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With baseball and MLB’s World Series beginning this week, a major anniversary looms large. In fact, next year’s World Series will be the 120th.
Yet the sport of baseball, commonly referred to as America’s Pasttime, is at a major crossroads, or crisis, depending on your viewpoint.
Baseball is losing fans, and losing them fast
In the American hierarchy of sports, baseball was once top, then second but now? I’d argue it is safely in third place (far behind the NFL and the NBA), but the NHL has designs on that position, along with the much further behind prospect of the MLS snaking up that pecking order in a generation or two.
The proof is in the numbers too.
- Revenue: In 2021, MLB combined revenue was $9.5 billion, still down from 2019’s $10.3 billion. In fairness, this could recover as sports ‘go back to normal’ post-pandemic.
- Attendance: A related point to the above revenue shortfall, fans simply haven’t returned in the same numbers since the Covid-19 pandemic to ballparks all over America and Canada. Overall (excluding Covid years), since 2015, MLB’s average attendance has decreased annually, but most of the decreases have been by 2%. From 2004 through 2017, the average attendance was over 30,000 for 14 consecutive seasons. Since then, it hasn’t surpassed that number.
- Viewing figures: The real sticking point as I see it in baseball’s slide. People simply aren’t watching the sport like they used to. Let’s look at the pinnacle of the sport, the World Series, to illustrate this. In 2011 viewing figures stood at 16.5 million people watching the race for the pennant. Fast forward to 2021, 11.7 million people tuned in. Even before Covid, in 2019, 13.9 million tuned in. Looking even further back to the heydays of 2001, a whopping 24 million tuned in. All figures come from the great Baseball Almanac site and see them here.
Yet baseball’s demise has long been voiced; even back in 2013, BleacherReport was all over the issue of falling interest in MLB. But something about now feels a bit different, as if the sport is at an existential crisis. Why?
Baseball’s lockout: Much ado about nothing
Even look at MLB’s lockout. At 12:01 Thursday morning, December 2, 2021, the MLB informed the players that it had locked them out, as the collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association expired. A unique occurrence in sport, and particularly an American sport’s experience.
Yet was there much interest in the lockout itself? Much clamoring for it to finally end?
In a searing piece in the Boston Globe, Dan Shaughnessy, really nailed what this lockout meant (or didn’t) to fans:
How can they (the MLB and players) not be aware that they are teetering on the brink of irrelevance, offending a dwindling population of older fans while further distancing younger generations who are more than ready to live without big league baseball?
By the time it ended in March 2022, this MLB lockout was sneaking up on the record for the longest work stoppage in baseball history, which is held by the 1994-1995 player’s strike (232 days).
I’d argue there wasn’t much residual damage done to the game from the lockout, the biggest issue was that there was, was a collective shrug of the shoulders to the whole episode.
Baseball’s biggest problem: The product just ain’t that good
And here we come to the crux of the issue when adding all the above together. The game isn’t a very good product when stacked up against other American sports. Hell. Even the Periodico Americano The New York Times said this. As an actual European who attended multiple live baseball games while in America, I can attest to the game’s most fundamental flaws:
- Length: Time of game is the biggest problem facing baseball today. In 2021, records of the wrong sort were broken. A full game has become an interminable slog, with teams averaging 3 hours 11 minutes per game. The lack of action and slowness is obvious even to the sport’s most ardent fans. Attending a game requires a lot of your time, while some games are also on a strange times for a European also (1pm on a Thursday – not sure who can bunk off work to go to that to be honest).
- Pitchers don’t pitch like they used to: The starting pitcher is the guy everyone comes to see, apart from sluggers like Aaron Judge. Where once a pitcher worked their tails off inning after inning (39 pitchers handled 200 innings in 2011), just four did that level of work in 2021. For crying out loud, the average time between balls in play was about four minutes in 2021.
- Sluggers aren’t slugging like they used to: A related issue to the rotation of so many pitchers is that for four straight years batters have had more strikeouts than hits, with combined batting averages hitting historic lows – save Aaron Judge’s record season.
- The in-person experience can be uneven – don’t try the food! I’ve been to one of the most vaunted ballparks in all of baseball, Boston Red Sox’s Fenway Park, and it ruled. What an experience. Also, I’ve been to the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park, opened just five years ago and a beautiful modern stadium compared to Boston’s historic stadium. But not all ballparks are equal b the sounds of it. A 2018 investigation by ESPN found a host of food violations at many ballparks.
Baseball tries to save itself with new rule changes
So, is MLB actually trying to deal with the in-game issues? Yes, by the looks of it. At last.
According to the MLB, we’re going to see some big changes coming in the 2023 season:
- A pitch clock: The league will implement a clock that reduces the amount of time for the game. Hallelujah. The new pitch clock will place additional pressure on pitchers to execute their pitches in a timely fashion and batters to get into the box quickly. Pitchers will have 15 seconds to throw a pitch with the bases empty and 20 seconds with a runner on base. Meanwhile, hitters will need to be in the batter’s box with eight seconds on the pitch clock. In fact, the pitch timer decreased the length of the typical nine-inning Minor League game by 26 minutes from 2021 to 2022, going from three hours and four minutes to two hours and 38 minutes
- Defensive shift limits and changes: Increasing the batting average on balls put in play is the goal of the defensive shift rule modification, especially for batters who tend to hit primarily to one side of the field. The regulation bans the four infielders from changing sides and maintains them in the infield. The restriction should encourage greater offensive activity and require defenders to play more athletically.
- Increasing the size of the bases: The size of bases in MLB will also increase, from 15 to 18 inches square. This increases the space between infielders and baserunners to reduce collisions and the alteration reduces the base-to-base distance by 4.5 inches.
But why now? It could have something to do with the lockout, which may have produced a ray of sunshine.
As per the 2022-26 Collective Bargaining Agreement, a new structure was formed called the Joint Competition Committee. In essence, this is a body that contains four current, active ballplayers, one umpire and six other members selected by the MLB.
This body voted in favor of the proposed changes, and viola, we will have them coming to a ballpark near you in 2023. Exciting stuff.
But are there reasons for optimism for baseball?
This article might have filled you with impending doom if you’re a big baseball fan, but, I have hope as a casual fan of the sport.
Firstly, in terms of revenue, as referenced above, the MLB does still outperform the NBA and far outperforms the NHL. These rule changes could help the sport stay ahead of these competitors.
Secondly, and interestingly, in 2020, according to Forbes, the MLB on ESPN saw a staggering 77% uplift in Hispanic viewership compared to 2019’s average. With figures like these, Major League Baseball has a great opportunity to gain a foothold within the fast-growing Hispanic market. Hispanics wield almost $2 trillion in buying power and are expected to contribute over 60% of the U.S. population growth within the next five years.
What’s also trending in MLB’s favor in regards to such an audience is that Latin America is producing an incredible amount of baseball players – 75% of players from the 251 players born outside of the United States came from Latin American countries in 2019. In fact, nearly one in three of the players can claim Latin American ancestry. This could lead to real connections being formed with a new generation of fans.
Also, the MLB has its own International Series up and running (read more about it here) and returning to London, similar to the NFL’s internationalization push. Announced in May 2022, the British capital will hold regular season games in 2023, 2024, and 2026, with the idea to hold other significant events over a five-year period.
Beyond this though, let’s look at history too. The NFL made changes that dramatically improved the product, and helped it to really cement its status as America’s sport. The Inside Hook has a really great rundown here. Summary? Offense, offense, offense.
I’m hopeful with these changes we’ll see more dynamism, more big-time plays, more action and ultimately a quicker game that benefits the fans, the players and the game itself.
