MLB atttendance concerns

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MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#1 » by Mamba Mentality » Thu May 2, 2019 4:57 pm

Attendance has been an issue for Major League Baseball once again in 2019. After watching attendance drop by four percent in 2018, the early returns don’t look promising.

According to USA Today, 12 teams averaged fewer fans in March and April than they did compared to last season. The Toronto Blue Jays lead the way with a staggering 33 percent decrease.

The Blue Jays are far from the only rebuilding team to lose fans. The Miami Marlins, Minnesota Twins, Royals and San Francisco Giants have been the five biggest attendance losers thus far. Of that group, only the Twins went out and made significant additions in the offseason.

The Giants’ failure to draw fans is the most surprising, according to USA Today.

The most startling loss comes in San Francisco. The Giants have been almost perennial contenders and drew at least 3 million fans in 18 of 20 seasons at Oracle (neé Pacific Bell and AT&T) Park. Bound for their third straight losing season and with a concerted rebuilding effort at hand, the Giants are averaging 32,665 fans – down 17% from an average of 39,278 in March-April 2018.


https://www.yahoo.com/sports/mlb-attendance-is-down-again-and-rebuilding-teams-are-getting-hit-hard-014951998.html

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I haven't been to a baseball game in a while, but I hear a lot of complaints regarding ticket and concession prices. Is that really the root problem or is baseball as a sport just down in popularity/doesn't garner enough interest from younger generations?
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#2 » by JazzUte88 » Thu May 9, 2019 12:43 pm

I've thought about going to the Dodger game on Friday (10th) and I'm up in the air on going.
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#3 » by Dr Positivity » Wed May 15, 2019 4:00 am

There is cracks in the foundation of MLB's popularity. The numbers are still good enough to make people happy now, but if they wait until it becomes obvious something needs to be done it will be too late. In my opinion a sport that is 162 games a year at 3 hours a game is not a model that fits the social media/Netflix era. An 82 game season that runs from mid June until September would be giving up so many gate tickets and ratings but if it makes the sport more exciting and popular the money can work out. The most profitable sport does fine playing only 16. My crazier idea is 162 7 inning games which would surely piss off the purists but turning games from 3 hours to 2 could make the difference for people and it means there's less games going on at once so baseball fans watch more games outside their own leading to players like Mike Trout getting over for them more as stars. The owners can charge the same price for 7 inning games as 9 so their pocket don't get hurt like cutting the season in half
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#4 » by isiah_thomas » Sat May 18, 2019 3:25 pm

Some of it has to do with bad weather . people aren't doing to sit down for 3/4 hours in the cold

Bad teams- if a team is awful fans just won't go

Then you have a team like the rays who are good but don't have the fanbase and can't draw fans. They would be better off moving somewhere else
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#5 » by isiah_thomas » Sat May 18, 2019 3:33 pm

Read on Twitter
?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1127236417900490752&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.courier-journal.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fmlb%2F2019%2F05%2F13%2Fmlb-attendance-woes-can-they-be-fixed%2F1185468001%2F

Things like this don't help either
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#6 » by isiah_thomas » Sat May 18, 2019 3:33 pm

Read on Twitter
?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1127236417900490752&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.courier-journal.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fmlb%2F2019%2F05%2F13%2Fmlb-attendance-woes-can-they-be-fixed%2F1185468001%2F

Things like this don't help either
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#7 » by eaglesha » Thu May 23, 2019 7:56 am

I watched it on my Awesome
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#8 » by Sixerscan » Thu May 23, 2019 11:18 pm

Phillies are on pace to draw 2.9 million a year after drawing 2.1, expect them to crack 3 as the weather gets better and there's hopefully a pennant race.

I don't think there's a lack of interest in baseball games as much as there are so many teams that their fans know just aren't going to be competitive from day 1. People will go watch a good team play a 3.5 hour game, they won't watch a bad team that has no interest in competing. That Royals game is a great example, their World Series year, which was only 4 years ago, they had 2.7 million people come watch them. But now that they're basically punting on the year people don't want to waste their money.

The key is figuring out a way to eliminating this huge caste of teams that just has no interest in being competitive (aka like 2/3s of the AL).

The Rays are a whole different issue, that whole situation is toxic, it either needs to be fixed or the team needs to move.
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#9 » by Kingsway_fan » Thu Aug 1, 2019 8:36 pm

Games too long..too many games...
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#10 » by jason bourne » Sun Nov 17, 2019 11:35 pm

I'm not going anymore, nor do I watch MLB on tv because the game is too long. This is probably since 2016. The other thing that bugs me is the specialty relief pitchers and starting pitchers not going 9 innings anymore. They should give 1.33 wins if the starter goes 9 as incentive. Otherwise, the game has become one of sabermetrics. That's pretty boring for the fans when the analytics determines to outcome of the games and strategy. Does one have to have a degree and study the teams before going? Why go when you already know the outcome? It has led to even more specialty players on the active roster like having a LH hitting catchers to stick in the lineup during later innings.

I thought when I retired (early retirement), that I'd get season tickets and watch. It's nice to go out to the ball park in spring and leisurely watch a game. Around 2 hours. However, it's a waste of time now to go to 81 home games. That's close to the length of the NBA season, and the NBA is thinking about shortening the regular season.

Why MLB doesn't change is because of tradition. There isn't any other reason. Thus, I hope they lose, lose, lose big bucks until they are forced to change the rules. One should not have to "juice" the ball to get more home runs. They need to get better players. The current players aren't that good and way overpaid. The MLB does juice the ball because they bought the manufacturer and it is under control of MLB now.

Here is a good, fairly recent article from a young man on what's wrong with MLB. I agree with him wholeheartedly and want all his changes (demands?) implemented.

"When I was 6 years old, I watched as my hometown Anaheim Angels took down the almighty Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants in the World Series. This was my first real exposure to baseball. It was a joyous moment of my childhood.

I followed baseball for a few years, and especially the Angels, but somehow it just didn’t stick with me. Maybe it was because I didn’t really play the sport, or maybe it was because the Angels never reached that pinnacle again. Regardless, the sport that had given me so much joy in that fall of 2002 never felt the same again.

In the past week, I’ve been told to watch the Angels because of their new rookie sensation, Shohei Ohtani. He’s brilliant, don’t get me wrong, but even after seeing him play his first few games, I still come to the same conclusion I reached as a kid: This sport is just plain boring, at least in the regular season.

Baseball fans will argue that the smallest details are what makes it exciting. They pay attention to whether the park is for hitters or pitchers, how efficient a pitcher is with a certain pitch or how a hitter should approach an at-bat, among countless other things.

As an avid sports fan, I admit that all those intricacies are interesting, but quite frankly, baseball is a game made for the experience of being at the park. Attending a game can be fun, but there is a plethora of things I’d rather do before watching a full, televised MLB game for 3 hours and 5 minutes ─ the average nine-inning game length for the 2017 season, a record high.

If length isn’t bad enough, the insignificance of any one game out of a grueling 162-game season doesn’t motivate me to watch this sport. And if I don’t pay attention to the narrative of the regular season, the exhilarating playoffs turn into nothing more than a mildly better version of baseball.

The main reason I, along with many others, don’t watch baseball is because the action on the offensive side of the ball is lacking. As pitchers have gotten better over the years, batters have become more aggressive at swinging for the fences rather than making contact. With this trend, the rate of the the “three true outcomes” ─ a strikeout, walk or home run ─ has risen to its highest in MLB history.

So now more than ever, the game comes down to the play between two men — pitcher and batter — and, at most, a few minutes of excitement in total.

So what can the MLB do about it? The idea of a pitch clock has been thrown around for years now but never implemented for some reason. I think that would do wonders for the game.

But the pitch clock is just one of numerous proposed ideas to make it more interesting. Only allow three attempted pickoffs before the runner gets a free base. Get rid of pinch hitters and runners so that every player has to have a well-rounded, athletic game. Or even start extra innings with a runner at second base ─ although this idea has been vehemently opposed.

Unfortunately, I think the biggest problem the MLB has is that baseball is valued as a pastime, where tradition trumps all. To me and many others, however, the idea of emphasizing tradition and not changing the game is exactly what is making America’s favorite pastime a thing of the past.

So yes, Ohtani might be the new exciting thing to watch in the MLB, but as far as I’m concerned, somewhere around game 40, even his hype may begin to fade. And sadly, if the Angels are back in contention for a World Series, I doubt I’ll care enough to see it unfold."

https://www.dailycal.org/2018/04/10/boring-old-baseball/
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#11 » by Schulman45 » Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:26 am

.....
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#12 » by Dr Positivity » Wed Mar 2, 2022 1:09 am

20 years ago:

Tier 1 - NFL

Tier 2 - MLB, NBA

Tier 3 - NHL

In the near future:

Tier 1 - NFL

Tier 2 - NBA

Tier 3 - MLB, NHL

MLB becomes the NHL, a still lucrative business with diehard fans, but anyone who's not watching it as their #1, starts to lose recognition of a lot of their players and ignores the regular season.

Perhaps in modern era with more stuff to do, social media, Netflix, etc. we don't need a Tier 1 sport and two Tier 2 sports. Something had to lose and drop to NHL level and NBA beat MLB. What's worrying for MLB though is it used to be Tier 1. So the trend is down.

There are many things to pick apart about MLB (games too long, feels like only two players playing at a time, etc.) but the truth is if you took a scalpel to the most popular sport, the NFL, you could come up with just as many criticisms. It's actually the SLOWEST sport, so much dead time spent on replays, penalties, commercials, walking up to the line, etc., long stretches of 3 and outs as teams punt it back and forth to each other, and the games are also long. Pitches are much more frequent than plays in football. But because people care about the winners of NFL games the most, it doesn't feel like a structural mess. The same would be true of baseball in its glory days, it was too big of a deal for them to notice some of its issues.
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#13 » by DirtybirdGA » Thu Mar 10, 2022 8:31 pm

Congrats to the MLB fans and staff and stadium employees, back on.
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#14 » by Niander » Thu May 12, 2022 11:23 am

....
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#15 » by vital_signs » Mon Jul 4, 2022 9:42 pm

The last 2 times I went to a game I sat there wondering wth I was doing with my time. It's just a boring ass sport
Inadequate perception I reckon it's from the Valium
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#16 » by JujitsuFlip » Sat Jul 9, 2022 2:52 am

Anyone just see the walk off balk? lol
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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#17 » by Jamaaliver » Fri Sep 15, 2023 2:35 pm

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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#18 » by Jamaaliver » Fri Sep 15, 2023 2:38 pm

Interesting.....

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Re: MLB atttendance concerns 

Post#19 » by TravisScott55 » Thu Dec 7, 2023 6:03 pm

Prices have gone up

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