The Decline of Baseball in America

[DMBZeppelin]

Originally Posted by mthawk07

World Cup has the added bonus of nationality, which is far more powerful than city/state loyalty.

Then why isn't the World Baseball Classic more popular than the World Series? Or popular in general?

[lockman21]

Does anyone know how Premier League does as far as TV ratings on NBCSN?

[cruscott35]

Whole lotta dumb in this thread.

[lockman21]

Originally Posted by DMBZeppelin

Then why isn't the World Baseball Classic more popular than the World Series? Or popular in general?

Because there's already too much baseball.

The highest rated hockey game of all time (at least to my knowledge) was the 2010 Olympic Gold Medal game between USA/Canada. Someone with more knowledge of basketball ratings could maybe chime in on that, I know the highest rated NBA game was the Bulls 1998 finals, but I don't know about Olympics.

[BotheLaneFan]

Originally Posted by recentlyJTR41

Totally agree^

The MLB draft is the biggest cluster fuck in America. College baseball is great and I wish it got more air time but it's hard to keep up with young stars because the best of the best come straight out of high school. Unlike CFB and CBB

Metal bats hurt college baseball so much. Get that shit out of there.

[BotheLaneFan]

Originally Posted by lockman21

Because there's already too much baseball.

The highest rated hockey game of all time (at least to my knowledge) was the 2010 Olympic Gold Medal game between USA/Canada. Someone with more knowledge of basketball ratings could maybe chime in on that, I know the highest rated NBA game was the Bulls 1998 finals, but I don't know about Olympics.

The problem with Olympic basketball is that it's assumed the US will win, so the ratings hurt a little bit.

[BotheLaneFan]

ESPN covers it poorly, too. They beat us to death with Yankees v Red Sox and more and more people just stopped caring.

And most baseball talking heads would talk non-stop shit about great young talent that "don't play the game the right way." (Looking at you Puig, you gem of the MLB.)

[neumdogg]

Originally Posted by DMBZeppelin

Then why isn't the World Baseball Classic more popular than the World Series? Or popular in general?

The only reason the world cup is more popular in the US than the Baseball classic is because the whole world cares the world cup....this forces us as Americans fans to basically feel the need to participate in paying attention. As soon as the World Cup is over, Americans stop caring again.

[TwoStep2888]

More steroids is the solution. More steroids = more dingers = more viewers. Simple.

[SqueeBaBooSquee]

LoVE ROI'ds

[hmich176]

Originally Posted by DMBZeppelin

Then why isn't the World Baseball Classic more popular than the World Series? Or popular in general?

Depends where you're talking about: http://awfulannouncing.com/2013/the-...-in-japan.html


This post talks about the problems with the 2013 WBC, going into the start of the event: http://awfulannouncing.com/2013/the-...ciousness.html

[JRS1386]

World Cup also has the added bonus that the U.S. gets to be the underdog and our nation loves to root for An underdog

[hbktonyb]

I can't compare a global event that happens every four years for a month to baseball in terms of ratings.

Ratings are down, but attendance is fine http://m.mlb.com/news/article/622821...nce-total-ever

Baseball will be fine but it is a different game now where pitchers dominate. I think offense will come back eventually.

[salrx95]

Someone made a good point (maybe Lee) on page 1 about how when your team is out, you lose interest and move onto football. That is me now, without a doubt. When I was a kid in the 80's, I watched all the playoffs and world series, when I could for as long as I could stay up. For a long time now, I watch my Yankees and that is it. I don't watch any other playoff baseball and for the last 2 Septembers, I have basically tuned out baseball. Other factors are involved like being married working til 9 some nights but most of it I don't want to.

Another factor for me for the last 20 years is fantasy baseball. But now, I am only in 1 league, whereas 5 years ago, I was in like 5. To me, that clearly shows a lack of interest as guys didn't want to continue leagues. This year, I didn't make the playoffs in my 1 league so I lost interest in it nationally, too.

My boys are 9 and 6 and by the time I was 9, I had been to games already and in my early teens, my dad would take me like 6 games a year, at least.
These days, I am priced out to take my boys to Yankee stadium. My love for baseball grew from being at so many games at an early age and watching Mattingly grow up before my eyes. I haven't taken them yet to the stadium and I admit some of that is on me since it is not like we're poor. We almost went this year for them to see Jeter but both days I considered going that morning of the game and spend the 300 bucks to go, Jeter was not in the lineup. Plus, kids are different these days. They'd rather do other stuff including electronics than watch a game. I really think if I spent the money to go, they would be begging to go home by the 5th inning and that would piss me off.

Sadly, I think the next generation of Yankee fans are somewhat priced out of going to the stadium.

They do need to speed up the game. The perceived "boringness" of the game would be eliminated a lot if guys were forced to stay in the box. I also agree that the steroid era was better for business and interest, sad as it is to say. People like offense and Hrs and don't want to see a pitcher's duel with little action in the way of hits and run scored.

[Lee3691]

I know this the same in all sports, but it affects baseball more: the price of concessions - I'm not going to pay $50 for a few nasty hot dogs, a few sodas and/or beers that are flat and popcorn made by people who look like they are homeless.

[cruscott35]

Lol @ hockey. Lockman, where do you live?

[barbogast]

I think most of it is the speed of the game issue. And by speed of the game, I mean amount of action taking place per minute rather than actual time taken to play the whole game. Because in reality, all 4 major sports take about 2.5-3 hours to complete a game. The difference is that in baseball, you've got a field full of players who are, for the most part, not doing anything most of the time. When ten minutes can elapse and only three players total can be involved (pitcher, batter, catcher), it becomes difficult to watch for three hours in a row. That would never happen in the other three major sports. Now add in that they play a game every day for 6 months in a row, it's just too much at that point.

There are other factors, but I think that is the biggest reason why a casual sports fan doesn't get excited to watch an entire baseball game on TV.

[DaveHead36]

The season length is a poor argument. It's always been 150-160 games a year for over a hundred years. But the fact that there is a game every day I see as a plus. It's just there waiting. You can have the worst day ever, and though you didn't think about going, you could leave work, head to the ballpark, get a ticket and go watch the game if you so desire.

I think the biggest factor is the attention it gets nationally. Want to know why the NFL and NBA are so huge? Watch any ESPN morning show. They are either talking about the NFL or NBA. Only time baseball gets mentioned is if someone does something extraordinary or there is some major controversy. Also, unless you are a Yankees/Red Sox fan, forget coverage wrt coverage. For a while the NHL was ESPNs whipping boy. Now that it's no longer there I think they are content with relegating baseball to the back burner.

A combination of lack of national attention via the "worldwide leader of sports" and the fact that baseball thinks it can still charge a premium for their product has driven the casual fan away.

It's cyclical. Just as the NHL was almost forgotten about after ESPN kicked them to the curb, they went out and really did a grass roots thing and made themselves noticed. I think baseball will need to do the same thing. After Selig is gone, it would help if baseball got a young commissioner with his ear on the ground as to what's really happening in the world and bring baseball to the modern age without dismantling the core of the sport.

[salrx95]

Originally Posted by cruscott35

Lol @ hockey. Lockman, where do you live?

Amongst my closest friends including my younger brother, hockey is our favorite sport with football maybe 1A to hockey's 1. This is our favorite time of year, especially with our fantasy hockey draft coming up Wednesday and Thursday. I grew up in Queens and live in Ct now and hockey has been my favorite sport since I was about 15 when I went in with my brother and bought half season tickets to the Islanders. I worked all summer to pay for them with my own money. Of course, they were more affordable back then.

[salrx95]

Originally Posted by barbogast

I think most of it is the speed of the game issue. And by speed of the game, I mean amount of action taking place per minute rather than actual time taken to play the whole game. Because in reality, all 4 major sports take about 2.5-3 hours to complete a game. The difference is that in baseball, you've got a field full of players who are, for the most part, not doing anything most of the time. When ten minutes can elapse and only three players total can be involved (pitcher, batter, catcher), it becomes difficult to watch for three hours in a row. That would never happen in the other three major sports. Now add in that they play a game every day for 6 months in a row, it's just too much at that point.

There are other factors, but I think that is the biggest reason why a casual sports fan doesn't get excited to watch an entire baseball game on TV.

I think this is a big factor and it correlates to the society we live in now where everyone is constantly on their phone, on social media, texting with friends, etc. The pace of baseball doesn't jive with the pace of life for most people nowadays and the life of instant gratification people crave constantly.

[M. Steng]

Another factor I don't think has been mentioned is the lack of a black superstar. When baseball was at its most recent height of popularity (1998), the attention was focused around Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire, and then again in 2007 when Bonds was going for the home run record. McCutchen is probably the most popular black baseball player, but I don't think he's a household name just yet. I think initiatives like the RBI Program (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) to build more baseball fields in urban neighborhoods is a great step forward, but we won't see what that produces in the bigs for another decade or more. It's hard to have success drawing viewers when almost 13% of the U.S. population can't identify with any players on the field (MLB is only 8% black).

Also, there has to be something done about the salaries and the cap generally. Players are demanding more and more money and there's always at least one team willing to shell out the money to these guys. Pretty obviously, this drives the price up for anything consumer-related (tickets, concessions, apparel, etc.). To sit in the lower-upper deck (the 300 section) at Yankee stadium is $50 a ticket. That's just absurd. Even 15 years ago, that ticket would have been no more than $15. And forget about eating or drinking at the game, plus $25+ to park. If MLB wants to draw a younger crowd, they have to make it more affordable for the 18-35 demographic to attend. If you're a 22-year old guy planning a night out with your buddies, would you rather shell out $150 a person to watch an essentially-meaningless baseball game, or have a night out on the town for the same price or lower? Fixing the cap is the first step to making the game more reasonable financially for everyone involved.

[jrkarger]

Originally Posted by junior94

seriously? no offense, but I think you've got that pretty much 100% backwards. I'm sure the networks are dreading a Dodgers/Angels series. sure all of southern California would be watching, but I'm not too sure however many else. This would totally fuck things up time-wise for the east coast, which as we all know is what's regarded as the main priority when it comes to this stuff.

Originally Posted by recentlyJTR41

Didn't think about time zones. I was basically going off the fact that both the Dodgers and the Angels had 3 Million in attendance this year I saw in a tweet earlier.

You're exactly right though. My mistake.

Not saying all LA would bring more ratings, but the time zones would have nothing to do with it. The games would start at 5:00 PM local time. Fox is not moving their broadcast time of 8:00 PM eastern.

Originally Posted by lockman21

I honestly do. It's trending in the right direction, and quickly. Gary Bettman, for as much as us diehards love to hate him, has done a great job of growing the national attention to the sport. Things like the Winter Classic have been great marketing tools, and attendance is absolutely through the roof in the league. It beat out the NBA in average attendance despite having arenas that naturally have less seating capacity than a basketball court (hockey rinks are much bigger...for example the Blackhawks have a capacity about 1,500 less than the Bulls because they remove seats when they have the rink, yet the Hawks had an average attendance of about 1,500 MORE people per game last year...)

I think it has all the ingredients. Lots of superstars coming to the forefront (Patrick Kane is in McDonald's commercials now, Sidney Crosby and Ovechkin are becoming more household names, etc), it's a fast paced game with a great live atmosphere (tell me this doesn't look awesome, even though it was a disallowed goal), HDTV is really helping the sport, it's a hard hitting game which can draw in lots of casual fans (just look at how that helped football over time), and it's growing a lot in areas you wouldn't expect (the Dallas Stars have a growing and surprisingly loyal fanbase, the Tampa Bay Lightning do better on TV and in attendance every year, the Florida Panthers have a surprisingly cult-like following, etc).

I think the biggest problem is the deal with NBC that they have, because the NHL and ESPN haven't gotten along for almost a decade. ESPN refuses to show their highlights because of a feud that dates back pretty far, and the NHL refuses to give them any real opportunity to negotiate a TV deal because of it. It's a horrible and immature standoff that I think has held the sport back nationally for YEARS. Not a lot of people know what NBC Sports is on their TVs.

But I think it has the chance to, absolutely, become a major player in the national market. It already is getting closer every year.

Bettman does get a lot of undeserved hate IMO. Yeah the two lockouts were bad but the sport needed it and he was shrewd about it. Baseball could have used a guy like Bettman instead of Selig.

[Noles20]

People have less free time than in the past and have more options as well. There are too many games and the games move too slowly and take too long.

[cruscott35]

Originally Posted by salrx95

Amongst my closest friends including my younger brother, hockey is our favorite sport with football maybe 1A to hockey's 1. This is our favorite time of year, especially with our fantasy hockey draft coming up Wednesday and Thursday. I grew up in Queens and live in Ct now and hockey has been my favorite sport since I was about 15 when I went in with my brother and bought half season tickets to the Islanders. I worked all summer to pay for them with my own money. Of course, they were more affordable back then.

Ok, let me assure you, the vast majority of the country gives zero fucks about hockey. I was a big hockey fan when I lived in Detroit, have lived all over in the last 13 years, nobody cares.

[cazzie34]

Originally Posted by lockman21

162 games? That's way way way too many. Baseball is basically year round. They don't give people 1) time to miss it, or 2) the ability to believe any one regular season game actually has that much impact. Football is easy because it's once (ok 3 times but, basically once) a week, people can get excited about a matchup, sit down on the weekend and then it's over until the next time. Hockey and basketball at least have breaks where it's fun because it's kind of like, "Oh nice! There's a game on tonight!" But baseball is literally every freaking day for, what, 6 or 7 months? Then the playoffs, then just a couple months later it's "holy shit pitchers and catchers report omg". It's TOO MUCH.

This is the reason for me. If you shortened baseball to say 32 games, once a week for 7 months, every game would be like playoff baseball and the fans would be really into it and ratings would be through the roof. Because it is everyday the atmosphere isn't great at the stadium (see a Tuesday noon game) which turns people off from watching national games.

Colin Cowherd made a good point once, people just don't have the time for baseball anymore. We've got to pick and choose in this day and age. Football is easy because it is mainly one day a week. Baseball is everyday.

Cowherd also said this: you know who likes baseball, teachers. Because they've got nothing but time in the summer to follow their teams. I think that's right, as much as I hate Cowherd.

[salrx95]

Originally Posted by cruscott35

Ok, let me assure you, the vast majority of the country gives zero fucks about hockey. I was a big hockey fan when I lived in Detroit, have lived all over in the last 13 years, nobody cares.

Oh, I don't disagree. I agree that it is definitely regionalized and the vast majority of places in America don't care but the places that do care, care passionately. I would rather watch Penguins-Flyers in November than a Yankees-Royals game in August and know a lot of people who feel the same.

[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.

[cazzie34]

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.

I think a big reason why "attendance is up" is because you now have every game played at night so people can go to games. 40 years ago most games were played during the day, when people worked.

You also have an influx of people buying season tickets because getting to the ballpark is much easier than it used to be. Those seats, while paid for, go unused. You also see corporate america doing the same thing, buying seats up because it is good for their business, not because they are necessarily fans.

[hailtopitt]

Originally Posted by rustysurf83

You are silly. MLB is less popular than the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, and shortly...the NHL. Its going to be relegated to fringe sport status in a few years...

no, to the bolded...not even close

[YouNeverKnow25]

Originally Posted by cazzie34

I think a big reason why "attendance is up" is because you now have every game played at night so people can go to games. 40 years ago most games were played during the day, when people worked.

You also have an influx of people buying season tickets because getting to the ballpark is much easier than it used to be. Those seats, while paid for, go unused. You also see corporate america doing the same thing, buying seats up because it is good for their business, not because they are necessarily fans.

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