So it looks like the start of the Major League Baseball season will be delayed or worse. It’s hard to understand why anyone in baseball would think that they have any goodwill with their dwindling fan base.
There are so many things wrong at the same time that this could be a book instead of an article. The game takes way too long. The stat nerds have taken over and made everything either strikeout or a home run.
Baseball has reached an existential moment and no one inside the game seems to realize it. Just drive around on a spring or summer afternoon in your town and see how many people are actually playing this game. Youth baseball is down. The most famous baseball player in the world is? An amazing two-way player who is much more well-known outside the US than inside. Arguably, the best baseball player in the world is his teammate but how many sports fans would possibly recognize him in anything other than his uniform at the half-filled stadium they play in. These guys play in the second-largest media market in America yet they have almost no national exposure or endorsements. Do you even know who we are talking about? See. If you’re looking for fresh paint on the other side of this picture, it isn’t going to happen. Before you think this is just alarmist fodder, consider these alarming stats.
- Baseball attendance went down 13% between 2009-2019 (and that is before Covid, which should be expected to hack off more fans even if the city’s controlling such things finally and rightfully open the ballparks fully)
- Games have bloated to 3:10, fifteen minutes longer than they were 10 years earlier
- According to Forbes TV ratings were down even when the majority of the country was sheltering in place or watching alone wearing masks.
- In case you are wondering why you keep seeing Frank Thomas pitching Nugenix between every inning, the average age of a baseball fan is 57 which is 15 years older than the average NFL fan, not kidding.
What is this fight that almost nobody cares about even about? Money of course. It’s the old cliche that billionaires are fighting with millionaires. Should we care? Do we care? See, that is the problem. Like any relationship when someone stops caring, MLB might be headed for irrelevance.
The unwillingness of Major League Baseball to change their hallowed, outdated rules combined with the stat nerd control of the on-field product mixed in with the greed of the owners and players put the national pastime (notice that isn’t even called a sport?!?) one step closer to the pasture. Someone needs to be willing to take a long hard look and, at minimum, make some tweaks or other cute tricks and then move toward radical changes that shake the old fans to their core. More on that later…
Picture Credit: Shutterstock
