Tomáš Ovesný about changes in Extraliga
Last week, Czech Baseball Association announced changes to the following seasons of Extraliga, promising to give more information later. On Tuesday Tomáš Ovesný, who is in ČBA executive committee, talked about the changes in On Deck podcast.
Ovesný mentioned that some of the changes planned for the next season were postponed to give the teams more time to prepare. [trans.] “The changes will happen in 2022, so that no one could complain they haven’t had enough time,” he said in the podcast.
It is possible that we will see Czech Series 2021 played with Best of 7 system, however, Ovesný mentions it is still uncertain. The important factor will be, whether the schedule is affected by Covid-19. [trans.] “There will be a lot happening in 2021 season and personally, I think, the Czech Series won’t be Best of 7, but rather Best of 5. Same as the semifinals.”
The regular season will maintain the format from 2020 season. Teams will play each other three times. Despite some of the players speaking out on social networks, or in personal conversations, opting for playing two times a week, the clubs took a different approach. [trans.] “All Extraliga teams agreed to play three games a week,” noted Tomáš Ovesný.
Furthermore, even before being elected to the executive committee, Ovesný already called to decrease the number of team in Extraliga, which saw increase from eight teams to ten merely five years ago. Nevertheless, he found positives with the current system. [trans.] “In its defense, I can say there are positives. The post-season format worked well past few years. We see eight teams playing on level terms. I see the regular season as more of a problem. We can see matches, where the result doesn’t really matter. The TOP6 teams have the majority of the players in the national team.”
The new system might see small changes in the following years. [trans.] “We are considering an option, where results from the regular season will be carried over to TOP6. This is still not finalized, since some of the TOP6 teams can have a tall handicap. For this reason, we are not considering this option in 2022,” Ovesný said. Furthemore, Ovesný would like to establish a concept of “Extraliga licence”. The teams would need to fulfil requirements, such as junior teams, pitch quality, marketing, etc. [trans.] “Starting with 2023 all Extraliga team would be required to have U18 team. We also want to have 16 teams in U18 Extraliga,” Ovesný revealed the plans for the future.
If you are interested in other opinions and answers about the rule changes, we invite you to listen to On_Deck podcast (Czech only).
