Don’t Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Baseball was once seen as one of America’s favorite sports to watch, however that seems to be changing because the MLB is losing attendance.

Claudia Rodriguez, Staff Writer|January 11, 2019

Gary Friedman

Even though most of the MLB’s money comes from TV viewership, they still experience a great amount of loss from the decreased attendance.

Baseball is a huge part of St. Louis and it can be seen as a family tradition. This is not the case for other places outside of the area. As baseball stadium attendance is in decline.

Major League Baseball has lost over 93 million dollars and attendance has been steadily decreasing since 2004, according to time.com. Fans of the sport have their own reasoning as to why this change is taking place.

“I personally feel that baseball is losing its v backing from other people because other sports have gained more popularity,” junior Steven Gerecke said. “[Sports] such as [Major League Soccer] and rugby are starting to grow and gain more traction.”

The disappointment presented by baseball fans is well within reason, as things do not seem to be looking well in the near future for major league baseball games. This is due to the fact that attendance is the lowest it has been in over 15 years. The last time attendance was this low was during the player strike of 1995, according to fortune.com.

“The lower attendance is negatively affecting the sport because it allows for less revenue,” Gerecke said. “The issue that correlates with the lower attendance is the product on the field.”

Major League Baseball still receives plenty of TV viewership which is a major part of the money it receives, according to forbes.com. However, the fact still stands that concessions, which are affected by attendance, also make up an almost equally good amount of the money the MLB receives, according to investopedia.com.

While TV viewership will always remain strong for the sport, stadium attendance has an impact that trickles down into other factors that have a direct effect on how much money baseball makes. Besides concessions, it can influence team revenue and merchandise sales according to chicagotribune.com. Attendance is a big deal and if it decreases, so do many other sources of revenue.

Attendance going down most likely has to do with the fact that baseball games are longer than ever before, according to vox.com. In an attempt to improve this, Major League Baseball is implementing rule changes in order to shorten the game time, according to redtri.com. Amongst the rule changes is the use of a timer in between pitchers and batters, and a decrease in the amount of time in between innings.

“I believe that the three minutes or so inning break is a necessity because it allows fans to run and grab a bite to eat,” Gerecke said. “The shorter it is, the worse attendance may become.”

The effects of the rule changes are yet to be determined. Anything that has to be said about the impact it may have is pure speculation. Fans can only have hope that it will benefit baseball rather than hurt the sport.