Baseball Is Dying

[jingram058]

This is from the New York Times, not me. I don't know if he is right or not, but I do know that EVERYONE I know absolutely hates baseball in it's present state, even on opening day. The length of games, too many commercials, the DH, robotic umpires, instant replay, starting the 10th inning with a man on 2nd, eliminating minor leagues and teams, yada, yada, yada. It's been discussed but nothing can be done about it It all comes down, in the end, to too much money. Just like baseball cards.

By Matthew Walther

Mr. Walther is the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal. He writes frequently about sports.

Opening day of the Major League Baseball season, which falls on Thursday after being delayed for a week by a labor dispute, is as good an occasion as any for fans of the game to come to terms with certain hard facts. I am talking, of course, about the inevitable future in which professional baseball is nationalized and put under the authority of some large federal entity — the Library of Congress, perhaps, or more romantically, the National Park Service.

Like the Delta blues or Yellowstone National Park, baseball is as indelibly American as it is painfully uncommercial. Left to fend for itself, the game will eventually disappear.

Attendance at games has declined steadily since 2008 and viewership figures are almost hilariously bleak. An ordinary national prime-time M.L.B. broadcast, such as ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” attracts some 1.5 million pairs of eyes each week, which is to say, roughly the number that are likely to be watching a heavily censored version of “Goodfellas” on a basic cable movie channel in the same time slot.

Even the World Series attracts smaller audiences than the average “Thursday Night Football” broadcast, the dregs of the National Football League’s weekly schedule. In 1975, the World Series had an average of 36 million viewers per game; in 2021, it barely attracted 12 million per game.

Casual observers may assume that despite this lack of popularity, baseball is still somehow insanely valuable. This is an illusion. Major League Baseball generated around $11 billion in revenue in 2019, but this figure does not accurately reflect the demand for its product. The astronomical salaries that continue to be enjoyed by the sport’s stars (if that is the mot juste) are a result not of the game’s nonexistent popularity but of the economics of cable television providers, who bundle regional sports networks alongside dozens of other channels so that anyone with cable TV is buying baseball whether he likes it or not.

Mike Trout’s $426 million contract is effectively being paid by millions of grandparents who just want to tune in to Anderson Cooper or “Antiques Roadshow.” As that audience dies off and younger generations of “cord cutters” take their place, baseball’s revenue will plummet.

Culturally, too, the game is increasingly irrelevant. The average age of a person watching a baseball game on television is 57, and one shudders to think what the comparable figure is for radio broadcasts. Typical American 10-year-olds are as likely to recognize Jorge Soler, who was named the most valuable player of last year’s World Series, as they are their local congressional representative. College athletes drafted by M.L.B. and N.F.L. teams choose the latter without hesitation.

In some parts of the country, participation in Little League has decreased by nearly 50 percent in the past decade and a half. When my wife and I signed up our 5- and 6-year-old daughters for T-ball a few weeks ago, we did so partly out of a grim sense of obligation. We might have been Irish parents enrolling our children in step dancing classes: This is your heritage and you are going to learn to appreciate it!

So much for the unignorable facts of baseball’s decline. What is to be done?

It is worth being honest upfront about what nationalizing baseball would entail. While I like to think that the Biden administration could seize all 30 teams and dissolve the league by executive fiat, citing language buried somewhere in the text of the Patriot Act, it is more realistic to assume that Congress would have to be involved. Legislation would authorize purchasing the teams at their current (and absurdly inflated) market valuation. Players, coaches and other staff members would become federal employees. The general manager would be appointed by the governor of the state in which the team plays its home games; manager would be a statewide office for which citizens vote every six years. There would be no term limits.

Salaries would be lower, perhaps drastically so, but so would ticket prices. And watching games on television or via online streaming would be much simpler, as broadcasts would be carried exclusively by C-SPAN.

Revenues, though diminished, would be more fairly distributed. I imagine gate receipts and merchandise sales being block-granted to the local authorities in the cities in which teams play, shoring up the coffers of many an ailing municipality. Public funding of stadiums would continue, but instead of being a cynical cash grab by penurious owners, it would be a noble undertaking, accepted by the indifferent citizenry as one of those worthwhile cultural ventures like the Smithsonian Institution that governments are compelled to support.

Do not confuse my intentions. I would gladly see Justin Verlander — once a star pitcher for my Detroit Tigers before being lured away by the Houston Astros — make $25 million a year for playing a boys’ game, just as I would happily pay Simone Young, our greatest living conductor, three times that amount for a single yearly engagement at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. But the world’s classical musicians long ago realized that the lifestyle of figures like the conductor Herbert von Karajan, with his yachts and custom Porsches, was a product of a vanished age in which the aspirational middle classes felt that buying classical recordings was a duty; so too must baseball players accept that nine-figure contracts are a vestige of an older and nobler civilization.

We need to stop pretending that baseball has a broad-based enthusiastic following and begin to see the game for what it is: the sports equivalent of collecting 78 r.p.m. records. Baseball is America’s game only in the sense that jazz is America’s music or that Henry James is America’s literature. It is time that we acknowledged this truth by affording baseball the same approbation we reserve for those other neglected cultural treasures.

It might be a hard sell for some fans, but ultimately a world in which the game not only continues but also does so free of commercial pressures would be a merrier one. Among other things, the league could abandon its doomed attempts to attract more viewers by mucking with the rules for extra innings and introducing impure practices like pitch clocks, signal transmitters for catchers and the universal designated hitter. A strict salary cap could be imposed to help ensure competitive parity among teams.

And who knows? Just as tourists who would never think of themselves as interested in art visit the National Gallery or the Metropolitan Museum because doing so seems suitably highbrow, perhaps one day they might go to baseball games out of some inchoate sense that it will be educational and enriching.

Lest there be any doubts, I should make it clear that I stand to gain nothing should my scheme be taken up by the relevant authorities. I argue from a disinterested position of love, in sober recognition of baseball’s undeniable obsolescence.

[Snapolit1]

Baseball has been “dying” forever. With all respect to The NY Times, give me a break.

https://www.si.com/.amp/mlb/2019/08/...-dying-history

[Orioles1954]

The Baltimore Orioles still have thousands of tickets left for opening day. When a fan has to go into one of the most dangerous cities in the country with a franchise committed to losing over 100 games a year then why bother?

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Baseball has been “dying” forever. With all respect to The NY Times, give me a break.

https://www.si.com/.amp/mlb/2019/08/...-dying-history

The writer's facts are unquestionable, given a break or otherwise. Yankees-Red Sox is not sold out, either. Baseball is in serious decline. You cannot deny it away.

[JollyElm]

To me, baseball began dying the day umpires started systematically throwing each and every pitched ball out of play that had the frickin' audacity of touching the ground. Prima donna BS!!!!

[mightymickof56]

Sabermetrics probably hasn’t helped the game either. Seems like bunting is largely extinct and steals seem also to be in decline. Is modern baseball a two outcome sport? Either a homer or a strikeout. I don’t know where baseball ranks among modern sports but I prefer soccer and basketball to modern baseball and have swtiched from collecting modern baseball cards to dead ball era stuff. Prefer the history and allure of the old timers to any modern stars. Trout Shohei etc are all great but none hold a candle to babe ruth.

[Rich Klein]

The real issue is lack of accessibility to average people.

If you have cable (I know many people have switched to streaming but cable is still the major factor) and my situation is not unique

We are still on Frontier and frankly if a family friend of my wife's was not able to put us on top of any customer service needs. we'd be gone so fast it would like as Quick Draw McGraw was in slow motion.

1) Fox Sports Sold Fox Southwest to Sinclair who renamed it Bally's. Now when the network was Fox many carriers did not want to upset Fox in any way. Sinclair asked the carriers for a lot more money and Frontier said no way. This affects me from watching almost any local DFW sport

2) This one I get a bit more on a business level. on July 1, 2020 during the pandemic and before baseball announced they would have a truncated 2020 season the MLB Network was gone. Now this one I get on the business level since there was no guarantee baseball would even be played in 2020. It's not come back to Frontier since then

3) Not related to Frontier but one reason I was happy to have a Sirius/XM sub was the baseball package was part of what I paid. Last year if we wanted to have baseball on Sirius/XM there was an extra charge.

4) I just read some Sunday games are going tp be streamed and here is an article with more details

https://www.engadget.com/mlb-latest-...215545375.html

5) One key reason the NFL is even bigger than ever is they have not forsaken the free TV (available on Local stations) broadcasts. Being a baseball fan is getting to be well nigh impossible in today's world and you want to make it easier to see games, not harder.

Regards
Rich

[Mike D.]

'BASEBALL IS DYING': A 100-YEAR HISTORY OF DOOMSDAY PROCLAMATIONS

[Touch'EmAll]

"... What is to be done." Yes, Little League Baseball is hurt'in. Somehow we need to get kids involved in Little League - that's a good starting point.

Kids today have much more at their disposal than when we were kids - primarily Video games. We didn't have video games to the extent we do now back in the 70's & 80's.

My son is a Freshman in high school. He has a friend who has scholastic talent, but got C's and D's in school this past semester ... because he overloaded on video games. Sad, very sad. Now this kids college future is in jeopardy already. Is it worth it, is it worth all the time playing video games?

Just look around the neighborhoods - how many kids are out riding their bikes, playing Hide 'n Seek, Playing touch football, playing whiffle ball in the street ? Not many.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Many great points made already....in my view MLB is killing itself through piss poor leadership. Manfred is a disgrace to the game in so many ways.

The axing of minor league teams to save a few bucks in the short term was an awful decision for the long term health of the game...minor league are where you see families and regular people, as opposed to many major league stadium where casual fans and families are increasingly priced out (I'm looking at you, Yankee Stadium!)

[brianp-beme]

At least a couple of the new Covid inspired rules thankfully are no longer with us...the seven-inning doubleheaders, and that ghastly softball-ish rule where the offense was gifted a ghost runner on second base in extra innings.

Brian

[Rich Klein]

Sorry but we'll have the ghost runner in 2022

https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2022...s-ghost-runner

Rich

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

'BASEBALL IS DYING': A 100-YEAR HISTORY OF DOOMSDAY PROCLAMATIONS

The undeniable fact is, baseball IS dying, 100 years of baseball dying history or otherwise. I truly believe the root cause is the money these days. A nine inning game on TV cannot be sped up because of money. But there is more. Interest level. With everything available to everyone, so many diverse interests today, it is unrealistic to expect baseball to be as popular as even 20 to 25 years ago.

[Orioles1954]

I must have missed the wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding the N.L. getting the DH full-time. Fans were either resigned to the fact or (more worryingly) have stopped caring.

[bmattioli]

It's Opening Day can't there be some positive vibes out there??

Come-On Man..

So happy today!!

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Sorry but we'll have the ghost runner in 2022

https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2022...s-ghost-runner

Rich

I stand, unfortunately, corrected...boo!

Brian

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by bmattioli

It's Opening Day can't there be some positive vibes out there??

Come-On Man..

So happy today!!

+1
Though disappointed that the Yanks / BoSox game was cancelled today
Will have to wait till tomorrow afternoon

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by jingram058

The undeniable fact is, baseball IS dying, 100 years of baseball dying history or otherwise. I truly believe the root cause is the money these days. A nine inning game on TV cannot be sped up because of money. But there is more. Interest level. With everything available to everyone, so many diverse interests today, it is unrealistic to expect baseball to be as popular as even 20 to 25 years ago.

“Baseball will go broke because it makes too much money”.

You are right that the entertainment world is more niches than ever. That’s the reality…baseball will never be what it was in the 1950’s from a “general popularity” perspective, but neither will anything else.

Baseball is less “generally popular” now than it away 25 years ago (well, maybe 24 years ago), but the game brings in more money now than it did then, even adjusting for inflation.

[joshleon]

The little league thing is a big deal. What you are starting to see with youth (I have 8 and 10yos) is the "specialization of youth athletics". Baseball is a great example. The kids who play baseball well, end up playing for club and/or travel teams, and the causal players from the town don't make enough of a critical mass to get the little league going. The gung ho parents who coach, coach the travel, not the rec. etc..

These factors end up causing local little leagues to die out. Many towns in the NE where I live don't have LLs anymore. The casual players don't have an option to play, then they lose interest, and the MLB has lost another future fan.

We make our boys play both rec and travel for this very reason. We cut out travel practice in the spring so they can play rec with their friends. That may sound like i'm bragging but I am also cognizant that I am part of the problem in that I have them do travel/club in the first place.

All of the points in this thread are good ones.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by bmattioli

It's Opening Day can't there be some positive vibes out there??

Come-On Man..

So happy today!!

There is infinitely more baseball today than yesterday! That is a good thing!

[Touch'EmAll]

All sing ! " Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie & Chevrolet. They go together in the good ol' USA "

And by the way, my Angels with Trout & Ohtani just might go all the way this year.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll

All sing ! " Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie & Chevrolet. They go together in the good ol' USA "

And by the way, my Angels with Trout & Ohtani just might go all the way this year.

Every team is undefeated at the start of opening day! Hope springs eternal!

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by bmattioli

It's Opening Day can't there be some positive vibes out there??

Come-On Man..

So happy today!!

Agreed and the Best part is my team is Un Defeated.

[butchie_t]

Originally Posted by bmattioli

It's Opening Day can't there be some positive vibes out there??

Come-On Man..

So happy today!!

I'm positive baseball is dying.


;-)

Butch

[BCauley]

I’d be curious to see stats on when baseball began “dying” by year. Are games too long? Me personally I don’t think so. I would just be curious to know the correlation between the “takes to long” and the “immediate gratification” society we are in today.

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by BCauley

I’d be curious to see stats on when baseball began “dying” by year. Are games too long? Me personally I don’t think so. I would just be curious to know the correlation between the “takes to long” and the “immediate gratification” society we are in today.

From what I understand the NFL first surpassed MLB in ratings and popularity in 1972.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

5) One key reason the NFL is even bigger than ever is they have not forsaken the free TV (available on Local stations) broadcasts. Being a baseball fan is getting to be well nigh impossible in today's world and you want to make it easier to see games, not harder.

Regards
Rich

This.

Much as I hate the NFL, with its National Anthem snubs, penalty flags on almost every play, and non-flags when it's obvious there should've been a penalty called..... at least I am able to view games.

I generally have to wait until deep in the playoffs or World Series before I can watch a baseball game on TV.

[bmattioli]

Originally Posted by Mark17

This.

Much as I hate the NFL, with its National Anthem snubs, penalty flags on almost every play, and non-flags when it's obvious there should've been a penalty called..... at least I am able to view games.

I generally have to wait until deep in the playoffs or World Series before I can watch a baseball game on TV.

Dude.. You can stream any MLB game you want for FREE.. That's what I do every night when the Redsox don't play

[ClementeFanOh]

Lots of wise words in the comments. I’d just say that a lot of pro sports are “dying”. I wouldn’t watch an NFL game if it was held in my back yard (funny that people say baseball features too much standing around and takes too long. The NFL is even worse, WAY too much inaction and commercials). NBA is hopeless trash…I think some sports are enjoying a boost, but it’s not the “big 3”. Doesn’t mean they aren’t making money, it means it’s basically unwatchable. That’s why I focus on my cards- now THAT is fun Trent King

[Mike D.]

Sports Illustrated’s 99 Things to Look Forward to This MLB Season:

https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/04/07/ml...-day-99-things

[Rhotchkiss]

I stopped being a fan of baseball in the early 1990's. But I love old baseball cards!

My 13 year-old is into collecting. When we go to shows, he looks only at basketball and football. He has no interest in baseball, unless he thinks its something I would like.

[slidekellyslide]

MLB also has the stupid blackout rules which make it impossible for me to get any Kansas City Royals home games even though I paid $139.99 for the MLB package. Luckily I'm not much of a Royals fan, the Red Sox are my team so I get all their games, but to not be able to watch any home games of the team closest to me is insane. There are 81 home games for every team, only retired people who can afford to do so go to every game. It's absolute insanity to block fans from watching their favorite team.

[Snapolit1]

If baseball is dying someone better quickly call Jeff Bezos, Apple and a bunch of other companies and tell them that their business people are way off the reservation.

[Hankphenom]

My 70+ year-old friends and I talk often about how happy we are to have lived when we did, for the many pleasures and experiences we took for granted for most of our lives that now seem to be on the verge of extinction, baseball as we knew it among them, but also great daily newspapers; wonderful music and movies; terrific neighborhood bars and mom-and-pop restaurants; affordable housing and cars; temperate climate, etc.. Of course I'd rather be young right now, but without sounding like a grumpy old man--which I don't feel like in the least--sometime in the next few years doesn't seem like a bad time to be taking leave of this place after a long and happy life. I hope the young folks are finding and creating as much fun and entertainment to fill up their days as we did. To bring it back to baseball, reading the list of changes mandated by the Poobahs in their negligible wisdom, it's amazing that virtually all of them strike me as actually detrimental to the game and the experience of it. I can't imagine what they are thinking in practically every one of these meddlesome and needless changes. For starters, all I want mandated is for the batters to stay in the box, the pitchers stay on the mound, and the runners stay on the bases, all of them ready for the next pitch. Having said all this, I am absolutely thrilled to have my Nationals to watch every day for the next six months or so. "Play Ball!", I am so happy to be able to say.

[BobC]

Video games, computers, cell phones, lack of kids being involved in sports, banks accepting wages from both spouses for mortgages, the cost of packs of baseball cards (if kids can even find packs for sale), the cost of a ticket to see a ball game, and on and on, have all contributed to the drop in the popularity of baseball among the younger generations. The defining term today is "soccer moms" not "baseball moms". The baby boomer generation marked the end of an era and way of life and thinking in this country. Baseball popularity is just one of the victims. It will never completely die, just as things like bowling, softball, and pool halls will never completely die, and still exist today, just not even close to the levels of popularity they once had.

MLB is too big a business, with currently too much money behind it, to just go away overnight. But in the coming decades they may be forced to make more and more cutbacks and changes to stem the drops in interest and popularity that are appearing on the horizon. Baseball popularity and support seems to be stronger than ever in the Latin and Caribbean countries/islands though. For example, I'll bet you can name a lot more Dominican players in MLB than you can in either the NFL or NBA.

Baseball is good for now. The owners and players have to stop being so greedy and become ambassadors of the game to the youth of America again. Babe Ruth was known for his interacting with fans and signing autographs for free whenever asked, especially for kids. Today's players seem to be worried a lot more about how much they're getting paid for the next singing they'll attend.

Heck, even the Black Sox scandal is relevant. The MLB owners realized that the public seeing the ugly side of baseball, and the means to which ballplayers and/or others might go to make money, revealed to many fans that baseball was really just a business and a way to make money off of them. But fans themselves don't look at their favorite teams and sports as businesses. They often view them through rose colored glasses and have a love and loyalty for the game itself, not the often unfeeling and disloyal business behind it all. People aren't entirely stupid (at least not all of them) and do understand there are for profit businesses behind all professional sports. But the fans still like to believe in the facade of baseball being s true sport played solely for the love of the game and support and loyalty of the fans more than anything else. As professional sports become more and more about the money and the business, the facade is slowly chipped away and fans become more disillusioned and lose interest. How many times have I heard our own fearless leader Leon (Hi Leon!) say how he quit watching baseball after the MLB strike in 1994. That strike represents how the greed and business side of baseball overshadowed the game itself, and exemplifies how a one-time fan can be exposed to too much of that, foreving changing the way they think and feel about the game they used to unconditionally love. Greed, power, fame, and control are powerful factors and forces that can corrupt even the strongest and most intelligent of minds. We'll see if the minds involved in MLB can effectively fight off those factors and forces, and not entirely succumb to them.

[Snapolit1]

Everyone wants baseball to stay exactly like it was when they were 12 year sold. Unfortunately the world doesn't stay that way.

You know what the most popular commodity in football is? The red zone tv channel. My kids love football. They consume it entirely differently than I did. The idea of watching complete games befuddles them. They watch 10 games at the same time. And are on the internet at the same time texting about the games. Never in a million years sit at a bar and watch a game.

Movie theatres? Dying. People under the age of 40 consume movies differently.

Bowling alleys? Forget about it.

Academy awards? Grammys. Please. No one cares. Send me a 3 minute you tube clip of the highlights.

College football? Many schools can't fill their stadiums anymore. I will follow it on my phone from a bar or my dorm room.

The world changes. It's not really about baseball.

Over 40 million Americans went to a major league baseball game last year. And then there is minor leagues. And college games. Tell me what's even close to that.

[SyrNy1960]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Everyone wants baseball to stay exactly like it was when they were 12 year sold. Unfortunately the world doesn't stay that way.

You know what the most popular commodity in football is? The red zone tv channel. My kids love football. They consume it entirely differently than I did. The idea of watching complete games befuddles them. They watch 10 games at the same time. And are on the internet at the same time texting about the games. Never in a million years sit at a bar and watch a game.

Movie theatres? Dying. People under the age of 40 consume movies differently.

Bowling alleys? Forget about it.

Academy awards? Grammys. Please. No one cares. Send me a 3 minute you tube clip of the highlights.

College football? Many schools can't fill their stadiums anymore. I will follow it on my phone from a bar or my dorm room.

The world changes. It's not really about baseball.

Over 40 million Americans went to a major league baseball game last year. And then there is minor leagues. And college games. Tell me what's even close to that.

+1

[cubman1941]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Everyone wants baseball to stay exactly like it was when they were 12 year sold. Unfortunately the world doesn't stay that way.

You know what the most popular commodity in football is? The red zone tv channel. My kids love football. They consume it entirely differently than I did. The idea of watching complete games befuddles them. They watch 10 games at the same time. And are on the internet at the same time texting about the games. Never in a million years sit at a bar and watch a game.

Movie theatres? Dying. People under the age of 40 consume movies differently.

Bowling alleys? Forget about it.

Academy awards? Grammys. Please. No one cares. Send me a 3 minute you tube clip of the highlights.

College football? Many schools can't fill their stadiums anymore. I will follow it on my phone from a bar or my dorm room.

The world changes. It's not really about baseball.

Over 40 million Americans went to a major league baseball game last year. And then there is minor leagues. And college games. Tell me what's even close to that.

Great points! I do not watch baseball on tv as it moves to slow, however, I love to go to games. The game doesn't move any faster but it is so much fun to watch the people having fun enjoying themselves. Of course I am not able to go to Major League games and we lost our Minor Team two years ago but I go watch the wooden bat college league. I have fun speculating on who might make it. Oh, BTW, my Cubs are undefeated so far this year!!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by joshleon

The little league thing is a big deal. What you are starting to see with youth (I have 8 and 10yos) is the "specialization of youth athletics". Baseball is a great example. The kids who play baseball well, end up playing for club and/or travel teams, and the causal players from the town don't make enough of a critical mass to get the little league going. The gung ho parents who coach, coach the travel, not the rec. etc..

These factors end up causing local little leagues to die out. Many towns in the NE where I live don't have LLs anymore. The casual players don't have an option to play, then they lose interest, and the MLB has lost another future fan.

We make our boys play both rec and travel for this very reason. We cut out travel practice in the spring so they can play rec with their friends. That may sound like i'm bragging but I am also cognizant that I am part of the problem in that I have them do travel/club in the first place.

All of the points in this thread are good ones.

Forget the organized leagues, when I was young, I remember kids from the neighborhoods just going to the local fields and playing pickup games. When was the last time you drove past a baseball field and just saw kids playing? And that's assuming you still have some ballfields in your neighborhood anymore. They're like bowling alleys it seems. They get removed and torn down, but never replaced or have new ones put up. The 1993 movie "The Sandlot" was set in 1962 and epitomizes exactly what I'm talking about. Those days are long gone. (Great movie by the way, with a Babe Ruth autographed baseball as the focal point, and James Earl Jones playing a former Negro League star player who sounds like he may have been based on Josh Gibson.)

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by bmattioli

Dude.. You can stream any MLB game you want for FREE.. That's what I do every night when the Redsox don't play

How?

This is what I am seeing:

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

If baseball is dying someone better quickly call Jeff Bezos, Apple and a bunch of other companies and tell them that their business people are way off the reservation.

For whatever reason, you seem to take condescending pleasure in denying or ignoring the undeniable facts that attendance and viewership numbers are seriously down, and that baseball has some serious issues. MLB is attempting to generate 18 to 35 year-old fan interest by changing and tinkering with the game in every possible way without addressing what people perceive (perception is reality) is the number one reason for interest decline: length of games. Length of games is 100% the result of advertising to generate revenue to pay player salaries. Thus, the length of games cannot be shortened. So, not just you, but MLB itself is ignoring or denying facts as well. I guess you can just ignore facts, and everything is great. My wife is one of those "half full" people also. I've just seen enough in my 64 years that I take what would seem to me to be a more realistic way of looking at things.

That said, it is indeed opening day (Yankees - Red Sox got pushed back a day on account of weather), the grass is green...Play Ball!

[Snapolit1]

Major United States business entities are paying record amounts of money to broadcast games in a dying sport.

Tell me I am wrong. Show me I am wrong.

If no one is watching baseball these companies are really delusional.

Originally Posted by jingram058

For whatever reason, you seem to take condescending pleasure in denying or ignoring the undeniable facts that attendance and viewership numbers are seriously down, and that baseball has some serious issues. MLB is attempting to generate 18 to 35 year-old fan interest by changing and tinkering with the game in every possible way without addressing what people perceive (perception is reality) is the number one reason for interest decline: length of games. Length of games is 100% the result of advertising to generate revenue to pay player salaries. Thus, the length of games cannot be shortened. So, not just you, but MLB itself is ignoring or denying facts as well. I guess you can just ignore facts, and everything is great. My wife is one of those "half full" people also. I've just seen enough in my 64 years that I take what would seem to me to be a more realistic way of looking at things.

That said, it is indeed opening day (Yankees - Red Sox got pushed back a day on account of weather), the grass is green...Play Ball!

[bmattioli]

Originally Posted by Mark17

How?

This is what I am seeing:

Go to Reddit for links. It might take you abit to figure it out but well worth it.. Try it..

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by bmattioli

It's Opening Day can't there be some positive vibes out there??

Come-On Man..

So happy today!!

I'd feel much more positive if Manfred would resign. That would be a boost of adrenaline for MLB.

As a Reds fan, there's really not much to get excited about... maybe an epic impending battle with Pittsburgh for last place?

[Snapolit1]

A lot of businesses wish they were dying this hard.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybr...h=6af1accb7f63

It's sort of like people who are invested in there being more crime today than there was 50 years ago. You could show them all the FBI statistics from now till Sunday and they have already decided what the story really is.

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

A lot of businesses wish they were dying this hard.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybr...h=6af1accb7f63

It's sort of like people who are invested in there being more crime today than there was 50 years ago. You could show them all the FBI statistics from now till Sunday and they have already decided what the story really is.

I probably shouldn't answer because I'm a jaded Orioles fan and haven't seen an O's cap in Maryland neighborhood in at least 3 years.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Mark17

How?

This is what I am seeing:

There was a separate thread started telling you how if you have T-Mobile you can get the 2022 MLB package for free. It is currently on page 2 for this main forum.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

MLB also has the stupid blackout rules which make it impossible for me to get any Kansas City Royals home games even though I paid $139.99 for the MLB package.

It's not just MLB. The NHL does it, too. I can't see Kraken games on the streaming package until a day or two later because of the blackout rules. I live *300* miles from Seattle. Thankfully, I'm a Detroit fan so it's not really an issue. In prior years, they at least just made the blackout last only until the game was over. As soon as the game ended, I could watch it. Not anymore now that they've moved to an awful setup on ESPN+.

[Casey2296]

Baseball is a cerebral game, it's also a game of accessibility, if our young kids don't have access to playing the sport through little league, pick up games etc. you won't have built a generation of fans, it takes work not money to build baseball fans, the commissioner and networks have no idea how to build a fan base and quite frankly they're too stupid to know how. Inner city baseball? Forget it, there's no room for fields or motivation to build the game there.
It's a sad state of affairs and a poor reflection on our society as a whole.

Oh, and Go Giants!

[npa589]

Baseball is not dying. Look, I'm in my 30s, and I am not going to extrapolate my own interest into widespread interest, but what I do know is that Basketball was "dying" in the 80s and again in the early 2000s. Football was dying from the 60s to the 90s. It's cultural, and society is cyclical with its interests.

When Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta decide that the best value is promoting baseball - guess what is gonna magically be a part of the interest bubble for young-ins. Yes, baseball.

I will also say that I am in constant amazement at how incompetent the MLB is at running the MLB. It's not as simple to say Manfred or Selig were incompetent and leave it at that. We could elect 10 people on this forum to do a laughably better job at casting and implementing a vision for MLB. They often seem to follow the Gary Bettman playbook for how to run a league.

Let me provide one example of idiocy related to something that should be obvious. Any MLB Extra Innings users out there? Well, for years, No Spoilers would be a setting that was welcomed and useful. Now when you click that as you are watching the game - their "detailed" stream basically lays out what happens. 1. You can see how long each half an inning is. 2. If you dare to click the scoreboard, or I think just scroll down, you'll see if there is a bottom of the ninth or not.

Yet, despite their best efforts, baseball will still survive and in my opinion surpass both basketball and football at some point in the next 20 years. It's just historically been proven over and over that sports go in cycles of popularity.

Lastly - baseball "dying" in the USA is being ignorant to the fact that it's more widely played than American football is internationally. It's not dying.