By Elijah Moran | TCC Talon Website Editor
The World Series, and the 2022 season, just wrapped up for Major League Baseball. The Houston Astros outlasted the Philadelphia Phillies to win their second championship. The Astros won their first title in 2017.
It was a great series; an underdog story in Philadelphia stopped short by the juggernaut Astros. However, it wasn’t interesting enough to many sports fans across the country, which continued a disappointing trend.
I hate to write this opinion about baseball. But like anyone you love, you keep it a buck and tell them straight what they need to hear. Out of love, of course.
The sport of baseball is waning in popularity in America due to regional TV contracts, evolving fandom, and lack of attendance.
Baseball has sadly become a regional game. Ever since the players strike in 1994, the MLB hasn’t been able to come up with a reasonable TV deal to allow every baseball fan to see all of their games.
The current TV deal is a mess; and that’s keeping it nice. It’s a big reason why the game has become regional. Fans outside of the firm boundaries of the team’s regional network’s bandwidth are left without their game nightly.
For instance, I am an Atlanta Braves fan. I live in Tallahassee, which is in North Florida, and I am just mere miles outside of the “market” to watch Braves games. The “market” ends at the Florida-Georgia border. While I would like to watch my Braves, the only games available to me involve the Tampa Bay Rays.
Sports fandom is constantly evolving as well. People are more likely to follow a player rather than a team.
If I wanted to watch Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout, arguably the best player in baseball, it’d be better for me to move out west than to wait for ESPN’s premier weekly “Sunday Night Baseball” game, where the “Halos” might be good enough to be featured twice a year due to their poor performance throughout the season.
It’s appalling that there’s another player on the Angels who might be the best player in baseball: Shohei Othani. But because the Dodgers dominate baseball in Los Angeles, the Angels fly under the radar, essentially blocking them out of the mainstream media.
One would think that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is salivating at the trade rumors Shohei Ohtani has been associated with in the last few months. If Ohtani could be moved to at least the east coast, that would do wonders for not only his popularity, but baseball’s in general.
OK, so baseball fans on the east coast can’t watch two great players on the same team. Well at least those in California will want to go see them for themselves, right?
Wrong.
Not only was Angels attendance down, but across the league, regular season attendance was down 5.7% from 2019, the last normal season before the coronavirus pandemic, according to Forbes.
The last time America’s pastime saw any growth in attendance was from the 2011 to 2012 season, but for 10 years, 14% fewer fans have been taken out to the ballgame.
Ratings are on the decline as well.
The 2022 World Series attracted an average of 11.8 million TV viewers across six games. That’s the second lowest viewership ever, with the lowest being the 2020 series.
The last time viewership saw a spike was in 2016, when the Chicago Cubs broke their championship curse. That seems to be the last time that the World Series meant something to those besides baseball fans.
So, what’s next for baseball? The TV contract is bad, fans are evolving, and fans aren’t at the ballpark as much anymore.
Do they change the schedule? 162 games is a loooooooooong season.
Do they speed up the game? Every year the game gets longer and longer (now averaging at just above three hours), and every generation’s attention span gets shorter and shorter.
Do they change their marketing scheme? If Mike Trout or Shohei Ohtani walked into a random bar in America maybe four people would recognize. If Lebron or Patrick Mahomes walked into the same bar, people would be freaking out.
Maybe baseball can start by making efforts to make baseball more significant in the young American’s eye.
Here’s what I would do: start the regular season on Memorial Day weekend. It would shorten the season to 100 games. Attendance would be more consistent because fans usually don’t show up to the park until the summer, when school is out.
Baseball should launch a massive marketing campaign with popular players who they think might have the most influence. This way, young people would become familiar with their name and face.
Heck, revive the “Got Milk?” Ads with these players and hang the posters in all public schools. Kids would see their face every day. Maybe even stand Jose Altuve, who’s 5-feet 6-inches, next to the giant Aaron Judge and recreate the Muggsy Bogues-Manute Bol poster.
In terms of the actual game, start shortening the pitch clock. Every year, decrease it slowly. Eliminate the amount of time between innings. The game will get faster.
It’s obvious that baseball isn’t able to keep up with the popularity of basketball or football. It may even be losing ground to European soccer.
But one thing remains true: baseball fans are passionate. Those who love it, love it big; but it’s time to recruit the next generation of baseball fans.
