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Originally Posted by gskweres9
I really couldn't disagree more with this comment. Look at the sheer number of kids that play baseball. I'm one of roughly 10,000 NCAA D1 baseball players, and there's probably more than 10,000 across D2, D3, JUCO, and NAIA. Young people are very much interested in this game.
Also, there's a reason baseball's money numbers are at an all-time high while inflation is at an all-time low. I mean just look at the difference in the AAV of contracts from 2008 to 2018. That money didn't just pop up because people are losing interest in the sport.
Also, football is losing interest quickly. The head issues truly are altering decisions of young adults and which sports they play.
The MLB also does a fantastic job with social media. MLB.TV makes streaming games easy, and they routinely share videos and highlights on platforms like twitter, instagram, and facebook. One of the reasons the NFL is losing popularity amongst people my age is because of their extreme blackout rules, not just on TV, but on social media platforms as well.
I know it was hyperbole when you said you don't know anyone younger than 40 that cares a lick about the game, but look at all the players currently in the league, all the players across collegiate and high school athletics, and the millions of fans that file in the stadiums year in and year out. No, baseball may not be America's pastime, and it may not be the most popular sport in this country, but it is far from dead and far from dying
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry Helper
I agree with a lot of this. The analytics era has brought a heavy relience on bullpenning, shifts, and the essentially three outcome at bat: home run, walk, or strikeout. But sometimes I wonder if I'm overreacting when I get annoyed by things like this. Baseball has gone through all kinds of different eras, who is to say those things won't fall out of favor by the mid 2020s?
As far as the horse racing and boxing, it does seem like baseball will become more of a niche sport in the future (and if that's the case, I say screw trying to change the game for the casual fan and cater to the hardcores). But the honest truth is, I think the biggest change is the explosion of different forms of entertainment in the last 20 years. The internet has created a world where literally anything you want to do is on demand. That wasn't the case for most of the last century, where watching sports was one of, i don't know, eight different ways you could entertain yourself.
I wonder if every sport is going to see a falling off of interest in the future. Baseballs average fan age is around 53, but the NFL's is 46. It's not like they're set up great for the future. Right now it seems like the NBA is the only league that is trending upward in terms of the interest of the coming generation. (Although I also wonder if the superteam era is going to have long term consequences that the league can't see, like the steroid era. It all seems fun now, but at some point people have to wake up and realize how out of wack competitive balance is in that sport.)
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Fascinating to see the varying perspectives. I do think there are some warning signs, but on the other hand, the sport itself is taking in an insane amount of money, especially from their online/streaming packages. MLBAM itself right now is worth more than the entire MLB was worth like 5-10 years ago. They're raking it in, which shows in salaries.
I do think they'll need some changes, because as much as they're taking in, there's always the chance it's a bubble. The games are getting longer, it's still the longest season by far of any sport, and there's no way your average fan is watching 3.5hrs X 162 games.
I do think they need to bring the averages down below 3 hours, and the lengthening ABs is one of the biggest causes of that. Players are seeing more and more pitches, which is turning the game into more of a three-outcome game, and I don't think people just want to see K/BB/HR - would rather the action actually take place on the field. Something radical like going to a 3-2 system I'd worry that that would cause even more BB/K to happen, just because players have no room for error anymore.
They probably need to experiment with actually tweaking the strike zone. Maybe there's a sweet spot in size and location where they can encourage more action to take place with actually reducing both K and BB. Or maybe the answer is a robot ump, where if pitchers know the exact zone, then you can get more matchups and less "finding the zone" during the play.
But the first step is killing dead time. If they can shave off 10-15 minutes a game of watching players scratch their balls and readjust their gloves, then that's a great start.