The Decline of Baseball in America

[cruscott35]

Originally Posted by YouNeverKnow25

Vastly overstated. "Regional game" is not an epithet when you have a franchise in every region of the country. Attendance, television revenue all up up up. Most technologically accessible game. Slowly but surely embracing replay. Best crop of young stars in decades.

"The Decline of Baseball" is the article editors assign their non-baseball writers to write when there's a slow news cycle.

Bingo. I didn't have time for this yet, but thanks.

[cazzie34]

Originally Posted by YouNeverKnow25

corporate america doesn't buy up seats at NBA and NFL games???

Are people using NFL in-game attendance as to why it is doing so well?

[YouNeverKnow25]

haha that's a terribly specious argument "if it suits my argument, attendance matters. If it doesn't, attendance doesn't matter."

[Jake]

it's so easy to "fix" baseball, but no one will do it because it will hurt the bottom line.


1. run 'commercials' during games (a la the World Cup). The reason games take so long is every inning change is 3 minutes. that's 30 minutes of crap right there.

2. April to September. Get the hell out of October. No one cares about baseball and I guarantee you when people tuned in to watch the Texas/Kansas game on FS1 on Saturday and saw a baseball game they were like "wow... baseball is stil on?"



it's that simple. It will never happen because baseball people say "look at all the money we're making!' In 20 years when today's kids have kids, baseball teams will be lucky to draw 3k a night - if it's still around in 20 years.



I've seen over 100 MLB games live and there was a time when I could name every World Series winner - in order. I couldn't even tell you who won it last year. Zero interest in a long, boring game that's unwatchable on TV. I'd rather watch Darts, Curling, Hold Em, and downhill skiing than baseball.

[cruscott35]

Originally Posted by YankeesDMB41

2003 average primetime Fox rating: 3.5
2013 average primetime Fox rating: 2.3

It's a very steady decrease if you look at it yearly

Are you talking the Saturday afternoon games?

[dmbmuskie]

It's really boring. The media covering it is stupid and holier than thou.

[keithcoldroses]

They should probably stop competing with football to have a chance.

NFL Week 8 or whatever > World Series

[mr. testaverde]

Originally Posted by DMBZeppelin

Parity just doesn't exist in the MLB like it does in other sports

just based on titles teams won from 1990 to 2013, NFL and MLB tie with 13 different teams winning it all, and at least in baseball, those 13 different teams werent always the best in the regular season in the years that they won. the parity argument has been disproven time and time again.

Originally Posted by recentlyJTR41

Biased, but if the Braves ever get their heads out of their asses and win a pennant I think they would have pretty good national support all across the country

doubt it. braves do not have the draw for that kind of support.

Originally Posted by mthawk07

I will say it's interesting that the length of games is always brought up about baseball. The average baseball game is 3 hours. The average football game? 3 hours. And probably with more commercial time. Granted, the 3 hours of football has more action than 3 hours of baseball, but it's just interesting to me that there's a bit of a double standard there.

studies have been done to track the amount of time the ball is actually in play during games. here's one for NFL:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB100...02852055561406

here's one for MLB:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...97932341903720

i'm glad both were wall street journal articles. but for argument's sake its worth noting that there's more action in a baseball game (17 min) vs a football game (11 min)

Originally Posted by YankeesDMB41

World Cup in America got 26.5 million viewers...World Series clinching game last year: 19 million.

event that happens once every 4 years and pits countries against each other in a competition vs an event that happens once a year and pits cities' teams against each other...yeah that's a fair comparison.

[dmbmuskie]

Football is easy to gamble on. Baseball sucks to gamble on.

[thebridge15]

arguments IN FAVOR OF the "human error" are like 80% of the reason I rarely watch regular season baseball

[YankeesDMB41]

People who dont think the sport is hurting nationally: The ratings for the world series have been going down steadily for the last decade. How can that be explained?

[YankeesDMB41]

Originally Posted by cruscott35

Are you talking the Saturday afternoon games?

It was the average rating of every Fox game in a season. ESPN primetime games are also down in the last 10 years

[MOWJO8185]

Originally Posted by YankeesDMB41

People who dont think the sport is hurting nationally: The ratings for the world series have been going down steadily for the last decade. How can that be explained?

The ratings for almost everything on television have been going down year over year. The NFL is the outlier there. There's just more channels and more things to watch, and even more options to watch other sporting events. I have no doubt TV ratings for national broadcasts are down, but that feels to me to be more a function of the TV landscape now than a commentary on baseball specifically.

[neumdogg]

Do people honestly think that the NHL will be bigger than MLB in 10 years??

[recentlyJTR41]

NFL ratings will always be good because of fantasy football and betting. It's not because every single human in America likes football better.

This is like someone said "a story you write when news is slow"

You could write about how "will soccer take over football in the next 20 years??" In the end it's just hot air.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by recentlyJTR41

NFL ratings will always be good because of fantasy football and betting. It's not because every single human in America likes football better.

This is like someone said "a story you write when news is slow"

You could write about how "will soccer take over football in the next 20 years??" In the end it's just hot air.

gambling plays into it. Only degenerates bet on baseball. But you're kidding yourself if you don't see the writing on the wall for baseball; no one cares outside of a small pack of loyal fans.


In the history of baseball, there's never been a threat to it as there is now; baseball's always had a rallying cry to get people interested, and now... it's what? Why should I watch the playoffs this year? I don't even know who's in the playoffs.

[cruscott35]

What exactly is the metric we are using to measure this decline of baseball, because surely it can't be attendance.

[scrock25]

Probably some purely subjective argument like interest, simply because it's not as popular as the NFL. Again, page views.

Attendance is at an all time high, the league makes money hand over fist.

[sbuzzz]

Ratings for game of the week/World Series are horrible indicators.

I'm a baseball fan, but due to the amount of games I really only watch games involving my team.

I'm also a football fan, but again, due to the number of games, I can easily watch other games.

The local TV contracts the MLB teams are signing are a great indication of the popularity of the sport.

[emu513]

I played baseball from tee ball all the way through high school.

I have no doubt that my kids will play lacrosse during the spring season. It's simply more exciting for them.

[HoldemHart]

Once Will Clark retired, I lost interest.

[dmbman32]

As a huge baseball fan (my #1 favorite sport) who has also become less interested over the last couple years, I think of another big reason for the decrease in popularity/interest:

-I'm 29 years old, and I'd say 60-70% of the superstars I watched growing up have been destroyed by steroids. Bonds, A-Rod, Sosa, McGwire, Palmiero, Clemens, and God knows how many others. There are only so many times you can say "Oh, so ANOTHER of my idols growing up was cheating the whole time?" before thinking "Call me in a few years when everybody is clean so I can not be skeptical again."

Also, I think it's harder to stay loyal & rabid in following your team when they're terrible from the start of the season and maintain interest for 162 games. Other sports, it's easier to always keep an eye on them because there are less games, as well as it's easier to get into the playoffs in other sports. You can get into the playoffs in the NBA and be a sub- .500 team. In baseball, even a 15-game over .500 season might get you jack shit come playoff time. Even seeing how teams with big leads all year collapse in September, baseball has more of a "if my home team sucks, I'll check back in during the last couple weeks in September to see who gets in."

Because the league will never play fewer than 162 games (too much money at stake), the "speed" of the game does need to be looked at. I doubt they can ever get an average game back to 2 hours flat, but a 2.5 hour average game is very doable, and that needs to become the standard.

[dmbman32]

Originally Posted by dmbman32

As a huge baseball fan (my #1 favorite sport) who has also become less interested over the last couple years, I think of another big reason for the decrease in popularity/interest:

-I'm 29 years old, and I'd say 60-70% of the superstars I watched growing up have been destroyed by steroids. Bonds, A-Rod, Sosa, McGwire, Palmiero, Clemens, and God knows how many others. There are only so many times you can say "Oh, so ANOTHER of my idols growing up was cheating the whole time?" before thinking "Call me in a few years when everybody is clean so I can not be skeptical again."

Also, I think it's harder to stay loyal & rabid in following your team when they're terrible from the start of the season and maintain interest for 162 games. Other sports, it's easier to always keep an eye on them because there are less games, as well as it's easier to get into the playoffs in other sports. You can get into the playoffs in the NBA and be a sub- .500 team. In baseball, even a 15-game over .500 season might get you jack shit come playoff time. Even seeing how teams with big leads all year collapse in September, baseball has more of a "if my home team sucks, I'll check back in during the last couple weeks in September to see who gets in."

Because the league will never play fewer than 162 games (too much money at stake), the "speed" of the game does need to be looked at. I doubt they can ever get an average game back to 2 hours flat, but a 2.5 hour average game is very doable, and that needs to become the standard.

One more thing:

Being a Cubs fan, for instance, Theo & co. have turned the games into MARATHONS. I can think of tons of games that have been 3.5-4 hours for a standard 9-inning game. That's just asinine.

[cruscott35]

Originally Posted by scrock25

Probably some purely subjective argument like interest, simply because it's not as popular as the NFL. Again, page views.

Attendance is at an all time high, the league makes money hand over fist.

So we've had 5 pages of discussion on something we can't even agree is happening. Great job, Ants Tailgate.

[ExistenceNow]

My personal interest in pro baseball has waned tremendously in the last 5-10 years. Not sure why.

Still enjoy college baseball, so I do still enjoy watching the actual game being played.

[Speilmen230]

Originally Posted by recentlyJTR41

Yeah, Fox ruins baseball. They ruin all sports broadcasts. Joe Buck is just the worst. I really wish NBC or ABC would pick up the playoffs.

Joe Buck is the best play by play guy in sports. Y'all are crazy.

Fox broadcasts are always the best in sports.

[recentlyJTR41]

Respect your opinion, but Fox blows cock at everything. Graphics, analysts, broadcasting, etc. their sound is horrible. I've said it before, it's like the have a million mics on the field and it gets really loud when te action starts. It's like that in football too.


College baseball is awesome. I hate high scoring games and metal bats, but my lord is it entertaining. But that's college sports. They'll always be more exciting.

[ExistenceNow]

Originally Posted by recentlyJTR41

Respect your opinion, but Fox blows cock at everything. Graphics, analysts, broadcasting, etc. their sound is horrible. I've said it before, it's like the have a million mics on the field and it gets really loud when te action starts. It's like that in football too.


College baseball is awesome. I hate high scoring games and metal bats, but my lord is it entertaining. But that's college sports. They'll always be more exciting.

The games aren't nearly as high scoring as they were before, now that they've deadened the bats. CWS in particular had really low scoring games. Still very exciting though.

[Benny003]

Originally Posted by DMBZeppelin

Lots of factors.

Most important is baseball is run by a bunch of old out of touch geezers. Replay is just making its way into the game and it's implementation has been nothing short of awful. Being slow to adapt has been such a hindrance to the sport. It's also the only pro sport where the playing field is different dimensions for each team, and each league has different rules.

Speed of the game with batters stepping out of the box and pitchers stepping off the mound. That really needs to stop to speed up games. A faster game would equal a more exciting product.

Salary floor and salary cap are in great need with the MLB. The NFL is great because any team from any market can win a championship. In the MLB sure the Rays and Twins can win a World Series but they are always at a huge disadvantage to a team like the Yankees that can spend mind boggling amounts more. Parity just doesn't exist in the MLB like it does in other sports.

The last big factor is it's hard to play baseball growing up. Not a lot of public fields. The best athletes as a result wind up in the NFL or NBA and not the MLB.

Besides the point about the speed of the game with batters and pitchers being slow, everything else you said is almost laughably wrong. I'm sorry to say it.

You have a complaint that the playing fields have different dimensions? That's one of the best things about baseball. Fans across the country make pilgrimages to visit all 30 ballparks in their lifetime because of how unique each venue is. Does that happen in any of the other major sports?

MLB has less parity than the NFL?!?!
http://espn.go.com/blog/jayson-stark...ter-parity-nfl

I don't need to say anything else that isn't said in that article regarding MLB parity. There is no need for a salary cap. Actually, one of the reasons that baseball attracts a lot of its stars is because there is less risk of injury compared to the other sports and because there is no salary cap. You can make more money as an MLB player than in any other U.S. major sport, right? If you count endorsement deals, then maybe you can make an argument for the NBA, but I doubt Jeter is hard off with his Nike and Gatorade deals.

I agree that baseball growing up is a little more difficult than basketball, but you don't think football is hard to get into as a kid? I won't speak for anyone else, but I'd rather have my kid play baseball than football if I wanted my kid to live a long, normal life.

[Speilmen230]

Originally Posted by recentlyJTR41

Respect your opinion, but Fox blows cock at everything. Graphics, analysts, broadcasting, etc. their sound is horrible. I've said it before, it's like the have a million mics on the field and it gets really loud when te action starts. It's like that in football too.


College baseball is awesome. I hate high scoring games and metal bats, but my lord is it entertaining. But that's college sports. They'll always be more exciting.

Fox Broadcasts are what i love about NFL Sundays. CBS and NBC both absolutely suck.

CBS's Commentators are the absolute worst. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms might be the worst "A" team in commentating. Jim Nantz should stick to Golf and Phil Simms shouldn't be allowed in front of a mic.

Al Michaels is over the hill, and Collinsworth is the new John Madden. Stating the most obvious facts like the audience has never watched a down of football.

I love when the Bengals play an NFC team and get on Fox. Guaranteed to have a good commentating duo, and their HD looks the best out of the 3 big Networks. Their broadcasts make me feel like i'm at the game. I can hear the players on the field, the fans reactions, the announcers sound super live. I love it.

Respectfully disagree.