They say apathy is worse than anger. If that’s true, the MLB could be in trouble.
We’ve been in the MLB lockdown for over a month, with negotiations virtually non-existent, spring training report dates getting closer and many sports fans greeting it all with a… throaty meh deployed.
If a recent Seton Hall University poll is to be believed, a large chunk of sports fans view the lockdown’s lack of progress not with anger or impatience, but with indifference.
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Last month’s survey of 1,570 adults found that 44% of those polled who identify as avid sports fans would be less interested in major league baseball at the start of the 2022 season. MLB as a disturbing number. But even if the powers that be reject this, there is another disturbing revelation from the poll: 54% of the general public responded that they had no interest in MLB anyway.
Even if you are the optimistic type about the current state of baseball, it certainly sounds like bad news for MLB players and managers. And the longer the lockdown persists, the wider the path to apathy widens.
“We know from previous work stoppages, whether initiated by management (lockout) or unions (strike), that fans tend to come back. Today, however, there is immense competition in entertainment, ”said Charles Grantham, director of Seton Hall’s Center for Sports Management. “These numbers are not encouraging and should be of great concern for a sport that is trying to reverse steadily declining scores and attendance. “
The poll numbers match other evidence that paints a potentially grim picture, even with the necessary caveats in mind.
MLB attendance hit a 37-year low in 2021, with average attendance per game declining for the fifth straight season (not counting the 2020 season without fans). While much of the blame for 2021 attendance can be blamed on restrictions imposed by the pandemic in the first half of the season, the drop is still very noticeable as there has been no corresponding increase. in home viewership, which was down 12% from 2019 and while part of that decrease was due to fewer streaming options in parts of the country, the fact remains that fewer people watch baseball as a leisure activity – and those who watch are older and older.
In 2017, the average age of MLB fans / viewers was 57, down from 52 in 2000. Compare this with the average age of fans in the NFL (50), NBA (42), NHL (49) and MLS (40), and it’s clear that baseball faces a major challenge if it hopes to cultivate a younger, more diverse audience. But this would be the case in a normal year without a work stoppage. The fact that these numbers exist in a lockdown winter devoid of any good baseball news only underscores that MLB is even more at risk of losing money in the long run, not to mention diminished cultural influence. if she continues to give her fans and potential fans a reason to find alternative entertainment. .
This is where these discussions usually get repetitive, with the usual Suspects behind baseball’s problems each bowing: long games, slow pace, diminishing action on the field, poor marketing, poor leadership. But their familiarity with these debates makes their effects nonetheless real.
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Although the MLB has had a few victories lately, the game “Field of Dreams” has been a success Last August viewership increased slightly for the 2021 World Series and streaming apps and digital platforms for watching games are on the rise – baseball still has a problem of interest in the larger sports landscape. and entertainment. This is not necessarily surprising, given the ever-growing list of leisure options. But it’s not nothing either.
MLB has long seemed to operate with a ‘if we play it they will come’ mentality, resting on decades of laurels and appearing to believe that its relative lack of a show, lack of well-known names, and rising cost of attendance would have little impact. impact on the health or popularity of sport. In other words, “The people will come, Ray. People will most certainly come. “
While this allows the moving film dialogue to tap into the desire for an idealized version of baseball, the sentiment hasn’t been true for a long time, and it will certainly have no basis in reality for much longer in our lives. current circumstances.
While it’s probably true that most die-hard baseball fans will lose little to no interest in the sport they love, no matter what, keeping these people engaged shouldn’t be the goal. especially when they tend to be much older than the average sports fan. . Placing younger buttocks in seats, younger eyes to watch out for, and younger brains to heal is the challenge for the foreseeable future.
The longer the lockout lasts, the more MLB owners and players give us little reason to think about their sport beyond bemoaning its inability to pull itself together, the harder the challenge becomes.
So how can MLB – both players and owners – reverse the Seton Hall poll numbers? How much time do they have left before they become irreversible? The solutions are for the most part debatable, but one is indisputable: they must play the games. MLB must have a product to showcase. This means that this labor dispute must end quickly so that MLB and its players can make their final sales pitch to millions of fans and potential customers.
There is a lot to love in modern baseball, but admirers cannot get flirtatious and fall in love if there is nothing to woo them. Any significant delay to the 2022 season carries big potential risks, ranging from short-term income to long-term resilience. So it’s best not to be late at all.
There may have been a time when “if we play it, they will come” was a reasonable operating philosophy. But we are certainly no longer there. There are now other “ifs” to consider – including what happens if baseball slips further into the entertainment consciousness of the public.
This is a result that would likely shift baseball from importance to uselessness.
