Running the Break: How does MLB address its declining popularity? The answer is in the baseball itself
It was once known as America’s favorite pastime, but now baseball is sadly becoming an afterthought in the American sports landscape. As faster paced, higher energy sports like basketball and football continue to grow in popularity, baseball is being left behind.
On Monday morning, the MLB Players Association rejected a proposal from the league to include a universal designated hitter and expand the playoff format. Other ideas circulating included implementing a pitch clock, limiting the number of pitchers to speed up the pace of play and electronic strike zones.
But MLB is focusing on the wrong issues. People aren’t going to start watching baseball because strikes and balls are called by a computer. The bigger issue is that the games are too predictable and don’t have enough action. So, what went wrong, and how does MLB fix it? The best place to start is with the baseball itself, and I’ll explain why.
Total attendance numbers for MLB peaked in 2007 at over 79 million across a whole season. This number has since steadily declined. TV ratings are even worse: average viewership for the World Series has declined precipitously since the 1970s, from 44.2 million in 1978 to a record low 9.8 million viewers in 2020.
Also concerning is that baseball’s average audience is significantly older than that of other major American sports, and it continues to age. According to Sports Business Journal, the average viewer of nationally televised MLB games was 57 in 2016, up from 52 in 2000. Another jarring figure is that just 7% of MLB’s viewers are under the age of 18.
The most obvious explanation for this decrease in popularity aligns with younger generations’ seemingly shrinking attention span and demand for a faster pace than the game of baseball currently offers. In contrast, basketball has incredible athletes and non-stop action. Each and every play in football can change the outcome of an entire game.
The average MLB game in 2019 lasted three hours and ten minutes, a record-high and a full 40 minutes longer than the average game that 44 million fans watched in 1978.
It might seem intuitive that more offense and particularly more home runs would make baseball more attractive for younger viewers, especially on TV. Well, in 2014, players hit a reasonable total of 4,186 homers. In 2019, that number ballooned to a ridiculous 6,776— shattering the 6,105 homer record set in 2017. Yet the viewership continues to fall, and the increase in home runs is exactly the problem.
Home runs are supposed to be exciting, right? Not necessarily. There is a concept in baseball called the “Three True Outcomes.” This refers to at-bats that result in home runs, strikeouts or walks. Let’s imagine that 100% of at-bats resulted in one of these three outcomes. It would be boring to anyone, from casual viewers to fanatics and baseball purists.
In the 1970s, when baseball viewership reached its peak, 23.1% of at-bats were a true outcome. From 2010-2017 (only halfway through the recent explosion of home runs) that number was 30.4%. Home runs and strikeouts per game reached record highs in 2019, and walks per game reached numbers not seen since the steroid era. Sadly, this is what baseball is becoming. Seven guys in the field spend most of the game waiting for someone to hit a home run or walk back to the bench with his head down.
Small ball is dead. Gone are the days of sacrifice bunts, stolen bases and the very importance of getting on base. It doesn’t matter if you can run or play defense as long as you hit home runs because computers in front offices say that swinging for the fence every pitch generates more runs over time.
But what if swinging for the fence wasn’t the best approach? There’s another theory that attempts to explain the amount of home runs being hit lately. MLB denies that the baseballs used in games were changed to increase flight and generate more home runs, but a FiveThirtyEight study found that the baseballs made by Rawlings from the 2016 season onwards are slightly lighter and significantly less dense.
Not only are the newer balls lighter and bouncier, but a second FiveThirtyEight study found that baseballs used since the 2016 season also feature lower seams, making them less air resistant. While these changes are very small, they can add up to fly balls traveling as much as 8.6 feet further. The study expected a 25% increase in home runs with these baseballs. The actual increase from 2014-2017 was 46%.
Whether or not MLB actually participated in changing the baseball to create more home runs in the first place is not relevant. If the baseball can account for over half of the recent increase in home runs, the league should simply deaden the ball to disincentivize this analytics-fueled home run hitting approach that could be turning people away from baseball.
Lowering the amount of (boring) true outcomes would bring back some variety to the games and would hopefully increase interest in the sport. Former Chicago Cubs executive Theo Epstein put it nicely: “We need to find a way to get more action in the game, get the ball in play more often, allow players to showcase their athleticism some more.” Figure out how to make the game less predictable. Start with the ball.