The 5.5 Hole

The popularity of baseball is constantly questioned, by myself included. I wrote a three part analysis about baseball's popularity earlier this year. I even jumped on a certain bandwagon during that analysis, but have since decided to think for myself and have backed off that opinion. What opinion, you ask? That baseball needs to shorten its season.

Gene Wojceichowski of ESPN wrote an article about how to "fix" the World Series. What he failed to realize, or acknowledge, is that he was writing about baseball as a whole, not just the World Series. Wojceichowski makes some genuinely good suggestions in his piece (i.e. Expanding instant replay and having larger pre-game ceremonies), but he also falls into the same trap that many writers do when discussing fixes for the game. He suggests shortening the regular season, perhaps back to the 154 games played for four decades early on, and he suggests shortening the LCS and World Series to five-game series'.

Let me first start by asking a simple question: Are fewer people watching the baseball, and the World Series, because it ends on October 27th instead of October 15th? Of course not. If we end the season and postseason by October 15th, will baseball gain back the 20-plus million television viewers it lost since its peak in the 1970's. Clearly, the length of the season is not the problem. People also do not just suddenly get bored because a play-off series is now seven games instead of five. Check the division series ratings (a five-game series) verse the World Series ratings (a seven-game series).


Wojceichowski goes on to suggest limiting postseason rosters to 10 pitchers in an effort to speed up the game, and to flip-flop the DH rules and have the National League use it at home and the American League use a pitcher when they're at home. While I agree baseball has gotten too long, reducing the play-off pitching roster does not change anything and won't increase the game's popularity. People like Tony LaRussa will just use every bullpen pitcher he has instead of saving some for the next game. And the DH idea is a gimmick you'd expect to see in Minor League Baseball, not the MLB. Neither of these two ideas will change television ratings with baseball.

Many, Bud Selig included, will argue that baseball is at the height of popularity now. But those of us with a realistic view of the sport's popularity (and I would include Wojceichowski in this group), understand that baseball peaked in the late 70's, was strong in the 80's, started to fall off in the 90's, and has now become the sport of choice only for die-hard baseball fans. The problem is not based in the format of the game, the play-off system, or the length of the season. The problem is with promotion.

Has football always been as insanely popular as it is now? Absolutely not. The game itself has remained essentially the same for the past 40 years, as has baseball. Yet, football has steadily increased in popularity, taking market share from baseball. Why? Because of promotion. The NFL promotes itself better than any sports league ever has. They jumped on the Internet well before baseball, they used celebrities to market the sport long before baseball, and they have shown fans why football is fun much better than baseball has done with their fans.

Sports are a business. They have mission statements, balance sheets, investors, revenue, and profits. They have employees, customers, and stakeholders. Yet, not every league is managed as such. The NFL has business men and women running the show while baseball has loyalists, purists, and lame ducks running their league. So don't blame the game itself for popularity problems. Blame how the sport is run. Blame the people who are charged with making it a popular sport. Blame Major League Baseball - the business.

Buried deep beneath the rubble of perception and failed endeavors, baseball is in a position it has never been before; the edge of irrelevancy.  Maybe that's a little extreme.  After all, there's still the NHL and NBA to always buoy baseball.  However, Major League Baseball is in definite need of some tweaking.

First, we'll address baseball's biggest problem.  The belief that baseball is boring is not a new one, and quiet frankly, it's ridiculous.  Baseball is far from boring.  It is a game full of moments.  Moments that defy odds, shine on the biggest stage, and personify action.  Yet, the perception lives on and grows like a weed rooted deep in the sporting public's mind.

The biggest problem preventing baseball from living up to its exciting potential is television.  Not the games on TV specifically, but the television broadcasters.  If you are a baseball fan already, sit and watch a game with a non-fan.  Just pay attention to the broadcasters and your friend.  Stories of "the guy who dropped nachos" and "that time we bet on who could eat more hot dogs" trumps the reason a runner on first chooses to go on a 3-2 count with only one out, or the reason a fielder takes two steps to the right when a particular batter steps to the plate.  The television cameras pan through the stands, pick out the pretty girls and the kids covered in ice cream, and they flash advertisements for the upcoming Sunday NFL game.

If television were a bit more like radio, the "boring" label would be lessened.  The idea that baseball is not entertaining comes from a lack of understanding.  Many of the people I have watched baseball with for the first time simply did not fully understand the game.  Knowledge leads toward understanding, and understanding brings the excitement.  Football probably has as many intricacies as baseball, but the game itself is straight-forward action.  Tackles and touchdown passes are inherently exciting.  They don't need explaining.  But bunts with runners on first and second with one out need some sort of explaining.  A stolen base in the bottom of the seventh needs explaining.  An intentional walk in a one-run game needs a heck of a lot of explaining.  But you don't get that from television.  Baseball's biggest problem is their television broadcasters.  They treat the games as their own video blogs and forget to teach, inform, and wow their viewers.  Change that, and baseball is on the right path.

Next, another television-induced problem.  People do not watch baseball on television religiously.  Unlike football and basketball, Major League Baseball is shown on so many regional channels, the average fan usually has the choice of his local team or, well, his local team.  Die hard fans will spring for MLB Extra Innings or MLB.tv, but the average joe is going to flip on his Kansas City Royals local broadcast, think all of baseball is a horrid display of mediocrity, and move right along to Dancing With the Stars (sorry Royals fans, a low blow I know).

With more national broadcats, whether they be on ESPN and Fox, or on lesser utilized channels like TNT, TBS, and FX, baseball would benefit.  Competition breeds success.  The local market just has to slap on a couple of cheesy graphics, some upbeat sound effects, and pitch the nightly game to its local fans.  However, with the competition of national broadcasts night in and night out, baseball channels across the board will have to step up their game.

Now how does this lead toward an increase in fan excitement and participation?  Well, we've already established that perception is reality.  With commercial competition, each and every game will have to advertised to its fullest.  The advertisements for the nightly games will show only the best baseball has to offer, and in turn should bring more casual fans.

If you didn't notice, I keep mentioning nightly games.  That leads us to another one of baseball's destructive perceptions.  The games don't matter.  Part of this belief is based on the incredibly long schedule.  However, the schedule is necessary to root out the pretenders and get to the true contenders every season.  The number of games, of course, leads to weekday games.  Those games are the problem.

Whether it be tradition, media contracts, or some other reason, Major League Baseball insists on hosting a countless number of weekday games during the afternoon.  Now, I love afternoon baseball as much as the next guy, but not on a weekday.  The majority of our working population (you know the ones that can afford to go to baseball games and can afford the cable packages to watch them on TV) works during the week.  Each of those afternoon weekday games is lost on the casual fan, thereby limiting baseball's audience to die-hards. 

In combination with more national broadcasts, baseball could easily move their afternoon games to night starts after most people finish work.  They don't have to be 7:05 PM start times, 6:35 PM or some other time would work just as well.  And what would the game be losing? 

It's possible that these are not the be-all, end-all solutions for increasing baseball's popularity, and with the momentum behind the NFL, baseball may never re-capture number one in the hearts of sports fans.  But that's not a reason to continue to be complacent.  Major League Baseball must not stand still while the world passes it by.  Changes are paramount to re-branding the game and attracting new fans.  The fact is sports are a popularity contest, and if you're not number one, you're losing.

America's Pastime is exactly that.  A thing of the past.  This is not to say that the game has completely faded from relevancy, but it has faded.  Once the prominent sport in American society, dominated by suit-clad men shuffling through the gates after a long day's work, baseball has been replaced by football as the most popular sport.

The subtleties of the suicide squeeze, the heroics of late-inning home runs, and the mystique of a 1-0 pitcher's duel no longer seems to quench the American appetite for sport.  Instead, hard-hitting tackles, 50-yard passes, and kick returns are now America's sweetheart.  Football is a great game, wildly entertaining and exciting from start to finish, but it's not baseball.  And it's a shame that the Boys of Summer have been replaced. 

What makes the slide even more frustrating is that Major League Baseball attendance doesn't seem to be the problem.  Teams are still drawing fans.  Rather than an actual problem attracting fans to the ballparks, Major League Baseball has not marketed itself very well.  For those of you who think attendance is dropping drastically in baseball, think again.  Below is and chart with attendance figures from 1998-2010 (1998 is the first year the league went to 30 teams).







As you can see, after a significant decline in attendance in 2002 and 2003, baseball recovered and has consistently hovered around 72 million fans.  Many news outlets will take the 2009 and 2010 figures and point to the declines, but the fact is  2007 and 2008 were extraordinary years. 

So with baseball's attendance actually higher than when the league first expanded to 30 teams, drawing fans does not seem to be a problem.

In the next part of this three part series, we will examine the perception problem faced by Major League Baseball.