Growing baseball popularity with young people

This Day In Baseball

With so much competition out there for sports audiences, particularly younger audiences, all the professional leagues are working hard to find ways to boost their popularity, but some need to work harder than others when it comes to attracting the under-30s to their sport.

 

Baseball is a good example of a sport that at first glance may have difficulty attracting younger fans. While online sports betting generates new interest in the sport among older fans, who can now bet on everything from the World Series Winner to the Rookie of the Year, MLB will need to find additional ways to appeal to potential baseball fans in their 20s.

 

Pace of play

 

While many people dislike admitting it, the tempo of play is reducing baseball’s popularity, especially among younger people, who do not have the patience to sit through a game that can stretch on for more than three hours. A common complaint is that the process of throwing a single pitch can sometimes take up to two minutes, which is a lifetime in the fast-moving modern world of sport.

 

The move to cut mid-inning pauses will benefit all fans, making it more fun for everyone and reducing the protracted inactivity that can cause a game to drag. It’s difficult to make significant progress in the pace-of-play debate without the risk of jeopardizing the game and the rich traditions that sustain it, but MLB should leave no stone unturned in examining ways to speed things up.

 

At the same time, if there are archaic rules, traditions or just ‘ways of doing things’ that make little sense in 2022, and that can be cut from the game without affecting its charm, baseball should be ready to let these things go. Evolution makes for a healthy sport.

 

Fantasy baseball

 

Fantasy football has enticed the younger generation of football enthusiasts to closely follow their favorite teams, while the annual March Madness tournament draws in young basketball enthusiasts to watch college basketball and then the NBA.

 

While fantasy baseball is available on some sites, these competitions don’t have anything near the same reach as their football and basketball equivalents.

 

Much of the problem is the length of the season. With 162 games on the schedule, finding ways to ensure that younger people remain invested in their team throughout the season would be difficult, but the use of technology and tightly designed fantasy contests would go a long way toward encouraging younger people to embrace fantasy baseball.

 

Technology

 

Younger generations of sports fans are far more comfortable with technology than older fans and baseball needs to embrace technology completely if the sport is going to appeal to a younger audience.

 

Baseball has embraced social media and there are ever more sophisticated digital products available, but more needs to be done, ranging from the kind of fantasy baseball product mentioned in the previous section to virtual reality innovations, interactive statistical details, on-demand replays and the ability to watch archived footage of key plays. Increasingly, this will also result in baseball leaning less heavily on viewing figures on traditional media, since younger baseball fans are less likely than older generations to sit and watch an entire game on TV.

 

At the same time, MLB and other baseball organizations cannot do this in a half-hearted way. Younger people are sophisticated users of technology and can easily spot a gimmick. Where technological innovations are applied, they have to be sophisticated and add actual value to the baseball fan experience.

 

Attitudes and values

 

Younger people are far less likely than their elders to be tolerant of discrimination or of sports that don’t make an effort to include minority groups. The whole approach of MLB and other baseball organizations should be focused on demonstrating that baseball is not just for white men, but welcomes and encourages all parts of US society.

 

These efforts should include every part of the game, from the way that franchises themselves advertise and promote the sport, to the words and deeds of players, coaches, owners, commentators and baseball reporters. Young people will be repelled by misogyny, racism and other forms of intolerance, and are often far more adept at spotting these issues than their parents or grandparents.

 

Summary

 

The beauty of baseball is that it has the ability to appeal to different generations. Its decline has often been forecast but the sport always comes through. With a few adjustments, there is no reason why MLB can’t retain and grow its support among young people.