Baseball
is in a dark place right now from a business perspective. We live in
a very instantaneous society where things are always moving 100 miles
per hour and baseball is everything but instantaneous with
your average game lasting 3 hours and some change. The
MLB has plenty of excellent young players they could show nationally
on a more consistent bases but rely to heavily on the tradition of
rivalries that just aren't that compelling anymore. Attendance is at
an all-time low, as well as national TV ratings. There are a lot of
factors that go into that but most of it is baseballs fault. So lets
take a look on why baseball is experiencing such a strong decline.
Social
Media
Major
League Baseball has always sold tradition as a core value of the
sport is great but has failed to evolve in certain areas that would
help the popularity of the game. Take social media for example, out
of the 4 major sports in America the MLB is 3rd
in Twitter Followers substantially lagging behind the NFL and NBA.
Trailing NFL by 2 million followers and the NBA by 5 million
followers the MLB is social media friendly to a point but they could
improve a hell of a lot more.
Take
the NBA for example the growth of basketball worldwide can be
attributed to its dedication to having a strong social media
presence. If I lived in Europe and wanted to know the score to the
Clippers game it wouldn't be hard to find because the NBA makes
everything so accessible for the fans.
Not
only that though the NBA realizes that a good majority of people who
like basketball around the world will never attend a live NBA game so
its important to be a presence so fans know whats going on. Baseball
is solid in social media but if they want to compete with the NFL and
NBA then its paramount that they have more fan interaction then both
of those leagues. Once the MLB can improve
on that then they can advance in growing the sport among its young
people.
Tradition
Tradition
is a great thing and I’m glad
baseball does a great job of keeping it alive but why does it frown
upon anything that’s different? Take for example this years
all-star game, Yasiel Puig was on fire and it would have made a lot
of sense to put him in the game but no that’s against the tradition
of baseball. Puig's sample size at the time wasn't large enough for
the MLB to put him in the all-star game and they missed out on a huge
opportunity to draw in people who wouldn't normally be baseball fans
to watch the game by selecting Freddie Freeman over him.
Instant
replay was also something that took forever for baseball to
implement. Of the 4 Major
Sports in America baseball was the very last to institute a replay
review procedure, which was put into place late in the 2008 season.
Tradition
is great but baseball needs to modernize the game in certain areas to
appeal with the internet generation of young fans or it will die out
to the point where Soccer may surpass baseballs popularity in
America.
TV
When
was the last time you saw a game on ESPN or FOX and were anxious to
watch? I know its been a very long time. In a recent SB Nation
article the baseball overall struggle to attract fans was examined.
It
was reported the ESPN's once popular “Sunday Night Baseball” has
hit an all-time low with ratings dropping 5 of the last 6 seasons. As
of 2012 Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN has dipped below 2 million
viewers per game.
The
decline of ratings can be attributed to several things. Such as the
following.
- Same match ups ever year
- Lack of variety
- Lack of big market match ups
Baseball
has some great traditional rivalries but National
TV relies way to much on the Yankees-Redsox rivalry thtat just simply
isn't compelling to the average baseball fan anymore. People would
like to see different teams
such as the resurgent Pittsburgh Pirates or young studs such as Jose Fernandez and Matt Harvey. Change it up a bit and you may see some
different results.
The
2% league wide decrease in attendence should be a wake up call to the MLB to
modernize the game and make some changes that would appeal more to
fans. Its a great sport with many talented players but if the product
as far as fan interest isn't doing well then you have nothing.
I agree to an extent, but I can't agree with the part about Puig. The fans had the option to vote him in, and they chose not to. Freeman is now a legitimate MVP candidate, so I think they got that one right.
ReplyDeleteI still disagree with it he should have been an all-star
DeleteI don't think so. He didn't play in enough games to justify it at that point. Everyone has a hot streak, and the fans decided that they thought that hot streak didn't warrant an All-Star appearance.
DeleteThat hot streak was the reason the Dodgers became the team everybody expected them to be and that was before the all-star game. That warrants an all-star game appearence. There shouldn't be fan voting at all-star games no league ever gets it right.
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