The MLB All-Star game this past Tuesday garnered a rating of 4.2 rating and 7.5 million viewers. Both numbers were record lows, though the game did handily win the night.
Last year MLB pulled the All-Star game out of Atlanta because the state of Georgia dared to exercise democratic oversight of its own election process. Certainly that drove some fans away, and I’m one of them. I’ve paid for MLB.TV for quite a few years, but this year I didn’t, and I won’t ever again, and I won’t watch another All-Star game, until MLB apologizes for its craven kowtowing to wokery.
But, baseball’s problems started long before that. An important catalyst in knocking baseball off its unique place in American culture was the 1994 strike. That strike began in August and wiped out the rest of the season and, most importantly, the postseason.
Before that strike, the ratings of the All-Star game from 1992-1994 were 14.9, 15.6 and 15.7. The year after the strike, in 1995, the rating was 13.9, and it has been steadily dropping ever since. Whether by design or not, the steroid era which followed the strike did bring back interest in baseball, as behemoths bashed home runs at a record pace. In 1998, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa battled to break one of baseball’s sacred records, the home run record of 61 set by Roger Maris in 1961. The rating of the All-Star game that year was 13.3, and that has never been exceeded since.
Since 2015, the rating of every All-Star game has been a new record low, except for 2019. The ratings of the World Series, too, have fallen in tandem.
There are a witches brew of reasons as to why baseball’s popularity isn’t what it once was. Younger people have a myriad of other entertainment options, and many more choices of sports to participate in when they’re younger. Pace of play doesn’t help baseball’s cause, nor does a decline in balls put into play.
While I never miss a Vikings game, and my favorite sports teams of all time were Larry Bird’s Celtics teams, baseball is my favorite. Each season is a saga. From the languid sun-drenched days of spring training, to cold spring games, through the height of summer, to the crisp fall postseason, the ebb and flow of teams in the standings is a story one can follow for months.
And if an increasingly woke corporate MLB drives away fans like me which it can’t afford to lose, what hope does it have?
15 thoughts on “Play ball! (but don’t watch it)”
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Baseball does not require full time attention. I expect many many viewers and radio listeners keep it on in the background while doing other things. It is consumed like music, a soundtrack that accompanies Americans through the year. The other sports do not have that function or relation to people.
Baseball is obsolete. Takes too long. Watching an entire game requires too much time investment for the modern, fast-moving digital, short-attention-span crowd. Time for baseball to take its place alongside hoop rolling and greased-pig wrestling, on the ash heap of history.
Once the schools mandate naked kids playing Centrifugal Bumble-puppy, baseball is doomed.
Football is another fast-moving sport destined for the heap. Commercials interrupted by 20 seconds (if you are lucky) of action once in a while. Basketball? Pleeeeease…. only last 2 minutes are watchable (and can last an hour) and only if the game is close. Even hockey is unwatchable until the playoffs. It is more fun watching kids pick daisies in the outfield.
Kouba’s post doesn’t deal with the real reason for baseball’s decline in the US: Kids don’t play it in backyards, on the street, in vacant lots the way we used to. Little League is not a substitute for that.
Kouba’s post doesn’t deal with the real reason for baseball’s decline in the US: Kids don’t play it in backyards, on the street, in vacant lots the way we used to. Little League is not a substitute for that.
It doesn’t, but that’s okay. Having said that, you are correct. There were summers growing up where we played baseball or wiffle ball all day long. I never see that any more.
Another reason that baseball is on the rocks is that marriage is declining steeply, and fathers teach their children about the game. So if you don’t learn how to appreciate baseball or football from your dad, especially at the skill positions like infield, QB, and even OL, you’re far less likely to grow up to either play or appreciate the game.
You can get by on pure athleticism in track & field (at least the sprints), basketball, and the “speed” positions in football to a degree, but not the infield.
Also key is a declining attention span. Baseball is fascinating if you know what you’re watching and have a decent attention span, but intolerable if you don’t. Increasing dependence on TV and phones have a bit to do with this, as does “parenting.”
Didn’t watch a second of the game, likely won’t watch future games. I won’t forget what MLB has done with the phony-ass woke BS, specially what they did to the business and folks in Atlanta last year.
The troll wrote; “Kids don’t play it in backyards, on the street, in vacant lots the way we used to” Well not like we did in the Northside and Camden neighborhoods when I was growing up. Too much gang activities to take part in I guess. That and the fear of lead flying through the air.
Growing up in Bloomington, it seemed like all the boys in the neighborhood played baseball, especially through Bloomington Athletic Association (BAA). I played starting at age 6 into my senior year of high school. I was always good enough to make the school teams and everyone played on a BAA team. Even on my the hottest days, we’d throw our balls, bats and mitts into a couple of wagons and towed them about 3/4 of a mile to the ball fields at Washburn Elementary. We would play all morning, go home for lunch, then come back until dinner time.
BAA still has their baseball program and from what I hear, they get a great turn out every year.
Dads teach baseball and football. Moms teach soccer. Which sport is waxing and which sports are waning in broken-home America?
I retired from the east coast to MN because my grandkids are here (I was sort of told where we were going to live after retirement!) My dream as a grandfather was to take the grandkids to baseball games but that dream evaporated after wokeism infected MLB. I have not nor will I ever take them to a game.
Osceola Braves still have two home games left in their season.
https://www.osceolabraves.com/
Went for a Sunday Drive in the convertible, stopped at a dive bar in Star Prairie Wisconsin, had a Spotted Cow and watched the Milwaukee Brewers on tv. Baseball’s no better, but the beer is excellent!
Heh. If you ask a guy from Wisconsin where the rednecks are, he will say “Northwest Wisconsin.” If you ask a guy in Northwest Wisconsin where the rednecks are, he’ll say “Polk County.” If you ask a guy from Polk County where the rednecks are, he’ll say “Star Prairie.”
I was cruising that area this afternoon, mostly around Amery. If you see a guy cruising that neighborhood on a gun metal gray, twenty year old BMW R1150RT, it might be me.
Moving to North Carolina in two weeks. Anxious to watch the Carolina Mudhens play in Zebulon.