Major League Baseball could vote on a new commissioner to replace Bud Selig as early as Thursday of this week. The imminent change in MLB leadership has had many people predicting what changes in the game could be made by a new commish. I wanted to see what everyone else thought baseball needed to do to improve or grow the game. Reply to the thread with your thoughts.
My #1 thought is this: MLB has to focus more on younger people and African Americans.
Mike Golic said on Mike and Mike this morning that the percentage of African Americans in Major League Baseball is around 8%. As of 2012, the NFL is almost 2/3 African American players. The NBA is comprised of 76.3% African Americans. This is with just 12.6% of the overall population being African American. So why is baseball so far behind the NFL and the NBA?
I think the biggest issue for baseball is their season. Major League Baseball plays twice as many games as the NBA and 10 times as many as the NFL. Your favorite MLB team plays almost every day of the week during the season. Whereas, you can be a fan of your local NBA team and still only have them on every two or three days. If you love the NBA, you can also tune in and watch other teams, and other stars, the days when your team is not playing.
In the NFL, your team plays once a week and that time off between games allows for a build up of excitement for the next game. There's also the old adage that "absence makes the heart grow fonder." Not being able to watch your team every day keeps your interest level in them high. The other thing that the NFL has going for it is that Sunday is an event. It's big! Everyone waits around all week for Sunday. Even though your team may be playing, you can still watch a selection of games either before or after your team plays. That format also makes it great for fantasy.
So, what can Major League Baseball do to close the gap and take back some of their market share? I think it should focus on what it used to do well but is not doing (much) anymore. Day games.
I became a HUGE fan of baseball as a kid because baseball was readily available to me at almost any time that I wanted to watch it. When I came home from school I could usually turn on the TV and watch the Cubs on WGN. Sometimes it was the White Sox or Braves, but almost every day after school I could watch a baseball game. Also, Saturdays were big baseball days as well. I remember getting up to watch This Week in Baseball and then the "Game of the Week" that followed. I could also watch my local team most nights on regular TV.
The dynamics have changed these days so the solution is a little different. Just over 90% of all homes have some type of cable. So, broadcasting on standard TV isn't as necessary. However, having a good portion of those games being played at 3PM CST when most kids are getting out of school is. If the MLB wants to build a generation of fans that follows the sport and then teaches it to its kids, that's what it's going to take.
Major League Baseball also needs to go back to making Saturday afternoons about them. They don't need to try and "re-create" This Week in Baseball like they did (and largely failed at). But they do need some kind of pre-game show that makes people want to watch and then an actual "national" Game of the Week that follows. As it is now, Saturday games are usually regional, meaning the local team will be on a vast majority of the time. Baseball needs to go back to promoting national match-ups and let fans get into other teams and players rather than just the ones that are local to them.
The league also needs to focus more resources in America vs Latin America. Major League Baseball has had academies set up in Latin American countries for many years now to farm those countries for baseball talent. However, up until very recently, they have largely neglected the U.S. The league is doing better with trying to reach back out to the youth of America, and specifically young African Americans, but they still need to expand upon that.
When I was a kid, there were parks and make shift baseball fields all over the place. During the summer, especially, we would go play baseball every day. Now, I rarely see kids out playing baseball. The MLB has to figure out how to fix that if they want to grow and bring new eyes back onto the game. Providing more games for kids to watch when they get home from school and making Saturdays during the summer about baseball will go a long ways towards that.
My #1 thought is this: MLB has to focus more on younger people and African Americans.
Mike Golic said on Mike and Mike this morning that the percentage of African Americans in Major League Baseball is around 8%. As of 2012, the NFL is almost 2/3 African American players. The NBA is comprised of 76.3% African Americans. This is with just 12.6% of the overall population being African American. So why is baseball so far behind the NFL and the NBA?
I think the biggest issue for baseball is their season. Major League Baseball plays twice as many games as the NBA and 10 times as many as the NFL. Your favorite MLB team plays almost every day of the week during the season. Whereas, you can be a fan of your local NBA team and still only have them on every two or three days. If you love the NBA, you can also tune in and watch other teams, and other stars, the days when your team is not playing.
In the NFL, your team plays once a week and that time off between games allows for a build up of excitement for the next game. There's also the old adage that "absence makes the heart grow fonder." Not being able to watch your team every day keeps your interest level in them high. The other thing that the NFL has going for it is that Sunday is an event. It's big! Everyone waits around all week for Sunday. Even though your team may be playing, you can still watch a selection of games either before or after your team plays. That format also makes it great for fantasy.
So, what can Major League Baseball do to close the gap and take back some of their market share? I think it should focus on what it used to do well but is not doing (much) anymore. Day games.
I became a HUGE fan of baseball as a kid because baseball was readily available to me at almost any time that I wanted to watch it. When I came home from school I could usually turn on the TV and watch the Cubs on WGN. Sometimes it was the White Sox or Braves, but almost every day after school I could watch a baseball game. Also, Saturdays were big baseball days as well. I remember getting up to watch This Week in Baseball and then the "Game of the Week" that followed. I could also watch my local team most nights on regular TV.
The dynamics have changed these days so the solution is a little different. Just over 90% of all homes have some type of cable. So, broadcasting on standard TV isn't as necessary. However, having a good portion of those games being played at 3PM CST when most kids are getting out of school is. If the MLB wants to build a generation of fans that follows the sport and then teaches it to its kids, that's what it's going to take.
Major League Baseball also needs to go back to making Saturday afternoons about them. They don't need to try and "re-create" This Week in Baseball like they did (and largely failed at). But they do need some kind of pre-game show that makes people want to watch and then an actual "national" Game of the Week that follows. As it is now, Saturday games are usually regional, meaning the local team will be on a vast majority of the time. Baseball needs to go back to promoting national match-ups and let fans get into other teams and players rather than just the ones that are local to them.
The league also needs to focus more resources in America vs Latin America. Major League Baseball has had academies set up in Latin American countries for many years now to farm those countries for baseball talent. However, up until very recently, they have largely neglected the U.S. The league is doing better with trying to reach back out to the youth of America, and specifically young African Americans, but they still need to expand upon that.
When I was a kid, there were parks and make shift baseball fields all over the place. During the summer, especially, we would go play baseball every day. Now, I rarely see kids out playing baseball. The MLB has to figure out how to fix that if they want to grow and bring new eyes back onto the game. Providing more games for kids to watch when they get home from school and making Saturdays during the summer about baseball will go a long ways towards that.
