Baseball has a problem.
The age of baseball viewers is getting older, and the amount of younger viewers is not increasing.
In 2013, the majority of viewers for all six World Series games were in the 55-59 age demographic. In contrast to older demographics, viewers aged 2-17, didn’t even crack 10%.
As baseball fans, we at the moment, don’t exactly care. We usually take the “Who cares?” route as we do with people who go out of their way to tell us “BASEBALL SUCKS!”, and most of us go on with our baseball loving lives.
The reality is, if kids aren’t watching the game, and if they don’t go on to ever replace the older baseball demographic, baseball will not sustain as we know it.
MLB has recognized that there are many factors that can be contributing to why the younger demographic aren’t becoming fans and sticking with the game. Some of those factors include game length, speed, and lack of offense.
To combat game length, MLB will be experimenting with pitch clocks in the minor leagues that will require the pitcher to pitch the ball within a certain time frame.
Other ideas are also being considered to make the game shorter, such as limiting the amount of warm up pitches a pitcher can throw in between innings, cracking down on meetings at the mound, and requiring the batter to be in the box throughout the entire at-bat.
To combat lack of offense, MLB’s new commissioner Robert Manfred, suggested an idea in which he said he would consider eliminating defensive shifts to pump more offense into the game.
If you haven’t heard that one yet, and are about to throw the device that you’re reading this on in rage, it’s not necessary. He later retracted the idea in an interview with Ken Rosenthal and he said it would only be considered in a worst case scenario situation.
It’s good that the actual game and parts of it are being looked at, but one item is being completely overlooked: Kids aren’t playing baseball anymore.
Overall, in comparison from the 90’s to about now, participants in Little League has dropped from almost 3 million to 2.4 million, showing a steady decline of participation through the years.
Safety, other avenues of entertainment, and overall lack of physical activity among kids in general may be the cause, but one factor that isn’t being considered is how you practically have to be privileged to play baseball when growing up in America.
I’m a prime example. I didn’t come from a poor family, but my family certainly had to watch their pennies. So when it came time for Little League signups each year, my parents had to seriously question whether or not $90 (at the time in the late 90’s) for annual sign ups was worth their money. As a result, I only got to play Little League for two years growing up.
Sure, $90 isn’t bad you say. However, add in the cost of equipment (not to mention driving around town trying to find a glove for a lefty), cleats, and a few extra bucks for a uniform fee, and we were well over $200. Multiply most of that on a yearly basis, and the ever increasing need to play in multiple leagues year round because that’s what you have to do with you want to compete with the other kids, and your parents are forking out serious money that they can be putting towards food on the dinner table for you and your siblings.
I checked the website for a Little League here in Las Vegas, NV, and this year’s sign up fees for that league range from $120-175, for something that only lasts a few months out of the year. That’s almost a month worth of health insurance for some people who have to pay for it out of pocket.
One may argue, that the kid can go play ball at the park with his friends. However, that simply isn’t the case these days. Many parks lock their fields up, and require some sort of reservation and fee to borrow the baseball diamond. So there goes that.
Do you know what you can do, though? Get some friends together in an open field, make a couple of end zones, and play two hand touch football. You can also play fútbol, too. Your choice.
Don’t like those games? No problem. Maybe you’ll be interested in the basketball hoops at the park that are not fenced off and are free to use providing you bring a basketball.
Not only are these sports more affordable and easier to play without expensive equipment, but the last time I checked, I had a lot more friends that enjoyed those sports more than they do baseball, and that’s because they had an opportunity to play those games growing up.
MLB shouldn’t subsidize every kid’s Little League annual fee. However, an effort should be made to see if the game can be made more affordable and more accessible.
Whether it’s working with parks to encourage making the fields more accessible, working with Little League to try to force down costs, or just straight up marketing more directly to kids and parents, MLB needs to increase the amount of kids playing, in which hopefully in return will increase interest in the game.
It doesn’t matter how fast the game goes or how easy you make it to score runs. If kids don’t gain exposure to the game by way of playing it, they will be less likely to gain interest it, and baseball will never replenish the fan base that it currently has.
Baseball will continue to pass with time and its fans, and everyone will forget it was ever America’s pastime.
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