Is Baseball Dying? Not So Fast

It’s a narrative you’ve heard repeatedly. In fact, you might even push the narrative yourself. But is baseball really dying? Let’s take a look.

 

An Uphill Battle

Attempting to write the obituary of baseball is fraught with a storyteller’s worst nightmare—clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.

To start, Major League Baseball (MLB) generates annual revenue in the $11 billion range, making it the second wealthiest sports league in the world.

Second, about 71 million fans attended MLB games during the 2024 regular season. As a matter of comparison, that would be the equivalent of every single person in France (and then some) attending a game.

Finally, while the NFL dwarfs all other sports in the US in regards to popularity, baseball is still the first love in many countries, including the likes of Japan, Taiwan, Panama, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic.

 

Not the Steepest Hill

So why all the melodrama?

It turns out that not everything surrounding America’s national pastime is sunshine and rainbows. The past decade and a half has seen an accumulation of data that could paint a picture of, well, decline.

Starting with the aforementioned attendance figure, the 71 million is still well below the 79.5 million that stepped foot in MLB ballparks during the record-setting 2007 season.

And television ratings have followed a similar trajectory. The highest-rated World Series game took place in 1980, when game six between the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals drew a rating of 40.0, meaning that among households with a television, 40 percent were tuned in to the game. The lowest-rated World Series game took place in 2023, when game two between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers drew a rating of just 4.0. Average viewership of World Series games has fallen from the 40 million range down to around 11 million.

At the Little League level, enrollment has generally dwindled since the 1990s (though some of that volume may have been acquired by overpriced, elitist travel leagues). Going hand in hand with diminishing numbers at the youth level is the fact that by one measure, the average age of an MLB fan is 57.

Numbers aside, most would agree that baseball has lost its once preeminent position in the national conversation. While pop culture references sixty years ago revolved around the sport, references to baseball today have been relegated to niche status. In other words, the national pastime is often a national afterthought.

 

The Drama-Free Interpretation

Gathering data is the easy part—interpreting it is where the complexity begins.

All sorts of explanations have been offered regarding why baseball’s place in American society has seen a downward slide:

• The games are too long.
• There are too many games.
• The games are on too late for children to watch.
• The younger generation doesn’t have as much patience.
• The changing demographics of the US have shifted collective interest away from baseball.
• MLB doesn’t market its stars well.
• Baseball is too concerned with preserving stodgy tradition.
• Baseball is just boring.
• And many others.

 

The problem with most of the above arguments is that they invoke factors that come across as far-fetched. Either a country that had previously been enamored with a sport suddenly declared the sport to be immensely problematic, or a new generation of Americans became dramatically different from its predecessors. Neither scenario is particularly plausible.

Far more believable (but also more mundane) is one simple explanation—the phenomenon of cultural fragmentation. Minus the complete anomaly that is the NFL, viewership of everything has suffered from this relatively novel circumstance.

Think of your favorite TV show. You know, that award-winning program that had you on the edge of your seat for five seasons. The vast majority of Americans have never watched it. And your favorite YouTube channel? The vast majority of Americans have never even heard of it. How about the hot new gaming platform? You get the point.

The World Series, as it stands, still trumps just about any other primetime programming in terms of viewership. Expecting the event to deliver the ratings of four decades ago borders on unreasonable.

 

So is baseball dying? It’s adjusting. It’s sorting out its standing in an era where those seeking entertainment have an ever-growing buffet of options from which to choose. Stated another way, the eggs benedict are still good—but so are the chicken tinga, ahi poke, and seafood bruschetta.

(This article was updated on October 1, 2024.)