The State of the Game

Baseball was previously known as America’s Pastime, but sadly those days are long gone.  Many considered the golden age of baseball from 1920 – 1960, while others believed the post war era from 1946 – 1969 as the games heyday.  Whatever you think was the height of baseball, those days are clearly over when compared to professional football, which overtook MLB in the mid-1960’s and has not looked back.

This Gallup poll (Football Still American’s Favorite Sport to Watch) showing the popularity of baseball vs football and basketball depicts the state of the game.  It is true that the average consumer today has so many other entertainment choices and is not just limited to the major sports, but the move away from baseball happened well before the rise of the internet and cell phones.

In the above 2017 Gallup poll, 37% of respondents said football was their favorite sport to watch, followed by basketball at 11% and baseball at 9%.

A Washington Post poll (Washington Post Poll) asked the same question in 2021 and the results were similar with football coming in at 34%, while baseball and basketball both garnered 11%.  That 2% uptick from 2017 might seem encouraging, but the margin for error in the poll was 3%, so that could explain both the baseball increase and the football decrease.

In addition, this 2022 CNN article (CNN: Why is Baseball no Longer America’s Game?) that notes these factors leading to the decline of baseball in America:

• Rise of TV – football did not sign their first league wide TV contract until 1962, which brought universal access for the average fan to watch their weekly game.  In addition, basketball finals did not even air nationally in their entirety until 1970.
• Less competition – There were only eight NBA teams in 1960 and the league was only 15 years old, while the NHL had just eight teams and the MLS did not even exist back at this point.
• Lack of action – balls in play have dropped dramatically while strikeouts have skyrocketed since the golden age of baseball.  The CNN article notes that, “About 100 years ago, there were well more than twice as many hits than strikeouts in baseball.  In 1960, there were 1.7 times as many hits than strikeouts.  Last year (2021), there were nearly 3,000 more strikeouts than hits”.
• Length of games – The average game time went from 2 hours 33 minutes in 1960 to 3 hours 10 minutes in 2021.
• Length of the season – while football has as little action as baseball, you only have to sit through a 17 game schedule, while the baseball season lasts 162 games.
• Lack of stars and name recognition – baseball stars pale in comparison to the other sports in terms of name recognition and online presence.  While Mike Trout is considered one of the game’s biggest stars, he has only 2 million Instagram followers, while Lebron James has 100 million and Cristiano Ronaldo has 457 million.

All of these factors have combined to make pro football the power it is today and have led to the decline in baseball, since the 1960’s.  Although some of these factors were clearly out of MLB’s control (i.e. rise of the NFL and competition), it is interesting that MLB has chosen only to target the length of the games, as the cause of their ills. What about the length of the season, the lack of action (noted in our prior post here: MLB vs Other Leagues) and the failure to market and promote their stars?  MLB has chosen not to consider those factors, but do not fear, we will in our upcoming posts.