America’s pastime will always have a place in my heart, but lately I’ve wondered if it will in my sons. At his age (12), I lived and breathed baseball. Could memorize the line up of all MLB teams and spout off statistics that would make your head spin. Literally memorized those years “Whos’ who” of baseball. My son is a baseball fan, just like Dad, but would rather tell you the last time Justin Tucker missed a 43-yard field goal while facing the wind in his face. He has the same intensity to the stats, but for whatever reason it’s always football or lately, basketball. In our household we love all sports, but baseball has always had my heart. So I dug in. Why is baseball not attracting to the younger generation?
The game itself has always been described as slow moving and even the biggest baseball nut would agree. The game moves at a snails pace until it hits the biggest moments, but honestly that is the fun in it. The cat and mouse game of pitcher vs hitter has been and will always be the core of baseball fun. The moments are what make the core matter. How could Major League Baseball enhance the moments to give the younger audience more appeal?
Take a look at the voice of the San Diego Padres, Don Orsillo, for the answer. Anyone who has watched a San Diego Padres home broadcast has experienced how to keep an audience entertained while keeping the integrity of the game intact. Orsillo has been the voice of the Boston Red Sox (2001-2015) and the San Diego Padres (2016-current), bringing a life long love of baseball, humor and a level of emphasis on the moments that the rest of baseball should learn from. Orsillo and his calls on Padres All-Star second baseman, Jake Cronenworth, are the stuff of legend in San Diego. Any home run into the right field seats are proudly declared into the “Crone Zone” and it wouldn’t shock anyone if the Padres renamed the right side of the infield the “Crone Zone” for his knack for gold glove level defense. Orsillo’s calls have created an identity for not just the team, but the players themselves. Something the fans have grasped onto and made even the down years in San Diego enjoyable.
We’ll bring up actual baseball ideas to enhance the game, but before we do…please enjoy Orsillo and his partner Mark “Mud” Grant running a masterclass on entertaining the audience during those slow moving baseball games. Never taking themselves too seriously, because after all it’s just a game. MLB could use more humor, especially in 2023 when the younger audience will have more distractions around them than ever before. With ratings continuing to decline (12% decline between 2019 and 2021) in the regular season and during the World Series (2022 World Series averaged fewer viewers than the NBA Finals), it’s time for MLB to look at how they present the product. Entertain the masses and an audience will come. Just think how those clips would crush on TikTok or Reels.
The in-person product continues to suffer as well. In the 2022 season, MLB posted a total attendance of 67,556,636. A 5.7% drop vs. 2019 (no fans in 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic). The growing cost of taking a family to a baseball game certainly plays into this. A July 2022 study (@TheHustle) showed the average cost for a baseball game for a family of four was $204.76. This included four tickets, four hot dogs, two beers, two sodas and parking. Personally, I’d say that’s being pretty generous and I’d like to meet those kids. Speaking from experience, my children are looking for a couple hot dogs, popcorn, multiple waters and eyeballing the gift shop. And those two beers are probably multiplied (for me, not the kids). This is ONE game.
With 81 home games a season and possibly more if your team makes the playoffs, this is suddenly becoming a very expensive problem for fans. NFL teams have begun to figure this out in order to keep fans coming to the games. The Atlanta Falcons and the Jacksonville Jaguars are two teams that set the bar on low concessions and filling seats. Lets lower the price of concessions in order to sell MORE and make it less of a wallet drain to attend games.
Now don’t get me wrong, Major League Baseball does realize the game needs to adapt and is trying. Kind of. Some of the ideas that are working for MLB to grow the game to a younger audience:
-Expanded play-offs
-Extra innings rules
-Little League World Series game
-Field of Dreams game
Those are just a few of the ideas that have gained traction and appear to be working. More than three million viewers watched the 2022 Field of Dreams game on FOX. Time to capitalize on this and expand MLB. Like I mentioned in the opening paragraph, my son can name drop the Baltimore Ravens kicker, but struggles to have this kind of photo memory of random MLB stars. Blank stares if I ask about Mike Trout. MIKE. TROUT. So how do we fix this? For starters, here are a few ideas to give MLB players opportunities to build their brand similar to the NBA and NFL.
The All Star break loves to showcase the long ball with the Home Run Derby and it’s certainly a great time. But what if there was a skills showcase to show the talent of MLB stars that don’t necessarily hit it deep. Watching players try to work out of a pickle, base stealing races, infielders hitting targets for points or outfielders robbing home runs from the derby participants could add excitement to an event that could use a spark.
Every June, college baseball fans take over Omaha, NE for the annual College World Series to crown the NCAA Men’s CWS champions. This event is PERFECT to host an MLB game, MLB Draft event, or even just an opportunity to host a fan fest with former CWS participants that have gone onto the major leagues. Grow the game. Every event, every game should be focused on growing the game. Did you know the average major league baseball fan is 57 years old? Looks like a perfect event to grow the game and attract a younger audience.
Here are some game related advances that would impact the speed of the game:
-pitch clock
-using technology to call balls and strikes
It’s time. Keep pitchers moving, keep batters in the box and use current technology to call correct balls and strikes. Anyone with a smart phone can download the MLB app and see that balls are getting called strikes and vice versa constantly. The technology is already in use and would make the game move faster and more accurate. I wouldn’t eliminate the umpires. Use the umpires to communicate the automated calls and still make the calls on action plays. Those plays would then all be available for video review. Suddenly the game can be called correctly and more efficiently. The audience can focus not on the worlds most talented baseball players and rooting for their team to win. The players can focus on knowing the calls will be correct. It’s a win win. The argument against this could be, “well controversy sells”.
Baseball wouldn’t lose that, but instead would focus on the teams managers. Suddenly it’s not the “ump show” and it’s completely on “why did Mike Showalter bring in Edwin Diaz in the 8th inning when the trumpets sound so much better to start the 9th.”
Major League Baseball has America’s pastime, but it’s time to move it into the next generation. Grow the game and attract our youth the way it did when we were kids. I’m going to use 2023 to work on growing the game and attracting it to our youth. Hopefully by this time next year my son can spout off random Jake Cronenworth stats from a Tuesday night in May and my nephew (11) will be completing a New York Yankees podcast to add to his Cincinnati Bengals one. That would be something to smile about.
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