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Has the popularity of baseball declined?
doubledragon
Posts: 23,091 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
Ran across these quotes from Rod Carew recently. I used to follow baseball in the early 90s but haven't followed it in some time, what is the state of baseball, has it's popularity really declined that much?
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Well, Mr. Carew, we can try something new by pretending that a football player is a championship caliber baseball player, or we can keep doing the same ol' same ol', and pretend that a baseball player is a championship caliber baseball player.
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I keep hearing this for years, but MLB seems to continue rolling along.
Philly fans are glued to their TV sets when the Eagles play. But I know very few who sit and watch a Phillies game on TV anymore. Particularly the regular season games.
I'm out of the loop as far as gambling innovations are concerned. However if it's not happening now, it will eventually happen, that wagering will be allowed on every at bat, and various props on every at bat. That will keep folks intensely glued to the game. "Come on batter, please get a hit, I got rent to pay. Hit a home run and I can also make my car payment."
as far as myself, I still love baseball, but i really dont follow the current game nearly as closely as i used to. I still love to look at stats of retired players and read about them. If somehow football could recreate the love for its older players that baseball has done, i think it would be great for the NFL. I dont think any sport has as revered a past as baseball.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
The hard thing about baseball is the un even playing field when you compare the payrolls of teams like the Oakland Athletics and the L A Dodgers, As a Mariners fan I feel as if the team finishes over .500 every year it is a successful season, I really wish baseball would go to a hard cap like the NFL,
Kids would rather play video games than go outside and play baseball. I think soccer is more popular in school sports now than baseball. People are not interested in baseball like they were in the 1950's -1970's
The biggest problem with football is that it is a brutal sport to play and players other than quarter back, don't last more a few years. QB is a very protected position.
I miss the early 90's ESPN Baseball Tonight, other than that I can't say I watch baseball highlights much at all.
If the Sox make the playoffs it's immediately very popular with me lol
Watching baseball on the T.V. is painfully boring.
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
in the 80s and 90s, baseball ran neck & neck with football & basketball in my world
now i'd watch Kelce & Swift make out for 3 hours before i'd watch an entire baseball game on tv
i've seen a few in person the past few years and i had to get really drunk to make it to the end
Always watch 2-3 football games a week every week for years. Can't say the same for baseball. Even basketball holds my attention more for a full game viewing. As well as a Major golf tournament.
Baseball is more popular than ever despite the owners spending the last several years telling us the game is boring and the rules need to be drastically changed. Of course thats just an excuse for them to make changes to increase commercials and advertising to make more money.
If the game is boring its because of the owners. At any given time over 1/3rd of MLB is tanking and close to half the owners are only interested in winning if they can do it with a low payroll MLB has been doing what the NHL did many years ago making a bunch of changes to try and get new demographics that just dont care anyways and turn off some long time fans and are lucky that they havent alienated more people yet and Othani is giving them insane numbers in Japan. College baseball is thriving though and things like the Bradyverse are just entities trying to make as much money as possible
This. I havent watched a baseball game in years. The pro game is so unfair. As a Pirates fan I feel like they are never going to be able to compete. I miss the glory days when both the Pirates and Reds were good almost every year.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
NFl doesnt have a hard cap, its a cap designed to be manipulated that has multiple ways around it if owners want to. Oakland's payroll is what it iis because the owners basically did the real life Major League the movie trying to put out an awful product so they could move the team. There are no small market MLB teams, just teams that act like it
Maybe they can keep changing rules to alter the game more, that should draw in more attention deficit fans in to watch.
I turned baseball off after Alomar spit in the umps face, have never watched another game.
How long has that been? 1996
The Red Sox have nearly unlimited funds and they are acting like the Oakland Athletics with payroll but not trying to get solid players 😕
IMO, its not the game it once was. Hard for me to get excited about watching baseball, I find it kinda slow and boring. I don't even want to get into the money players are being paid, truly obscene for what they do...Red Sox history is rife with crazy contracts that didn't work out. Chris Sale is a prime example of OVERPAID, UNDERPERFOMED and pretty much useless. The Braves are stuck with him now.
I do miss the announcer's banter between Jerry Remy and Orsillo, and of course Dennis Eckersley. OB is ok, but the others, like Youkilis are pathetic.
I have not renewed my MLB package this year, nor do I intend to. Should a miracle happen and the Red Sox make it to October playoffs, I may watch, maybe not. I have better things to do with my time.
MLB is certainly not the game I enjoyed growing up to in the 1960's through the early 1970's. Back then the pitcher still owned home-plate, the strike zone was quite a bit larger and the game wasn't about strike-outs and home-runs. Managers actually employed strategy and players had to be able to do everything required, hit/run/field/throw.
I think the "slippery slope" was around 1968 when the mound height was changed followed by 1973 and the designated hitter. Those two things radically changed the game and the more recent ones plain out distorted it to the point where I can no longer watch.
I was born in 1964 and have been watching baseball for over 50 years.
When mlb network recently televised a 1971 WS game is when I really realized how much it changed. Palmer was getting the ball back from the catcher and making his next pitch almost immediately. And so were the other pitchers. No waiting while they screwed around, they were all business. It was a pleasure to watch.
Baseball has gone way down in popularity since I was a kid. I was big fan in the early 1960s and still remember the 1960 World Series between the underdog Pirates and the mighty Yankees vividly. The Pirates won in seven games. People had their radios on, and they hung on every pitch.
Today the World Series is some minor sporting event that happens part way through the football season. The sportscasters will give the NFL scores and then almost say "by the way" the North Pole Dogs beat the South Pole Cats in the second game of the World Series today." What used to be baseball's primer event is now treated like a footnote.
"Baseball is more popular than ever"
By what measure? In the US, baseball's popularity has declined precipitously in the last 50+ years and now ranks behind the NFL and NBA.
Robb
Baseball is a regional sport now. Big markets, such as Dodgers, Yankees, and a few others are doing fine. I still enjoy going to games, but only a few per year. Sporting events are just too much now.
Sales contract worked out just fine, he was the ace of a WS winning team. Boston fans are spoiled where they expect championships every year because theyve had teams winning them every year for decades. Go ask the fan bases of the Mets/Pirates/Padres/Mariners/Tigers if they would take that contract if it meant they won the WS and then were bad for several years. The majority would say yes for the chance to see a championship
Players earn every bit of their contracts, they are the product. Anyone can own a team if they have enough money and players deserve to get the bulk of the revenue from the sport, if anything theyre actually underpaid
By the world wide measure. Theres more countries than the USA in the world. Even in the US the only league that makes more money than MLB is the NFL and the gap isnt as big as you might think.
Less commercials/announcements as well.
Yes.
They are not attracting younger viewers & fans. The vast majority of teams are uncompetitive & they have TV contracts that are antiquated, highlighted by many markets being tethered to a bankruptcy creating an even larger disparity between the haves and have nots...
Erik
But why do WE need to recognize that in the CU sports talk forum?
The OP was clearly talking about the fan base in the US, he wasn't talking about Europe, South America or Africa
I was under the impression he was asking about the sport, I didnt see any mention of only in the USA which even in the US only the NFL is more popular. World wide its massive in Japan, the DR, South Korea, Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Puerto Rico, Taiwan to name some. Its been also been growing in Europe, Australia, China, Canada and is even starting to grow in some African countries.
Even just for the USA college baseball has been setting attendance records. The WBC had massive increased in viewership, ratings are up for MLB for as well. Overall attendance and attendance per MLB game was up even with how expensive its getting and how many teams are tanking.
Never would've guessed that hockey is popular in Africa.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
Ice hockey isnt. Its referring to field hockey and the numbers and regions arent really very accurate from a source chart that others are reusing
I think you've got some selective memory going on here. Ray Oyler played 111 games in 1968 - while hitting .135 with zero power and even less speed. Herb Washington played in 105 games - without ever hitting. Gates Brown and Smoky Burgess were kept around just to pinch hit. There were lots of infielders and catchers who couldn't hit. And so on.
I didnt know field hockey was that popular.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
so you are saying the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees enter every baseball season on a level and even playing field and it is the cheap ownership of teams is why 70 percent of MLB teams do not spend as much money ??
HMMMM I can see why the NFL has clearly passed up MLB is this country in popularity.........
I wonder how they arose at those figures. I have a feeling it is including people participating in them recreationally, or 'non value' type spectators.
More in line with @perkdog is getting at, I think a more accurate and more important figure would be how much revenue each of those pro sports generate. For instance, I doubt Field Hockey or Volleyball draws in more money worldwide than baseball does even though they are ranked higher on that list.
I doubt any table tennis player/team/organization generates more than any MLB player/team/entire MLB organization even though they are ranked higher on that list.
Even cricket with all its fans and its number two ranking, its' average franchise worth in the best league is just over 1 billion dollars, while the average worth of a MLB team is 2.36 billion.
So in our world, investing in Ohtani is still better than investing in 'Mr. Cricket' even if cricket has more fans worldwide.
@Tabe, I thought my post would be self-explanatory but I guess it wasn't. I was alluding to the fact that with the advent of the DH in the AL that pitchers no longer needed to bat and that when position players reached a certain point in their career they no longer needed to field/throw, just bat. Sure, there have always been pinch hitters and position players with low averages and no power, but they played the game.
Those things around 1970 changed the game in the AL.
I grew up in 1970s and didn't have cable or internet. So getting a games on the weekend and Monday night were something to look forward to and did not have the scrolling ticker. Now almost every game can be seem or watch a sports show / internet for highlights. I remember watching the 10 o'clock news that usually had sports scores about 20 after.
Most of my games were listening to the transistor radio. So I would usually be doing something else while listening to games, similar to now as any game on TV is mostly in the background.
Cheap ownership is exactly why the majority of teams dont spend money in MLB. Is NY a bigger market yes, is KC a small market no. The Yankees split their market with the Mets as well, KC has almost 3 million people and the Chiefs dont have any problem spending money
The Royals went to back to back WS in 2014 and 2015 and won one of them. Yankees havent won a WS since 2009. What happens is these teams win and then the owners get cheap and start using the money invested into other things knowing the fan base will be happy for a few years.
The NFL is more popular because its 17 games. Baseball is a grind. NFL teams dont actively tank either their careers are to short while at any time 1/3rd of MLB teams are tanking with cheap owners. MLB isnt that far behind NFL in revenue though
II would add to for the cricket example I would even argue world wide its fan base is smaller. They have a cheat code with India where basically the entire country loves cricket and they have over 1 billion people. Theres only a few countries that like the sport but the ones that do love it.
Japan vs South Korea in one of the WBC games that wasnt even the finals had over 65 million people watch. Ive seen this chart before
The chat is a regurgitation from numbers that were put out several years ago and sites just keep reporting them again year after year. It took 30 seconds to find sites with those exact numbers from 2021 and that wasnt even the source of the numbers.
Theres not really anything backing the estimates that seem to just be someones estimates that somehow have turned into sites reporting as fact for years now
I have been listening and watching the Red Sox since the 1940,s and still love it. I remember when they would teletype games and read all the base hits and outs. They did not even have live radio in those days ! Today we can get baseball on tv any hour of the day or night and my wife and I watch it constantly.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/football-surpasses-baseball-americas-national-pastime-survey-says
Football surpasses baseball as America's national pastime, survey says
The survey saw 12,000 adults asked, "If you had to chose one sport as being ‘America’s sport,’ even if you don’t personally follow it, which sport would it be?"
This question, found in a broader survey about sports fandom throughout the United States, saw 53% of Americans believe football was America’s sport. Baseball came next on the list at 27%.
The rest of list consisted of basketball (8%), soccer (3%), auto racing (3%), hockey (1%) and "something else" (2%).
"in the US only the NFL is more popular"
The NBA is also more popular than MLB in the US.
"The NFL is more popular because its 17 games"
The NFL is more popular because the games are more exciting.
Robb
in 1975 baseball was more popular then football and there were only 14 games played per season in the NFL so that theory goes out the window, with all your theory's that are excuses it won't be long before Pickle ball and the WNBA pass up MLB
they need a hard cap in MLB !!
No the NBA is not more popular. MLB makes more money than the NBA and has better ratings. LSU vs South Carolina womens college basketball had higher ratings than the NBA games that day
The NFL doesnt have a hard cap why should MLB? Why should any league? Why should players be limited in what they can earn regardless of league revenue?
Their attendance and ratings have been going up. Stating situations arent excuses. Its a fact that multiple MLB teams and owners are actively tanking and using the money to make empires off the field instead of putting it into the product on the field
If that's the case then fans should stop supporting those teams.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
Did he just describe baseball or woopie after sixty ?
They do. Theres a reason why more than 1 MLB teams average attendance wouldnt even be top 2 in the SEC for baseball despite the fact that the MLB stadiums can have 50k+ and the SEC stadiums max out around 12k but can get up to over 16k with a lot of standing room.
Its an embarrassment for an MLB team to have a lower average attendance in baseball than college teams. The As were such an embarrassment tanking to move the team that multiple players in MLB made more money last season than the As entire payroll combined
Certainly not the case in Pittsburgh. Their pathetic owner refuses to spend the money, and yet averages 20,000 a game to see a lousy team.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
They get some exciting players sometimes from always drafting so high, but they benefit greatly having a beautiful stadium with the river and the skyline in the background. Also helps the closest team to them is Cleveland and their owner is very cheap as well