HAS PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL STRUCK OUT?

 

On a recent Thursday night, I found myself watching a major league baseball game (MLB). The New York Yankees were battling the Cleveland Guardians to determine who would represent the American League in the World Series. I could not identify any of the players with the exception of a few well-known Yankees. 

Tuning into a baseball game not involving the Pirates was unusual for me. I had little interest in which team won. Nonetheless, the game became an exciting sporting event with a fairytale ending. Cleveland was winning until the eighth inning when the Yankees hit back-to-back home runs to take the lead. The Guardians came back in the ninth inning to hit two home runs, each time with a man on base to win the game. The Cleveland stadium crowd was over-the-moon, and the baseball world was astonished at the turn of events. 

This game was not my normal baseball experience. I find most games tedious to watch. Baseball provides little of the non-stop action found in almost every football and many basketball and hockey contests.  What was once “America’s Game” is now a sport that is finding it difficult to recruit our best young athletes or the attention of spectators. Has professional baseball struck out and become a minor sport in America?

The 162-game MLB season is a good place to begin when analyzing the problems facing the sport. The long schedule now opens at the end of March when many parts of the country are experiencing cold weather or worse. As the temperature warms, baseball must compete with the NBA basketball and NHL hockey playoffs that run from mid-April to mid-June each year. From the end of June until the beginning of September, MLB only competes with professional golf tournaments and the Olympics every four years. However, during these warm weather months, there are many alternatives to attending a game in person or watching on television.

The month of October should be MLB’s time to shine and captivate the sports fan. This year’s World Series features the game’s two best teams, the Yankees and Dodgers, and two best players, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. Unfortunately, every night in October other attractive sporting events are available. The NFL, NCAA, and high school football seasons are in full swing. Professional basketball and hockey are opening their seasons. Sports fans who attend games and spectators on the couch must make hard choices on what to watch.

Boston University did a deep dive into baseball’s problems and concluded that “Baseball’s days as America’s pastime are long gone. Football is the top-watched sport by US adults. In a recent Gallup poll, 41 percent of respondents named football as their top choice. Baseball and basketball only earned about 10 percent. While older adults remained loyal to baseball, young adults increasingly pick basketball and soccer as their first choice.” Simply stated, baseball is too boring and is losing younger sports fans.

Team owners and general managers would argue that MLB has held its own in recent years. In 2023, attendance increased by 9.2 percent, with a total of 70,747,365 fans buying tickets. MLB revenue increased by 10 percent to an average of $378 million per team.  The All-Star game attracted 7.6 million viewers, a 6 percent increase from the previous year.

Other observers argue that these statistics are misleading and that the trends are not promising. In 2003 fan attendance was 9 million less than in 2007. Even newer ballparks and those of popular teams are awash in empty seats representing billions in lost revenue.

TV viewership is down. The 2023 World Series was the least watched on record at under 10 million, a staggering 23 percent drop from the prior season. In contrast, the NCAA Women’s March Madness final drew an audience topping 15 million.

What can MLB do to reverse the trends and to address the number of challenges it faces? First, the Guardian Newspaper places the major blame on the pitching dilemma, “Many of MLB’S most talented star pitchers are falling to injury as their elbows buckle under the stress of throwing max-effort on nearly every pitch…Remarkably, all of these injuries have come during a time when ballclubs have cradled and coddled pitchers to the point where getting more than five innings out of a starter feels like something to celebrate.”

Many critics believe that starting pitchers should be required to remain in the game for 6 innings. Pitchers would then modify their throwing style, and the game would become more interesting with fewer pitching specialists.

Second, the Pirates are a good example of a team that has not been competitive in decades. MLB needs to adopt measures to produce team parity. In the NFL a salary cap produces more competitive teams.

 

Third, baseball technology has led to more strikeouts and homeruns at the expense of other facets of the game. Recent rule changes to speed up play and generate more stolen bases were a good start.  More innovations are needed.

Fourth, the regular season should be shortened. Beginning the schedule in warmer weather and ending it before football season takes over would make for a better sport with increased interest.

The author and commentator George Will has written, “Baseball is Heaven's gift to mortals.” With some well-placed modifications, the game of hitting, fielding, pitching, and managing can maintain an important role in American professional sports.