Wednesday when Mike Trout uploaded a message on their networks justifying the union struggle and holding the commissioner responsible Rob Manfred of not negotiating fairly in the barrage of messages that his wall received, the complaint abounded from fans who do not assimilate how millionaires and billionaires do not agree.
“I am the representative of the fans. We want a cap of 200 million for the teams. Players can only win a maximum of 25 million a year. This way we don’t have to pay $10 for a fucking hot dog. I know you won’t agree because you’re not trading for fans so stop including fans in this,” one user wrote.
While Manfred announced Tuesday in Jupiter, Florida, the suspension of the first two series (91 games) outside a group of fans asked that they wanted baseball. Big leagues assured during 2020 that the proceeds from the visit of fans to the parks (including payment of ticket offices, parking and consumption) represent 40% of the league’s income and that playing behind closed doors caused a loss of US$640,000 per game.
As Major League Baseball owners and players scramble for a green-light deal to start playing, it’s hard not to think about the latest work stoppage. The 1994-95 strike angered fans, many of whom vowed never to attend a game again.
So great was the perceived damage that some still believe it took the historic home run battle between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa to save the sport and win back fans.
The MLB it could end up affecting its image again, alienating people from the national pastime, in a more complicated scenario than in the last decade of the last century, with lots of options competing for attention, especially with digital platforms.
And lose one of his great conquests; lower the age of the public that sees it. In 2021 the average age of the 3.7 subscribers to the online platform to watch the games (MLB.tv) was 44 years old when in 2018 it was 48 with a 37% increase in time watching games compared to 2019 to 7.38 billion minutes, the league revealed.
This is the ninth work stoppage in the history of the MLB, three of which resulted in games lost: 1972 (86 games), 1981 (712 games), and 1994-95 (921 games). While average regular-season attendance plummeted in those shorter seasons, it quickly recovered to pre-stop levels, eventually surpassing those levels to set new records.
The 1972 strike, the first strike in history, was waged by players who demanded larger pension funds. The stoppage was limited to that season and only two weeks of games were missed. Average attendance per game fell 3.7% from the previous year, but picked up again the following season, rising 6.8% from 1972 numbers and 2.9% from the year before the 1971 strike.
In 1981, the stoppage spanned nearly two months and resulted in a split season, with MLB playing again in the All-Star Game, delayed until August and attended by 72,000 fans in Cleveland. Attendance during the season decreased 6.8%, but the following year grew 11.1% and was 3.6% higher than the 1980 season.
But the 1994-95 strike, which delayed the start of the 1995 season by 23 days, was another story. The 1994 season had set an attendance record of 31,256 fans per game. That plummeted by 20% in 1995, and although attendance increased by 6% in 1996, and grew year over year in four of the five subsequent seasons, the 1996 numbers were still 15.2% below the average. 1994 mark, which was the highest.
It wasn’t until 2006. But despite that, attendance had recovered to levels from earlier in the decade, and 1997, the year before Sosa and McGwire staged their historic battle, saw the third-highest average on record in that moment.
With no work stoppages or a 2020 pandemic, baseball was facing declining attendance (along with several other sports). But streaming dollars had made up the difference and then some: Regional sports networks continued to post strong market ratings in 2019.
Previous work stoppages suggest that MLB It would probably see a hit in the short term, but it would eventually recover, not the losses. History suggests that when there are games, people watch them, no matter how long team owners and players make them wait.
