Going down the "Baseball is dying" path (split)

[stevejrogers]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: To be fair, Bud's other legacies will be enormous spikes in the popularity and profitability of the game that enriched all its participants but the fans.

Not to go down the "Baseball is dying" path again, but not sure if you really can call growth in the New England/New York corridor, St Louis and Chicago a true enormous spike in popularity.

Baseball will NEVER supplant COLLEGE football (never mind the NFL) in the South and West, Golf (both PGA and LPGA) and NASCAR really are breathing down baseball's neck, and a strong case can be made that both college and pro hoops have long supplanted baseball as the second biggest sport in the country.

Fans still haven't come back from 1994, and it's at a point where I really don't think they will return, even in places like Philly (and the Phillies have had a few seasons, especially the last two where they were battling until the final week of the season) and KC.

It's more like Selig didn't have the sport completely implode on his watch, not "enormous spikes in the popularity"

The profitability I'll give you somewhat, but that is more baseball joining trends with the other major sports. Throw back apparel, internet services including audio and video content, satellite radio and the MLB Extra Innings package on DirecTV and other providers, MLB certainly isn't a trailblazer in any of those areas, it's more "Oh well they are doing it, why don't we?"

[metsmarathon]

going back to 1986, the only time the phillies had a higher attendance than they had in the past two years was when they won the division, and came oh so close to winning it all. in fact, in the 8 years i just looked at, they averaged maybe less than 2 million, and in the past two years, its been more like 2.7 million.

attendance-wise, they seem to be doing rather fine.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I like the part where those attractions he defines as ahead of baseball will never be supplanted, but those behind baseball are an imminent threat.

[Guest sharpie]

I lived for 11 years in the Bay Area and COLLEGE football (why the caps?) wasn't/isn't a speck on the horizon of baseball even though Cal and Stanford have a big rivalry. Are you implying that UCLA/USC are more popular than the Dodgers? I don't think so. The South isn't good baseball territory, never has been. Golf? Please.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Steve J., I disagree with almost everything in your post and I'd be happy to show where its wrong or mis-stated but I'm very busy. I just want on the record that my original comment stands and is very accurate.

[stevejrogers]

metsmarathon wrote: going back to 1986, the only time the phillies had a higher attendance than they had in the past two years was when they won the division, and came oh so close to winning it all. in fact, in the 8 years i just looked at, they averaged maybe less than 2 million, and in the past two years, its been more like 2.7 million. attendance-wise, they seem to be doing rather fine.

Okay, then tell me why with the Phillies, and the eventual MVP, were in the throes of a wild card race, and even had a sliver of hope of the Mets pulling a Cardinal-esque meltdown (they did of course, but the Phillies were too far back) the talk on WIP and the other station down there, and the newspapers were all focusing on the Eagles, and even the Sixers and Flyers?

Situation was reversed, it'd be all Mets all the time here in New York, not in Philly.

[seawolf17]

Gotta figure Philly's attendance spike comes from the spanking-new ballpark.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I can't work out the meaning of that last paragraph.

[Guest vtmet]

Edgy DC wrote: I can't work out the meaning of that last paragraph.

last paragraph of which post?

[Guest Edgy DC]

"Situation was reversed, it'd be all Mets all the time here in New York, not in Philly."

It has something to do with caring about what Steve hears on the radio.

[seawolf17]

Once again, you can't assume that the morons on sports-talk radio are representative of the larger sports-fan body of an area.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]That means baseball is on a decline, hence the imminent threats and the fact that baseball will never touch those that are ahead.

By what terms? You've established none of this.

And why should I care? Do Americans suddenly not have enough discretionary income to blow on more than one piece of shit? The size of the landfills tells me no.

Landsakes, it's December and fools on Sports Radio are talking about basketball.

[stevejrogers]

Edgy DC wrote: I can't work out the meaning of that last paragraph.

Mets are in a Wild Card hunt all September after making a "White Flag" trade before the 7/31 deadline, even to the point where they might JUST be able to sniff blood coming from the NL East frontrunner, but lose out on the very, VERY last day of the season, plus have Beltran or Wright just have a MONSTER end the season with MVP talk.

Yeah, you bet the Giants, Jets and pre-season Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Nets and Islanders are taking backseats.

Not so much in Philly.

[Guest sharpie]

]The NFL's place is very secure, and try talking October baseball in SEC country. Or in Southern California, Texas, Nebraska, Columbus, Ann Arbor or and other place were College Football is King.

I bet it was pretty easy to talk Tiger baseball this past October. Those games looked like sellouts to me. Also, I've spent many hours talking October baseball in Southern California. Other than alumni, no one I know ever talks about college football there.

This is a moronic argument. College football is played once a week at (mostly) a different time of the year from baseball. In places where there is a big college and no baseball team (such as Nebraska), of course that is the focus.

[Guest Edgy DC]

SteveJRogers wrote: ="Edgy DC"]I can't work out the meaning of that last paragraph. Mets are in a Wild Card hunt all September after making a "White Flag" trade before the 7/31 deadline, even to the point where they might JUST be able to sniff blood coming from the NL East frontrunner, but lose out on the very, VERY last day of the season, plus have Beltran or Wright just have a MONSTER end the season with MVP talk. Yeah, you bet the Giants, Jets and pre-season Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Nets and Islanders are taking backseats. Not so much in Philly.

Take it easy. It's December. There's no back seat. The season has been over for several weeks. Turn the radio off.

[stevejrogers]

Edgy DC wrote: ]That means baseball is on a decline, hence the imminent threats and the fact that baseball will never touch those that are ahead. By what terms? You've established none of this.

NASCAR and Golf are the fastest growing sports in terms of TV audience in the country. FACT. Baseball has been declining for years.

Football is the unquestioned king, either pro or college.

Baseball is in a decline, there really isn't much in the way of disputing that. TV viewership is down, and if you want to use attendance, if you take out the two NY teams, Boston, Chicago and St Louis, you'll find that baseball really hasn't "returned" the way it is projected.

]And why should I care? Do Americans suddenly not have enough discretionary income to blow on more than one piece of shit? The size of the landfills tells me no.

No I suppose in the grand scheme you don't have to. Same way hockey fans don't care that they are the "Little Sport That Could" right now, same way fans of a low rated TV show fight bitterly for their show to survive another season despite objections from it's network. If you like something then yeah the lack of popularity shouldn't be a concern.

I'm just saying you can't say Selig's reign has seen "enormous spikes in the popularity and profitability" when the success is essentially smoke and mirrors.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]FACT. Baseball has been declining for years.

Please define your terms or stop making this claim.

Christ, Steve, baseball isn't going to be cancelled because of lack of viewer interest. Fact, as you say.

[stevejrogers]

sharpie wrote: ]The NFL's place is very secure, and try talking October baseball in SEC country. Or in Southern California, Texas, Nebraska, Columbus, Ann Arbor or and other place were College Football is King. I bet it was pretty easy to talk Tiger baseball this past October. Those games looked like sellouts to me. Also, I've spent many hours talking October baseball in Southern California. Other than alumni, no one I know ever talks about college football there. This is a moronic argument. College football is played once a week at (mostly) a different time of the year from baseball. In places where there is a big college and no baseball team (such as Nebraska), of course that is the focus.

Oh really, then why does ESPN cover college football practices in the Spring and Summer? Why did I once hear Chris Simms back in his college days be interviewed in MID JULY?

Why does ESPN run it's "In The Huddle" NFL radio show every week, all year? Clearly there is a national desire for both pro and college football talk year round, you don't really get that with baseball except New York and Boston

[stevejrogers]

Edgy DC wrote: ]FACT. Baseball has been declining for years. Please define your terms or stop making this claim. Christ, Steve, baseball isn't going to be cancelled because of lack of viewer interest. Um, Fact.

Neither is the NHL, but then again notice how the national games are pretty much a dinosaur? It's all pretty regionalized. We pretty much won't see anymore of the "Ryne Sandberg Game" in Chicago 1984 when he hit the two homers of Sutter in an NBC "Game of The Week"

[Guest Edgy DC]

So, you're not going to define your terms.

If you acknowledge that the season isn't going to be cancelled due to lack of interest, please don't compare the game a dying TV show.

Yeah, people's focus in baseball is largely built around their team. That's not that new.

[stevejrogers]

From
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/09/05/8271412/index.htm

]This, race fans, is the new world of NASCAR, the fastest-growing, best-run sports business in America--with the emphasis on business. Once the province of moonshine runners and good ol' boys, the sport has courted corporate America for decades. But NASCAR's recent explosion in popularity--and the establishment of its racetracks as big-time commercial venues--is unprecedented. Stock-car racing is now a multibillion-dollar industry. The second-most-watched sport on television behind pro football, NASCAR has seen its ratings increase by more than 50% since it inked a six-year, $2.4 billion network deal five years ago. The sport is on pace this year for its highest TV viewership ever; the last time a major professional sport set a new high was the NFL in 1981. Licensed retail sales of NASCAR-branded products have increased 250% over the past decade, totaling $2.1 billion last year alone (up from $1.3 billion in 2000). Nascar.com is one of the most highly trafficked sports websites. The NASCAR name is so hot that market research firm PSB picked it as the country's No. 2 brand for 2005, ahead of both Google and iPod (BlackBerry was No. 1).

[stevejrogers]

http://www.faqfarm.com/Q/How_do_professional_sports_in_the_US_rank_in_popularity

[stevejrogers]

Six years old but after McGwire, Ripken and Sosa "saved the game" after the 1994 strike:

http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/135820/gallup-reveals-decline-in-baseball-s-popularity
GALLUP REVEALS DECLINE IN BASEBALL?S POPULARITY

Thu, 27/09/2001 - 23:00
American Football | Baseball | Basketball

A Gallup poll conducted just before the start of the new baseball season has revealed that only 12 percent of US respondents chose baseball as their "favourite sport to watch".

This represents a 1 percent drop from last year?s figures and a 9 percent drop in popularity since 1994. However, 56 percent of respondents said they are fans of major league baseball.
This group of fans approved of innovations such as inter-league play, league-championship playoffs and the inclusion of wild-card playoff teams. But 58 percent said that players? salaries were a "change for the worse? with 79 percent saying that team owners should be allowed to institute a salary cap.
Only the Yankees and the Braves recorded double digit ?favourite team? status among the respondents
The poll concluded that American Football (28%) was the most popular sport to watch followed by basketball (16%).

[TransMonk]

]NASCAR and Golf are the fastest growing sports in terms of TV audience in the country. FACT. Baseball has been declining for years. Football is the unquestioned king, either pro or college. Baseball is in a decline, there really isn't much in the way of disputing that. TV viewership is down, and if you want to use attendance, if you take out the two NY teams, Boston, Chicago and St Louis, you'll find that baseball really hasn't "returned" the way it is projected.

Half of MLB's teams set local TV revenue records last season...in addition to attendence records. More than just NY, Boston, Chicago and St Louis.

MLB.TV made $150 from me alone and SNY made a portion of my Direct TV bill last year. I paid for 9 Mets baseball tickets, 2 Mets caps, my dad got me a Wright jersey for my birthday...and I live in Wisconsin!

Does NBA or PGA even often online services that offer all their games?

[Guest Edgy DC]

For the last time, I don't care how other sports are doing. More power to them, I guess, but I don't know who Chris Simms is. Other attractions expanding does not mean baseball is in decline.

[Guest sharpie]

Those NASCAR viewers weren't baseball viewers to begin with. The demographic is totally different. Heck, football viewership is down, is that evidence that the sport is dying? There's just a lot of choices for what to watch or pay attention to. Baseball of course doesn't command the level that it once did before there were all of those choices but to worry that people are watching golf or college football or whatever just isn't what matters.

[stevejrogers]

Not just idiots on sports radio who think this:

http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=939

U.Va. Law Professor Asks, Is MLB Dropping the Ball?

Oct. 30, 2006 � Fans of the St. Louis Cardinals celebrating their team�s victory in the 2006 World Series may be startled to hear G. Edward White pose a simple question: Has baseball struck out as America�s national pastime?

In his 1996 book, �Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903-1953,� White examined the early 20th-century forces that shaped the sport. In recent years, the U.Va. law professor and baseball fan has observed developments that have damaged the game and threaten its place in American sports culture.

White shared his concerns about �Baseball at the Crossroads� at a talk on Oct. 14 � the third of five �More than the Score� lectures organized by the Office of the Provost in collaboration with the U.Va. Alumni Association. The lecture series was created for alumni visiting Charlottesville for home football games on fall weekends. The talks are free and open to the public.

White comes by his interest in sports honestly. He played in the outfield as an undergraduate at Amherst College. He has coached the girls� soccer team at Charlottesville High School. And he has competed in doubles squash.

But baseball holds a special place in his heart. In recent years, Major League Baseball has been flashing some encouraging signs.

�Ballparks are to some extent full,� White said. �Winning teams fill the stands even though ticket prices are high. TV contracts continue to be written. The labor situation is stable.�

But signs of trouble have emerged as well. One of them is competition from other sports.

�Most schoolchildren today are not playing baseball as they were 50 years ago, some of them are playing football or basketball instead,� White said. �When I was in high school, there were no women�s sports. Soccer, lacrosse and tennis, which are popular now, weren�t offered then.�

Another issue is the nature of baseball at a time when middle-class parents worry about their children�s tender psyches.

�Baseball is not an attractive sport for many young people to play because the action is centered on the pitcher and the batter,� White said. �There is little motion on the field. There is a high level of difficulty. Baseball has a hard ball. A small bat. And the fielding and hitting are not intuitive. Most young children are not good at it and so they fail and they fail publicly.

�Compare that with soccer,� he said. �The kids run around on a field. They�re largely anonymous. Some of the good kids break out of the pack. But no one is stigmatized in the same way that someone is striking out with everyone watching. It�s no surprise that soccer is a reflexive sports activity that professional people introduce their children to.�

The result is that with fewer families introducing their children to the game, fewer adults have played the game. This affects the popularity of baseball as entertainment for adults. �The sport is now only one among many offerings,� White said.

Add to that the lack of gender diversity in the game: baseball is played primarily by boys and men. �Compare that with soccer,� White said. �Girls are capable of playing soccer at a very high level, just as they play tennis or golf at a very high level. That�s another disadvantage � there are no professional women in baseball.�

Other issues have a major impact on the game�s current popularity and hold implications for its future popularity as well.

�The large market franchises have more purchasing power [for players] than the smaller markets,� White said. �The question of market size is not just the population attending games in person, but also those watching the games on TV and listening to the games on the radio. The Yankees get the largest revenues from TV, not just because it�s a large metro area, but also because of the cachet of the Yankees. New England cities pick up the Yankees as part of a cable package and that adds to the team�s revenues.

�So, what�s the problem?� he asked. �Free agency. Nearly all players have contracts that expire after one, two or three years. Then the player is released and goes on the free agency market. Players have learned to go on the market after a very good year. Also, they have strong incentives to negotiate the terms of the next contract in a free agency year. Free agency means that when a contract ends the large market teams can outbid the small markets teams for free agents. It�s no surprise that the Yankees contend nearly every year.�

Then, there�s the �s� word. Steroids.

�Baseball could not have managed an issue less well than it did steroids,� White said. Citing the 1994 baseball strike and lockout, which resulted in the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years, he said, �The owners worried that fans would not come back to baseball. It was right about then that baseball players started to hit a lot of home runs.

�The physical shape of baseball players changed,� he said, pointing to players like Mark McGuire, who broke Roger Maris� single-season homerun record in 1998, and Barry Bonds, who is vying to break Hank Aaron�s career homerun mark of 755. �The number of home runs these players were hitting versus [their hitting percentages] early in their careers went up,� he said. �There were rumors about changes in their physical shapes.�

But baseball as an industry did nothing.

�The players union did not want testing,� White said. �The owners figured these home runs are putting people in the stands.� It got so bad that Congress held hearings, essentially telling the industry that if they didn�t do anything, Congress would impose legislation.

So, the question is, what will baseball do? The answer is, it�s still not clear.

�If you want to invalidate steroids records, how do you do that?� White asked.
�The steroid problem is embarrassing for baseball and it is largely insoluble.�

Yet another issue confronting the sport is its changing racial and ethnic composition.

From the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, increasing numbers of African-American players appeared in the game. But beginning in the 1970s, those numbers began to fall and the number of Latinos began to rise.

�The increase in Latinos is simply a result of baseball recruiting worldwide, particularly in Latin America,� White said. �These players, many coming from poor countries, have strong economic incentives to sign up at an early age. And the teams take their chances and sign these young players for relatively little money. That�s a nice part of the story of baseball � it�s more inclusive than it used to be and it�s more inclusive of Latin Americans than it used to be.

But why have the number of African-American players declined?

�There is competition from other sports for African-American players,� White said. �Football and basketball are more attractive to them. While the number of white players on NBA rosters and NFL rosters is very small, African Americans are flocking to those sports, dominating them. It is thought they can make more money in those sports.�

The pity is that in recent years, baseball has tried to show it cares about African-American players.

�[Major League Baseball] retired Jackie Robinson�s number (42) and they�ve been doing better recently in recruiting African-American managers,� White said. �But baseball is not doing a good job of selling itself to African-American males as a sport. And it is losing out on good athletes. And as a result the sport is not as representative of American society as it was.�

Each of these issues is troublesome for the future of the sport. In his 1996 book, White predicted that the position of baseball in American sports would decline in the coming decades. Nothing he has seen since has changed his mind.

�Baseball has been behind the curve,� White said. �It needs to be more ahead of the curve.�

It�s as if the sport itself is in the bottom of the ninth inning, down by three, and the bottom of the lineup is coming up to bat. The odds are long, but in baseball, �it ain�t over �til it�s over.�

[TransMonk]

White's obviously still trying to sell a book that is 10 years outdated.

[Guest Edgy DC]

More kids don't play baseball. True, we're raising a generation of fat pigs. I think we all know that. That in no way supports your thesis that baseball is dying nor even your subsequent contention that it is on the decline.

Revenue disparities hurt baseball. I think we all know that. That in no way supports your thesis that baseball is dying nor even your subsequent contention that it is on the decline.

Fewer blacks are playing baseball. I think we all know that. That in no way supports your thesis that baseball is dying nor even your subsequent contention that it is on the decline.

There is no disagreement that baseball could do better in a lot of areas, and Selig has failed on multipe fronts. That does not mean that baseball is dying.

[Vic Sage]

]It is thought they can make more money in those sports

that statement right there discredits this guy.

Baseball is the only sport without a salary cap, and the high end salaries (not to mention greater length of career and relative lack of serious injuries), makes baseball a much better career choice than any other sport. While its true that black athletes have gravitated to basketball and, to a lesser extent, football, rather than baseball, that development has more to do with greater inner city access to those sports. And if your a 300 pound guy, your more likely to excel at football (or maybe as a center in basketball) than you are in baseball, which is more of a skill game than a game of pure athletic ability. baseball is a harder sport, not a less remunerative one.