IRVING, Texas -- A special marketing task force was formed by baseball commissioner Bud Selig on Wednesday following a season that saw drops in regular-season attendance and World Series television ratings.

Selig is calling the task force "Major league baseball in the 21st century'' and said he will include people from marketing, advertising, the media and academia.

"We need to do it after three or four decades of, quite frankly, not doing it,'' Selig said following the end of an owners' meeting.

The task force, similar to the economic panel that developed the basis for management's labor proposals, probably will take a year or more to issue its findings. Selig wants to include members of the players' association.

Among the issues to be addressed are whether the World Series, which has started on a Saturday in recent years, should open on a Tuesday. That way, only one game would be played on a Saturday, which has become television's lowest-rated night.

Selig said international play also would be addressed.

"There is no subject we're not looking at, including the World Cup,'' he said.

Baseball's regular-season average attendance dropped 6 percent this year, from 29,962 to 28,168, according to preliminary figures, which large drops among some teams that opened new ballparks in recent years. Some owners have cited the sluggish national economy as a factor.

While regular-season television ratings were either even or up, and ratings for the first two rounds of the playoffs increased, the all-California World Series between Anaheim and San Francisco averaged an 11.9 rating. It was the lowest rating ever for the World Series, down 24 percent from 2001's Series between Arizona and the New York Yankees.