancing and security measures. There is probably some red tape from the TV contracts which need to be figured out before proceeding. There bounds to be bathroom logistics. There’s also the State and City of New York who may not be so eager to do it.

That said, it’s a worthwhile endeavor. Fans would very likely come to the games, and teams would at least get some revenue stream. For those laid off or not re-employed due to the COVID19 shutdown, it creates some jobs for people in terms of security, traffic flow, handling the set up, and maybe even concessions. (h/t @jquadddddd)

Mostly, it would all help us feel just a little bit more normal. As for me, it would help me keep my nearly four decade streak of going to Mets games alive.

More than that, it’s a game experience no one will ever forget. That’s exactly what every team strives to create. They can do that now by allowing fans to congregate (six feet apart) in their parking lot to come together and watch a Mets game.

December 2019 was great. You didn’t need a mask to leave your home. In fact, you were actually allowed to leave your home and go wherever you wanted. Better yet, the Wilpons sold an 80% stake in the Mets to Steve Cohen for $2.1 billion ($2.6 billion valuation).

It was a sweetheart deal for the Wilpons, and the Wilpons blew up that deal like the financial masterminds they are.

Going back to the deal, there was going to be a five year transition period where majority ownership would shift incrementally to Cohen. The Wilpons would keep an ownership share, and they would be on the payroll for those five years. More importantly, the Wilpons would get to keep SNY.

From there, a he-said, he-said broke out. As it turns out, the Wilpons really wanted to keep control of the team over those five years. That meant not only running the team with Cohen’s money, but also being the delegated and appointed decision makers for MLB purposes.

Between that and the Wilpons pushing for lucrative salaries, Cohen backed out of the deal. Like every Mets fan for the past decade plus, he had enough of the Wilpons.

That left the owners who actually needed to sell due to their continual financial malfeasance looking for another deal. Of course, there’s no better deal out there. COVID19 or not, there was never going to be a better offer.

According to reports, so far, the first round of bidding has not yielded a $2 billion offer. That’s even with bidders attempting to incorporate SNY into the purchase. It is expected the Wilpons will reject those offers as they will not sell the team for less than $2 billion.

In essence, the Wilpons are going to have to include SNY in a deal to get LESS in return than what Cohen originally agreed to pay them in December. Seeing all this transpire, you become less and less surprised this was a group of people who nearly lost everything in a Ponzi Scheme.

If the Wilpons really wanted $2 billion, they should’ve done everything they could’ve done to ensure the deal with Cohen was finalized. Instead, they wanted control of the team, and likely, one real shot at a World Series title to show us all what they could do if they could spend money. Of course, they could’ve had they not lost all that money in a Ponzi Scheme.

In the end, the Wilpons will get their $2 billion because someone will pay it. When they get it, they’ll have to realize their own hubris cost them SNY and any chance they could’ve gone out winners. The only people who are surprised by that development are the Wilpons.

So, congratulations to the Wilpons for the eventual $2 billion. While you didn’t earn it, you’ve certainly earned the ridicule which will come when everyone laughs at the Wilpons final act as owners being losing money in a botched financial decision by the team.

The jokes will be hilarious, and the future of the team will be even better than that.

While a player may be the face of any professional sports league, it is ultimately the commissioner of the league who is the voice. When a commissioner speaks, you need to listen because he is the person who has the ability to change and shape the game.

Of course, the commissioner has little to no autonomy. In many ways, he is the spokesperson of the owners of his league. With that, it is important to remember that when the commissioner is speaking, he is oft times delivering someone else’s message. To that end, leagues absolutely need someone who has the gravitas to not only be authoritarian when needed, but also to be able to proclaim an undying love of their sport.

When you look at David Stern, that’s what you got. You may have hated Bud Selig, but at the end of the day, no one anywhere questioned his love of baseball. When you have a commissioner who loves the game, you are more willing to accept criticism of the game as more of looking for progress than whining about the product.

That’s where Rob Manfred’s ultimate failure has been. No one really truly believes he actually loves baseball. In fact, it is fair to question whether he even likes the sport. People notice, and they act accordingly.

Look at the current negotiations with the players. He keeps pushing for fewer games. He doesn’t couch it for COVID19 concerns, or even pitcher’s health concerns. No, he continues to push the aspect of revenues instead of health and games. Again, this is an important point where your commissioner’s messaging matters.

This follows a pattern with Manfred. He wants to contract 42 minor league teams. He wants fewer players drafted. He has talked about a shorter schedule. While the NFL is at 32 teams, and the NHL will soon be there, Manfred does not want expansion. Everywhere you turn, Manfred keeps making the argument for less and less baseball. That does not sound like someone who loves the sport.

That’s why you can and should have a healthy skepticism when he suggests changes to the sport including an universal DH, radical realignment, and things like a pitch clock. Time and again, his suggestions sound like someone who does not like baseball and just wants the sport to be different in the hopes it will capture his interest.

When you are a commissioner who constantly downgrades his product when he speaks, picks labor fights, and pushes for less and less baseball, people will notice. That starts with the fans, and it goes to advertisers. Sooner or later, when all you hear is negativity from the commissioner, people are just going to walk away.

The first major corporate sponsor to walk away was Coca-Cola.

Now, we don’t know how much of that is related to all business taking a hit due to COVID19. We don’t know if Coca-Cola is re-imagining their advertising approach. All in all, we don’t know their reasons, and whether they will begin to take similar actions with other industries.

What we do know is this comes on the heels of the current MLB labor fight which has not been received well by anyone. It comes on the heels of Manfred pushing for fewer games and fewer teams. It just comes on the heels of a continuous assault on the sport by the commissioner.

Whatever the case and whatever the reason Coca-Cola left, they left. With them went one of the largest businesses in the world. When they left, they left the message they’ll continue to do business with individual teams, but not MLB as an entity. No matter how you want to spin that, that is a direct response to Manfred’s stewardship of MLB.

While the owners have let a lot of bad messaging from their personal messenger Manfred slide, you can’t imagine they are going to let this slide. That goes double when different owners are making the laughable claims right now about the profits and value of their teams and the sport.

Before the country was shut down due to COVID19, the Wilpons were already struggling financially. With all that has happened, you might forgotten Mike Ozanian of Forbes reported the Wilpons, by and through their real estate arm, Sterling Equities, had not come up with their share of the $800 million financing for the building of the Islanders new arena at Belmont.

Not too long after this news had disseminated, we heard that the Wilpons had agreed to sell their majority stake in the New York Mets to Steve Cohen. As we know, Cohen walked away from the deal after the Wilpons insisted on control of the team using Cohen’s money to finance their decisions and for escalating salaries. Unlike other times the Wilpons almost sold the team, the Wilpons renewed their efforts to sell their stake in the team.

After that, the country would be shut down by COVID19 thereby affecting the economy. Nearly every industry has been negatively impacted. On the sale front, it only seems as if Alex Rodriguez wants to buy the team, but he is still struggling to amass a group of partners to build the capital necessary to purchase the team.

As the COVID19 shutdown has continued, we have seen the Mets and the Wilpons make cuts. While teams like the Kansas City Royals did not release minor leaguers, the Mets released 39. While nearly every team released players, the Mets 39 is near the top of the list.

Unlike most teams, we have seen the Mets make fans jump through hoops to get refunds. They were one of only two MLB teams to not immediately refund games for the Month of May. Finally, in June, they opted to give an option for a May refund. As noted by Ken Davidoff of the New York Post, you needed to do some digging to even find the refund option.

SNY, which has been a cash cow for the Mets for years, has also been impacted. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported the network cancelled two shows while also laying off some staff. That came after there had been some other layoffs at the network. When SNY is this impacted, you know things are bad for the Wilpons.

Now, Josh Kosman and Thornton McEnery of the New York Post report Standard & Poor’s has now downgraded Citi Field bonds to junk status “saying it may need to tap its debt reserve to make a $22 million payment due in December — and warning that it could run out of money next year if there’s a baseball strike.”

Keep in mind, this is just June. There is still a half a year remaining, and we are seeing the Wilpon owned Mets and SNY losing money and having to make significant and deep cuts. This is all the more notable when the Wilpons struggled to secure financing on the Islanders arena project, and as Kevin Draper of the New York Times reported, the Mets were a team up against MLB’s debt limits and were losing $50 million a year.

At this point, the question needs to be asked – how much longer can the Wilpons hold onto the Mets? At what point does everything come toppling down? When does MLB step in like they did with the McCourts, or when do the Mets have to go through bankruptcy like the Rangers?

No matter what the answers to those or other questions, one thing is painstakingly clear – the Wilpons are forever going to ruin the day they let their own hubris stand in the way of collecting $2.1 billion from Steve Cohen. That goes double when you consider no one is rushing to their door now with any money.