In my opinion, Major League Baseball is in danger of becoming irrelevant. Not only is the pace of the sport very 20th century - a pretty significant problem since we are living in the 21st century - but the league also refuses to use technology that 5-year-olds are capable of operating, presumably because doing so would take away from the “purity” of the game. Well, as the great General Eric Shinseki (?) has said, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
According to CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell, the Cleveland Indians were averaging 15,530 fans per game as of June 8th. Progressive Field holds 43,345 seats. League wide in 2009, stadiums sat at an average of 30,297 fans (68.3% of capacity). This year, through about 40 games, both the team with the highest attendance (the Yankees) and the lowest (the Indians) had lower per game averages than the teams that ranked #1 and #30 last season. Although the economy has gotten better, attendance has gone down (this, of course, could change by the end of the year).
Additionally, the economics of professional sports have been altered. Cities may be wising up and realizing that it doesn’t make sense for them to pay egregious amounts of money to build new arenas and stadiums just so owners can gobble up higher concession prices and more cash for brand new private suite purchases. The Maloof Brothers have basically stopped asking for the city of Sacramento to build the Kings a new arena. That is partially because the state of California is on the verge of bankruptcy. It is also because, guess what, companies aren’t buying private suites anymore - which is why we could’ve bought tickets to a suite at the Q during the NBA Finals had the Cavs made it there - and why we could lock up seats in a loge at Progressive Field right now. Therefore, new stadiums mean a lot less to owners than they did only a few short years ago.
At the same time, pro sports - like every other form of entertainment - now have to compete with a multitude of other options when it comes to men, women, teenagers, and children choosing what to do in their free time. Digital technology and the internet have made content so easy to create and distribute that we are overwhelmed with options. In the past, I didn’t have the option of streaming a movie from Netflix on my iPad instead of going to or watching an Indians game - now I do.
Again, as far as I’m concerned, of the three major sports, baseball is the most at risk because, by and large, it is anachronistic. It also suffers from an amazingly long season of 162 games, making it seem as if there’s barely any reason to watch until September, players that often look out of shape, and now, apparently, a de-emphasis on hitting thanks to the crackdown on performance enhancing drugs.
In other words, baseball is on its way to becoming a niche sport - and it needs to start acting like it.
I would recommend that Major League Baseball start thinking a lot more like Minor League Baseball. Contract the number of teams, first of all. Make the league more competitive, and more fun to watch, by packing maximum talent into fewer places. Force the teams to play faster. If this takes preventing pitchers from stepping off the mound and batters from leaving the batter’s box, do it. Either abolish the DH in the American League or give the DH to the National League. Make the rules uniform. Institute a salary cap. I know baseball has had more parity - in terms of championship winners - than basketball or football recently, but inefficiencies in the market are being exposed. The Yankees and the Red Sox got smart; Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s can’t use stats to outsmart the big spenders anymore. Lack of parity is coming.
Stop building new stadiums. Or if you new stadiums are built, make them smaller. Give fans a more intimate viewing experience, akin to what they get at minor league games. Do crazy promotions. Bring back nickel beer night. The Indians are already veering towards this, with all you can eat seats and Dollar Dog nights. From what I’ve heard, they’re also ripping off the entire Cavaliers game operations scheme, with funny skits in between innings and PhotoShopped pictures of the players on the scoreboard. They even use the sound of Mario powering up in-game, like the Cavs use the sound of him nabbing a coin after successfully made back-to-back free throws. Toss in a cornhole tournament, and the Indians are only a few thousand lost fans away from being the Lake Erie Crushers.
Will any of this really, truly work? Probably not. Sports are still unparalleled as an entertainment experience because we have no idea what the outcome will be while the stakes are always clear - one team will win and one team will go home losers. To turn the game into, essentially, a big joke comedy experience does the sport a disservice. But when you’re a sport that’s becoming less relevant, and you’re a team within that sport that’s failing to be competitive, you need to do what you can.
