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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, October 28, 2010
A pilfy friend of mine used to rip off boxes of baseball cards from Tits Teitelbaum’s novelty store and deal me in. I finally feel good about this.
While the shell of the game remains the same, in certain central ways the nature of baseball has changed and lost some luster. For example, one of the most electrifying plays in baseball is the attempted steal of home, a feat that has all but vanished. The image of Jackie Robinson repeatedly intimidating opposing pitchers by dancing off of third base—prior to his dash for home plate—remains one of the most exciting memories in the history of the national pastime.
Two primary factors accounting for the decline of baseball’s popularity are (a) the extent to which the game now revolves around home runs and strikeouts, and (b) the flaws in the playoff structure. Home runs and strikeouts have come to dominate the action/inaction of the game. Although major league baseball is now beyond the steroid era—characterized by artificially inflated power statistics—it is common for marquee players to hit 30 home runs and to accumulate upward of 150 strikeouts during the long season. This is thought of as a good year!
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Nothing. Next question.
people like you writing about it
There's a flaw here somewhere...just can't put my finger on it...
Elvis Andrus stole home in Game Two of the ALCS – not a straight steal, granted, but it was on a pretty wild double steal. The straight steal of home has never been all that common, because you have to be slightly lunatic to attempt it.
A few things, but mainly the DH.
I leave North America and baseball just falls apart without me, you guys have to start picking up some the slack here.
Also, is it just me or have there been an unusually high number of steals of home in the past 3-4 years?
Aaron Hill did it, Ellsbury did it, Andrus as mentioned in a non-straight way. I'm sure there are more I don't know about.
No Fenway Park Green Monster Bullpen Zipline of Fire.
Other than that, nothing.
Not enough steals of home. Crappy strike zones. Don't give a #### about crappy strike zone attitude.
When was the last time someone was out trying to steal home?
FOX
Taking a back seat to football, even during the World Series
Nose hair close ups
Anybody noticed they've moved first pitch up 3 minutes or so (from 8:30 Eastern to 8:00)? For two teams in Central & Western time zones?
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
besides the DH?
- people like this author wanting a return to 1950s where the only 3 teams were in NYC
- people like this author thinking that getting 27 outs by a bunch of people grounding to second, SS and getting an IF hit, a sac-bunt, a grounder to second, a sac-fly is really exciting baseball
and too much fox and too much wondering how baseball can be more like football
Baseball is, in fact, more popular now, rather then when (a) there were fewer home runs and strikeouts, and (b) there was no playoff structure, flawed or otherwise.
But I'm presuming that the overall majority of people reading this post already know that; and those who don't can easily confirm that by comparing MLB's attendance figures this year (in a horrible economy, mind you) to the days when the only post-season baseball was the World Series.
Now, normally I would put some
snarkywitty comment here, but, to be honest, I really can't think of any. So instead, let me just ask those who are still reading this post:When you come across an article like this (that is, an article that has such blatant disregard for easily obtainable facts) do you presume ignorance by the author? That is, do you suppose that the author is simply unaware that he is writing from a faulty premise? Or do you presume that the author knows that what he is writing is utter nonsense, and just doesn't care?
How about the website that hosts such an article (in this case, The Huffington Post)? After reading an article like this, do you presume that other content on the website is also written without regard to facts? Or are you willing to give the other writers on the site the benefit of the doubt, and not deem the entire website as worthless?
Anyway, one more quote from the article:
When was the last time you heard someone criticize MLB because there was too much parity? And did that someone live anywhere near Kansas City or Pittsburgh?
DB
Common? It happened 3 times this year.
He and his buddies who summer in the Hamptons are probably groaning over this World Series -- though perhaps one of their fathers used to watch the Giants play at the Polo Grounds.
Wait, this seems just as wrong as determining that baseball is less popular now because TV ratings for the postseason are far lower than they were in 1980. I personally think baseball is doing just fine (even if I agree with the general idea that TTO ball isn't the most interesting type of ball and there are too many teams in the playoffs), but I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying that baseball is more popular than ever simply because more people go to the games. It is one data point, but it's not absolute proof.
So what's wrong with baseball? YOU! That's right, you. You hapless sheep who pay those exorbitant prices, buy the $10 hot dogs, worship the overpaid, HR-hitting, steroid-raged prima donnas who'll swing at anything from a curveball to a highball. You feckless fools snapping pics of your drunken bum friends on the i-phone, dancing to YMCA, hamming it up for the kiss-cam and laying bets on the sausage race instead of keeping score like your grandfather did. You so-called "fans" of the game who show up by the millions (even in Pittsburgh ... Pittsburgh!) are why football is now America's pastime.
baseball makes more money on an annual basis than any other sport in the country, yes it has surpassed nfl after being behind for most of the previous decade....we are talking about a sport who on an annual basis has a larger attendence than the NFL, NHL, NBA and Nascar combined on an annual basis, yet somehow it's in trouble based upon tv ratings.....seriously?
I call this the Baby Boomer Haze. Everything has been in decline, for some reason, since the boomers turned 30.
Except 1980 is post-playoffs. Remember, the author has claimed that baseball is less popular since post-season expansion, so you would need to go back to 1968 or earlier. And the reality is that there are more viewers in more countries watching baseball on television worldwide now than were back in the Johnson administration (and, of course, the further back in time you go, the more the disparity grows).
True, attendance is just one data point, much like, say, OPS+ is just one data point, and not absolute proof, when determining whether or not one player is a better hitter than another. So what would be a better data point in determining baseball's popularity (and remember, it's MLB's declining popularity that the author is bemoaning)? Television viewership? Again, worldwide, more people will watch this year's World Series than did in 1968 (not to mention 1958 or 1948). So what else can we use to weigh popularity between now and then? Number of franchises/locations? Total revenues?
To repeat, I appreciate your point that attendance is just one data point; though to be honest, I personally think it is the best data point when it comes to measuring the sport's popularity. After all, how can a sport (or any other form of entertainment) be considered less popular now than it was at a time when fewer people were paying less money to watch it live? Still, just like OPS+ is not the only measurement of a player's offensive prowess, attendance is likewise not the only method of measuring popularity. Therefore, I'd be willing to consider other reasonable data points that would show that Major League Baseball is less popular now than is was prior to the implementation of what the author refers to as the flawed playoff structure; but I seriously doubt that those data points exist.
DB
I have a really hard time believing that baseball is less popular than it was in 1961.
Yes. Ish. Years of experience with these types of post on usenet tells me that the overwhelming majority of people who write stuff like this start from ignorance but will be utterly unmoved by a fact based rebuttal.
I don't give the author that much credit. Whether ignorant or not someone writing in a presumed professional manner should be expected to have accurate data. Given the ease with which we can get information today a writer should be expected to have some level of fact to support his point.
Absent a lengthy track record I take the writer on his own merits. Obviously there is a point where a website/magazine/tv nextwork demonstrates a consistency of thought but just based on this one piece I'm not going to damn the Huffington Post (at least not for this purpose).
Attendance is a terrible data point, unless you adjust for mallparks, where there are a million and one things to do even if you don't care a whit about baseball, and the fact that urban areas are more appealing generally than in 1980. Tiger Stadium, ca. 1980, drew nothing but the most dedicated baseball fans; Comerica Park, ca. 2010, draws thousands upon thousands of people who just want to hang out at a nice place with friends, shop and eat a little, maybe catch an inning or two, and hit the pubs for a nightcap.
I thought you could only steal home when the pitcher had forgotten about the baserunner. Its not like stealing second, where there is a whole stare-down. There just simply isn't enough time to steal home if you're close enough to third to avoid a pickoff throw.
right?
right?
In the old days, when pitchers went through big wind-ups, you could. But nowadays almost all pitchers have such abbreviated motions that it's pretty much impossible to beat the ball to the plate.
Robinson was also an anomaly in his own time. He stole home 19 times, and AFAICT none of his contemporaries even had ten steals of home. Since Robinson retired, Rod Carew stole home 17 times and Paul Molitor 10 times. I don't remember Molitor being an aficionado of the play; Carew was the one guy in my lifetime who distinctly had the play in his repertoire (and IIRC was taught it by Billy Martin).
Baseball as live entertainment surely seems more popular now than it was 40 or 50 years ago, though as SugarBear points out, the ballpark experience has changed dramatically since then. And there are probably other factors at work that explain the attendance increases as well.
As for overall numbers, populations have grown, and the game has grown internationally. So on a total number basis, it surely is more popular today. But whereas 50 or 60 years ago it was, as far as I can tell, America's No. 1 spectator sport, that probably can't be said any longer. Furthermore, I don't know that a greater percentage of today's viewers would classify themselves as baseball fans as they would have 50 years ago. And at least to me, these things matter.
Honestly, I don't know if baseball is more popular today than it was at all points in the past. And, to rebut cfb's strange comment, I don't think baseball is in trouble at all. But I'm pretty sure the question of its overall popularity is far more complicated than either you or the guy who wrote this drivel is giving it credit.
In the old days, relief pitchers threw from the windup. Very few do anymore, so you're just talking about the occasional starting pitcher who throws from the windup. And most of them go from the stretch with a guy on third base as well. It's possible, particularly on back halves of double steals or the occasional play where you catch the defense off guard (I think Werth had one that way), but a straight steal of home to beat the pitch has become increasingly difficult. Shame, because it's as exciting a play as there is in the game (heightened by that tinge of fear that the batter won't realize he's coming).
Just because football is more popular than it was 50 years ago, that doesn't mean that baseball is less popular. It's not a zero-sum game.
As for overall numbers, populations have grown, and the game has grown internationally. So on a total number basis, it surely is more popular today. But whereas 50 or 60 years ago it was, as far as I can tell, America's No. 1 spectator sport, that probably can't be said any longer. Furthermore, I don't know that a greater percentage of today's viewers would classify themselves as baseball fans as they would have 50 years ago. And at least to me, these things matter.
Overall MLB attendance growth since its post-WWII boom is largely a matter of expansion, population growth, and the enormous increase in tax deductible season ticket sales to corporations, a phenomenon that was almost unheard of 50 or 60 years ago outside Yankee Stadium.
And just for the record:
Organized Baseball's attendance growth, 1949 - 2009: 84%
U.S. population growth, 1950 - 2010 (est.): 107%
As SOsH U says, it's complicated.
I didn't say it necessarily was. I'm not bashing baseball, which should be pretty obvious by now. All I'm saying is summed in the last paragraph of Andy's post - it's more complicated than just looking at attendance figures.
Your overall point is solid, but using total attendance figures for a sport that plays a much greater number of games than all the others is not good evidence for it.
Fair enough, but I'd say that attendance figures are a much, much better indication of the health of the sport than television ratings of postseason games, which is all that pundits ever seem to look at.
No doubt. I think the sport's health is just fine.
Attendance growth has a natural cap on in -- stadium capacities are limited. The U.S. population growth does not have any sort of cap.
Example -- the Red Sox Nation has experienced a large population growth while their stadium capacity has only increased slightly. If the Red Sox somehow increased their stadium capacity by 20,000 seats, their attendance would increase by over 70%.
In many, if not most markets, seating capacity has been reduced.
BTW, what is "Organized Baseball"? Just MLB? Minor league attendance has skyrocketed.
You also just can't compare the US population growth with MLB's (if that is what "Organized Baseball" is) -- much of that growth is in areas that are not close to MLB teams.
>>>Overall MLB attendance growth since its post-WWII boom is largely a matter of expansion, population growth, and the enormous increase in tax deductible season ticket sales to corporations,<<<,
Corporate demand has led to a reduction in seating capacity (more suites and special permium seating sections; less seats).
Health of the sport and popularity are two different things. The biggest boon to the health of the sport, bar none, was the owners finally realizing what suckers the ticket-buying public really were and how much they'd actually pay. In 1980, the common refrain was along the lines of, "If salaries continue to go up so much, they'll be a day when it'll cost 10 dollars to get into a baseball game."(**)
Dr. Evil's demands for "one million dollars" to ransom the world's safety seem positively worldly in comparison.
If a third or a quarter as many people watch out-of-market teams play for a sport's championship on television as did 30 years ago, it's almost impossible to conclude that the sport is more popular than 30 years ago. Loyalty to the local nine may be just as high, or higher -- though the mallpark effect makes even that tough to measure -- but loyalty to the sport can't possibly be higher. Indeed, that conclusion borders on facially ludicrous.
(**) This phenomenon extends beyond sports. Corporate executives, lawyers, politicians, and others at the "top" of society's job pyramid had no idea just how much modern PR and the public's passivity would let them get away with 30 years ago. The realization of just how unconstrained they really were played a major role in the recent collapse of the economy.
Baseball chick, how can you have a two-out sac fly?
- grinning
you can't. which is why i wrote it that way. sar-chasm, if you please...
U.S. population growth, 1950 - 2010 (est.): 107%
Attendance growth has a natural cap on in -- stadium capacities are limited. The U.S. population growth does not have any sort of cap.
Example -- the Red Sox Nation has experienced a large population growth while their stadium capacity has only increased slightly. If the Red Sox somehow increased their stadium capacity by 20,000 seats, their attendance would increase by over 70%.
Maybe and maybe not. Fenway Park in its current configuration is an essential part of the entire Red Sox mystique, and you couldn't possibly add 20,000 seats to the existing structure without destroying a big part of the Red Sox identity. You'd undoubtedly sell out the big games and the total attendance would certainly increase, but I don't think you'd be able to count on keeping up that string of sellouts.
In many, if not most markets, seating capacity has been reduced.
But again, that doesn't necessarily translate into smaller overall attendance, since in most cities relatively few games sell out, and since much of the current attendance has been drawn by the novelty and amenities of the new parks themselves. You can't assume that everyone who watches the Mariners at Safeco would be attending games at the Kingdome.
BTW, what is "Organized Baseball"? Just MLB? Minor league attendance has skyrocketed.
"Organized Baseball" is the Majors + the minors, as it's always been defined. And the total attendance for minor league baseball has actually gone down slightly since 1949, from 41,982,335 in that year to 41,644,518 in 2009.
You also just can't compare the US population growth with MLB's (if that is what "Organized Baseball" is) -- much of that growth is in areas that are not close to MLB teams.
Sure, but far more of it is in areas like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and all those other places that didn't have teams prior to relocation and expansion. There are virtually no large population centers today that aren't within a 2 or 3 hour drive from a Major League ballpark, a phenomenon completely changed from 1949.
Overall MLB attendance growth since its post-WWII boom is largely a matter of expansion, population growth, and the enormous increase in tax deductible season ticket sales to corporations,
Corporate demand has led to a reduction in seating capacity (more suites and special permium seating sections; less seats).
Sure, but the number of those corporate seats** that are counted in attendance figures every day certainly exceed the number of extra seats that would be sold if all 30 current ballparks were to be replaced by 30 versions of the 60,000 capacity Veterans Stadium.
And then there's this: In 1949, attendance figures reflected actual attendance, since virtually no tickets were sold more than a week or two in advance, and the overwhelming bulk of attendance was walk-up sales. But for the past several decades, we've seen night after night the spectacle of "attendance" that far exceeds the number of people who are actually at the game.
As has been said before, it's complicated, and whether baseball is "more popular" or not totally depends on how you frame the question.
**And you can't just count luxury suites. Corporate season ticket holders account for a lot more than that, especially if you include mini-plans that small businesses often buy. Hell, when I had my book shop, I bought a mini-plan at Camden Yards in the upper deck, and I knew at least two other small shop owners in my relatively small circle of acquaintances who did the same thing. There's no way in the world that we would have gone to all 13 of those games without having to put up the (tax-deductible) money in advance.
Harmon [Killebrew] was at the plate. I flashed him the sign. It’s a tap on my belt buckle with my right hand. It appeared he answered by tapping his belt buckle with his right hand. Wilhelm started into the windup. I went. I was coming down the line, and I was amazed to see that Harmon was preparing to hit the pitch: if he swung, I’d end up a double down the left-field line. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw me, and he held back in the nick of time. I came sliding in and beat the knuckleball home. It proved to be the winning run of the game."
The lunacy of Rod Carew.
#### you, #######.
Demand trumps mystique in ass kicking fashion every time. As long as the Red Sox are winning, there will be a high demand. Those who long for mystique will quickly be replaced by those who want to see a winner. Fenway's mystique didn't fill it to capacity when the Red Sox weren't good.
>>>You'd undoubtedly sell out the big games and the total attendance would certainly increase, but I don't think you'd be able to count on keeping up that string of sellouts.<<<
Who cares about the string of sellouts? We are talking total attendance as compared to population growth. Total attendance would increase dramatically in the seating capacity was expanded (prices would almost certainly drop, which is why owners want smaller stadiums). 80% capacity of a 50,000 seat stadium is more than 100% capacity of a 35,000 stadium.
>>>But again, that doesn't necessarily translate into smaller overall attendance, since in most cities relatively few games sell out, <<<
Sure, it does. Most cities have more than a few sellouts, so what do you mean by relatively? Milwaukee had 27 sellouts in 2009. Whatever you mean, reducing capacity reduces total attendance by taking away the very well attendnded game. Look, you quoted that the US population has grown by 104% since 1950. Stadium capacity hasn't grown; it has actually shrunk (average capacity 44,000). Let's say all baseball stadiums had grown somewhat with the population, and all average capacity size was 70,000 (Yankee Stadium's capacity was 82,000 in 1927) . For argument's sake, let's say every Opening Day was a sellout -- that is increase of 1.1 million in league attendance in just one home game -- almost 1.5% total attendance. If each team averaged 10 more sellouts the rest of the year, that is another eleven million in attendance.
Look, you can't compare population growth figures, which have no cap other than mortality rate, to attendance figures, which are predicated on seating capacity.
>>>Sure, but the number of those corporate seats** that are counted in attendance figures every day certainly exceed the number of extra seats that would be sold if all 30 current ballparks were to be replaced by 30 versions of the 60,000 capacity Veterans Stadium.<<<
What are you talking about? Seating capacity at stadiums has been reduced. That negatively affects attendance growth.
>>>In 1949, attendance figures reflected actual attendance,<<<
Red herring. Besides, the McCourt divorce proceedings brought to light the league no show figures. Much more people today are going through the turnstyles than in 1949.
>>>Hell, when I had my book shop,<<<
Good ####### God -- you weren't corporate.
>>>especially if you include mini-plans that small businesses often buy.<<<
You don't keep up with current tax laws, do you?
Television ratings aren't a very good indicator of anything IMO, especially as they've gone down as revenue has exploded. Clearly the TV deal isn't the end all be all for baseball.
One thing I am concerned about though is the bump from new stadiums. I believe America is entering a new age of austerity wrt to municipal budgets. There aren't going to be many more cushy stadium deals (damn Yankees!) to bump attendance and revenue in the foreseeable future.
This assumes games at bigger parks in previous eras never sold out, when they plainly did. Who's to say 150,000 people didn't want to go to old Yankee Stadium for some games?
Honestly, when your "side" is left to fall back on "attendance doesn't reflect the true passion of Red Sox Nation," it's hard to conclude that there's a lot there. Neither is perfect, but minor league attendance and playoff TV ratings are good proxies for the level of "pure" interest in baseball qua baseball, without the shopping and food courts offered by modern mallparks. Using Andy's figures, adjusted for population growth, minor league baseball attendance has fallen by roughly half. TV ratings have fallen by more than that. While adopting Andy's injunction that to frame the question is to answer it, those indicia dwarf the relatively few people who stay home because the stadium's too small to hold them.(**)
(**) Is there any indication from TV ratings that people who can't get in are watching on TV instead? If smaller parks are sending people home, you'd think those people would turn on the TV set and TV ratings would be up significantly.
The A's and Rays are the only teams left for a sparkly stadium. The Marlins get theirs next year. They aren't touching Wrigley, Kauffman, Dodger or Fenway. Angels Stadium went through a huge re-model. After those already mentioned the oldest stadiums are Skydome and new Comiskey.
A couple of things:
1) According to MiLB.com, the 1949 record, which was 39 million, was broken in 2004.
2) The minor league numbers you are equating don't include the Independent Leagues, which is another 8 million per year in attendance. The 1949 figures include all 538 clubs around then.
3) Even if we use your numbers, your 84% Organized Baseball growth rate seems off.
I would disagree with this. In 1980 if I wanted to watch TV on a mid-October night I probably had the World Series or reruns of "That's Incredible" and "What's Happening?" Now I have 150 channels plus an Xbox, PS3, Blu-Ray player etc...at my disposal.
Which isn't to say that baseball is necessarily more popular today than it was. I think SoSH in #41 nailed it and trying to use any single or even any 3 or 4 metrics is probably a fools errand. I think the better question than "is baseball more popular than it was" is "is baseball still popular and viable?" To the latter I think the answer is a resounding "yes."
Are you really arguing that stadium capacity doesn't limit total attendance? Of course stadia of the 1950s were limited by capacity --- the same can be said of Ancient Rome. My Opening Day example was an approximation with Opening Day sellouts being the constant in both eras to illustrate the very simple fact that limiting capacity negatively affects attendance.
>>>Honestly, when your "side" is left to fall back on "attendance doesn't reflect the true passion of Red Sox Nation,"<<<<
That wasn't my side at all -- it is extremely rude to put words in another's mouth. Are you really arguing that if the Red Sox were/are winning, that they wouldn't draw more fans with larger stadium capacity. BTW, I am not a Red Sox fans, so why don't you stick that "true passion" of the Red Sox Nation right up your ass?
>>>but minor league attendance and playoff TV ratings are good proxies for the level of "pure" interest in baseball qua baseball<<<
Not adjusting minor league attendance for the number of teams in the league is laughablly stupid. In 1949, right in the midst of the post WWII economic boon, there were 538 minor league clubs. Today, there are 175 clubs affiliated with MiLB, plus the 8 million plus fans frothe Indedendent Leagues. Up until two years ago, the growth of Andy's "Organized Baseball" was at 102%, very close to the 104 population growth he cited (I don't know if that number is accurate. Add in the Independent Leagues, and baseball's attendance growth had outpaced the population growth through 2007.
>>>If smaller parks are sending people home, you'd think those people would turn on the TV set and TV ratings would be up significantly.<<<
Local broadcasts for regular season games are up significantly in most markets. Demand for local games is way up also --- not that long ago, even large markets were lucky to have 50 regular season games televised. As for national ratings in October, do you need the difference of ratings with three networks and a local station vs. 300+ channels explained to you?
Talk about selective endpoints! Minor-league ball peaked in the late 40s and was thoroughly decimated during the 50s. You went from 400+ teams in 1949 to under 100 teams by 1960 when MLB had to step in and guarantee each team would support X minor-league teams to keep it going. Yes, minor-league attendance hasn't grown in the last 60 years. On the other hand, it's exploded over the last 50 years.
And this is something being missed in this discussion. Between recession, TV and suburbanization, the 1950s were a wasteland for non-TV forms of public entertainment. Radio stations, movie theaters, record companies, jazz big band and sports franchises (the minor leagues in particular) were being decimated.
Football was very smart and quickly figured out a business model that would allow them to thrive in that new world. Baseball unfortunately did not. It still isn't clear what model would have worked but it should have been clear the football model (becoming a national TV phenomenon) was never going to work for baseball -- yet this was the model it tried with the game of the week and even Monday Night baseball for a while. So baseball continued to blunder along until they started getting some things right.
I'll grant you, I still don't know why baseball's business model works. But US pop has grown 37% since 1980 and AL attendance (14 teams for the whole period) has grown 50% (probably also selective endpoints). I suspect if we looked at attendance-driven revenue (ticket prices, concessions, etc) that the growth over the last 30 years is even more dramatic. Certainly overall revenue seems quite robust given the rate at which franchise value has appreciated over the last 30 years. I would guess, but don't know, that minor-league attendance has grown at an even faster rate and I'd imagine college baseball attendance growth is through the roof.
The "problems" baseball has today are the same as every other sport -- there's much more choice in the marketplace, nobody's watching network TV, no sport can make a good living off its hardcore fan base and needs to attract the casual fan to attract the advertising and attendance revenue. Still baseball is more similar to basketball (both pro and college) in that its revenue base is primarily local/regional and it plays tons of games. That's why the NFL model was never going to work for baseball.
Now, fair enough, on a per capita basis, almost certainly baseball was more popular in the late 30s, early 40s. So were jazz, movies, radio and probably Sunday family picnics. Few forms of entertainment held their ground against the onslaught of TV and suburbanization ... and football may have been the only one that thrived (for a while) but almost solely by (smartly!) maximizing its TV-driven revenue. MLB hung on (while the minors were decimated) during the 50s through 70s (thanks largely to expansion and franchise moves and night games) and has seemed to figure out something that works over the last 30 years or so (although the main period of growth appears to be 1980 to 1990).
Like I said, I'm a bit flummoxed by baseball's continuing popularity. Its "marketing" plan from 1980 to 1997 was self-denigration in hopes of winning a labor war. From 1998 to 2000 it was "watch the dingers" (an obvious winner). From 2001 the marketing plan has been "OMG, Roids!!" in hopes of weakening labor's position and "Yanks/Sawx!!" in hopes of ... I'm not sure what. Expansion (movement) into Denver, Phoenix, Tampa, Miami and DC have hardly been rousing successes ... not necessarily problems either. At least two owners have gone bankrupt (Trib, Hicks), it seems like Colangelo came close, the Padres had to be sold to finance a divorce and the same will probably happen to the Dodgers. Yet, here baseball is, going strong.
It's a funny game.
agreed to an extent, but the larger point is that more people go to see baseball than the other major sports(and Nascar), it's not in trouble, and the mallpark comment is a joke, when football, and the other events are even more guilty. I don't know of anyone in st louis that goes to a baseball game other than to watch a game(heck the park more or less sucks at other amenities).
I'm not sure that baseball takes a back seat to anyone, ratings is horrible way to rate popularity. It's even more dishonest than my using raw attendence totals. To me it's fairly simple, baseball and football both have 32 team league, and yet they are neck and neck in revenue. I think both sports are doing about an equally fine job as a business, and in the end that is what matters.
Very resounding, no question. The rest is more a parlor game. My only dog in the fight is the marginalization of teams other than Yanks/Sox/Cubs/Mets by the media and MLB which has had the perverse effect of harming TV ratings. It remains the case that there was a time not so long ago when having the Phillies and the Royals in the World Series was better for ratings than having the Yankees and Dodgers.
Demand trumps mystique in ass kicking fashion every time. As long as the Red Sox are winning, there will be a high demand. Those who long for mystique will quickly be replaced by those who want to see a winner. Fenway's mystique didn't fill it to capacity when the Red Sox weren't good.
In the case of Fenway, I was merely reacting to that "70%" increase you predicted for the Red Sox if they increased their capacity by 20,000 seats. I granted that it would go up, but not by that much. And you're far too quick to dismiss the lure of new stadiums as an attendance spur.
Who cares about the string of sellouts? We are talking total attendance as compared to population growth. Total attendance would increase dramatically in the seating capacity was expanded (prices would almost certainly drop, which is why owners want smaller stadiums). 80% capacity of a 50,000 seat stadium is more than 100% capacity of a 35,000 stadium.
But here you're talking about one particularly small stadium and one particularly rabid fan base. The combination there is unique to Fenway. There's no guarantee (for example) that if the Reds moved back to Riverfront that their attendance would go up, not unless you brought back the Big Red Machine. Again, bigger capacity reduces pre-season sales, and fewer pre-season sales can have a dramatically negative impact on meaningless games, bad weather games, etc. You don't seem to take any of this into serious consideration when you just assume that bigger capacity = bigger attendance, but the owners certainly do.
Forget the Red Sox for a second, and look at the Indians, with a current ballpark that has a seating capacity about half of their old one. The current team stinks up the joint and still draws 1.3 million, and in a moribund economy at that. Comparably odorous teams in Municipal Stadium routinely drew barely half of that. The top seven attendance figures in Indians' history were in their new ballpark, and only the 1994 strike prevented that from being the top eight. The Red Sox are far more the exception than the rule.
But again, that doesn't necessarily translate into smaller overall attendance, since in most cities relatively few games sell out,
Sure, it does. Most cities have more than a few sellouts, so what do you mean by relatively? Milwaukee had 27 sellouts in 2009. Whatever you mean, reducing capacity reduces total attendance by taking away the very well attendnded game. Look, you quoted that the US population has grown by 104%** since 1950. Stadium capacity hasn't grown; it has actually shrunk*** (average capacity 44,000). Let's say all baseball stadiums had grown somewhat with the population, and all average capacity size was 70,000 (Yankee Stadium's capacity was 82,000 in 1927) . For argument's sake, let's say every Opening Day was a sellout -- that is increase of 1.1 million in league attendance in just one home game -- almost 1.5% total attendance. If each team averaged 10 more sellouts the rest of the year, that is another eleven million in attendance.
But again, you ignore the effect of larger capacity on season ticket sales and pre-season sales for high demand games, which often turn out to be lemons when the date finally arrives. It's not just the higher pricing structure that induces owners to want smaller ballparks; it's the induced mentality of "Gee, we'd better buy now or we won't be able to later," which makes people pay up front for games that they often wouldn't have gone to when the time actually came.
Sure, but the number of those corporate seats** that are counted in attendance figures every day certainly exceed the number of extra seats that would be sold if all 30 current ballparks were to be replaced by 30 versions of the 60,000 capacity Veterans Stadium.
What are you talking about? Seating capacity at stadiums has been reduced. That negatively affects attendance growth.
Only for certain games. But again (again), the owners know that it doesn't affect their overall attendance, with a handful of exceptions like Fenway and YSIII.
In 1949, attendance figures reflected actual attendance,
Red herring. Besides, the McCourt divorce proceedings brought to light the league no show figures. Much more people today are going through the turnstyles than in 1949.
That's a great cite, but with no numbers it's hard to know what to make of it. And of course in absolute numbers "much more people today are going through the turnstyles than in 1949," but absolute numbers aren't what this discussion is about.
Hell, when I had my book shop,
Good ####### God -- you weren't corporate.
I'm not sure where you got that piece of misinformation, but that would've been news to my accountant and the IRS. I also know that I (meaning my shop) was constantly flooded with mailings from the Orioles asking me to reconsider my cancellation after 1996.
especially if you include mini-plans that small businesses often buy.
You don't keep up with current tax laws, do you?
So my shop couldn't any longer have claimed a partial deduction for those upper deck seats?
And the total attendance for minor league baseball has actually gone down slightly since 1949, from 41,982,335 in that year to 41,644,518 in 2009.
A couple of things:
1) According to MiLB.com, the 1949 record, which was 39 million, was broken in 2004.
Then either they were lying in 1949 or they were lying in 2004, because that 1949 figure I cited came straight from the 1950 Official Baseball Guide, which in turn got its numbers straight from the National Association of Minor Leagues.
2) The minor league numbers you are equating don't include the Independent Leagues, which is another 8 million per year in attendance. The 1949 figures include all 538 clubs around then.
I'll grant that for sake of argument.
3) Even if we use your numbers, your 84% Organized Baseball growth rate seems off.
I'm not sure why, since that 84% is based on the increase in OB attendance from 1949 (62.1 M) to 2009 (115.1 M). Even if you include the Independent Leagues and add another 8 million to the 2009 total, that brings it up to 98%, which still falls short of the 107% rate of population growth for that same period.
Again, all this isn't to say that there's "anything wrong with baseball," at least from a financial point of view. All I'm saying is that baseball's "popularity" isn't something that can be simply pegged to the growth of the raw attendance figures for Major League Baseball, and left at that.
** It's actually been 107%, as I wrote above, not 104%. And that doesn't count the 100 million or so illegal aliens that we're always hearing about. (smile)
***Point of fact: Of the 16 teams playing in 1950, 11 of them currently play in parks with a greater seating capacity than the parks they had back then. The exceptions are the Yankees, the Indians, the White Sox, the Tigers, and the Giants.
Talk about selective endpoints! Minor-league ball peaked in the late 40s and was thoroughly decimated during the 50s. You went from 400+ teams in 1949 to under 100 teams by 1960 when MLB had to step in and guarantee each team would support X minor-league teams to keep it going. Yes, minor-league attendance hasn't grown in the last 60 years. On the other hand, it's exploded over the last 50 years.
No question about that, Walt. But that still doesn't correlate to the idea that baseball's popularity is at any "all-time high," which is the message being suggested by the citing of gross Major League attendance figures. Of course this is something you implicitly grant in the remainder of your otherwise nuanced and very well though out post.
EDIT: My only real point in everything I've written in this thread is to suggest a bit of longer range historical perspective when it comes to measuring things like "popularity." It certainly isn't intended to be an echoing of any doomsayers. Your own post here seems to be expressing the same thing, although expressed differently.
My other dog in the fight.
"Not so long ago" is a vague phrase but that was 30 years ago. It makes me feel old too but that's not particularly recent.
I would quibble that the media and MLB have pushed the Yanks/Sox/Cubs/Mets thing. I think that is more of a Fox/ESPN function with tacit approval rather than encouragement from MLB. Just based on watching MLB Network I think they have done a FAR better job of incorporating coverage of all 30 teams in an equitable manner than Fox/ESPN have.
As for the "all time high" thing I would say as a rate stat no, as a counting stat yes. Just because of the larger population there are more baseball fans today than ever before but as a percentage of North Americans I would say it is lower though I would say that is a function of more entertainment options at our collective disposal.
On one hand, if there was one televised game every week of the season, I suspect we'd see a huge bump in TV ratings. Popular!!!!! The urgency to view each and every game isn't there for obvious reasons.
I wonder what would happen to season ticket sales? In a shorter, longer season?
Would you or I attend/watch more or less games if the season was 154 games, 140, 190?
Totally depends on the metrics you're using, doesn't it? But I do think it's fair to say that baseball has completely lost its former dominance of the national sporting conversation, while at the same time it's just about at an all-time peak in terms of financial health.
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Just based on watching MLB Network I think they have done a FAR better job of incorporating coverage of all 30 teams in an equitable manner than Fox/ESPN have.
I'm glad someone else notices this. I'd say that this is due to the MLB network's relatively greater catering to the baseball fan, and its relatively lesser emphasis on pandering to the yahoo "sports" fan.
for several years football revenue has dwarfed baseball revenue, under Selig that has changed. I understand that the high number of games help them make the revenue, but when measuring health between baseball and the others, baseball is still increasing it's revenue stream while the others are struggling(not football of course) to even maintain their revenue from a decade ago.
This article is talking about why baseball has lost popularity, and that just doesn't jibe, in a higher competitive environment(more choices) they continue to grow while most of the competition has stagnated or lost revenue. (note: the economy is hurting everyone, but baseball seems to be affected less)
versus janet jackson???????
double post
triple post
I'm not sure that baseball takes a back seat to anyone, ratings is horrible way to rate popularity.
Baseball takes a back seat to football based on the amount of SportsCenter coverage. It's a horrible way to gauge popularity, but I worry that casual sports fans as a result think that nobody cares about baseball anymore.
The rest is more a parlor game. My only dog in the fight is the marginalization of teams other than Yanks/Sox/Cubs/Mets by the media and MLB which has had the perverse effect of harming TV ratings. It remains the case that there was a time not so long ago when having the Phillies and the Royals in the World Series was better for ratings than having the Yankees and Dodgers.
This is true. My opinion is that the demise of national baseball-centered publications (TSN -- by the way, I purchased "100 Years of the Sporting News" not long ago. It's a great read for crazy people like me who actually spend time downloading PDFs on Paper of Record. It's not great history, though, and I'm left with more questions now than ever), the lack of a single nationwide Game of the Week, the collapse of the baseball card industry (and just about everything else used to market baseball to youngsters -- I don't see baseball sticker albums in grocery stores the way I did when I was 5, back in 1989) and the excruciatingly slow pace at which the contemporary game is played have all harmed the popularity of the sport. 20 years ago, Statis Pro, Strat-o-Matic and APBA would advertise their baseball games in sports publications. It's almost impossible now for young or marginal fans to learn about those games, or anything else that does not follow the Madden model.
People don't care about baseball as much because they're not given the chance. The culture of baseball that help solidify millions of fans decades ago is gone. Football's culture is still there: in fact, it's stronger than it ever was. Stories from the NFL's summer training camps didn't always dominate summer sports news the way they do now.
Still, it's not dead, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the game. Millions of people play baseball each year. The minor leagues may be smaller than they were in the 1940s, but they're doing a hell of a lot better than they were in, say, 1906. Millions of people watch the World Series each October, even when the Yankees and Red Sox are not involved, and despite closeups of players' noses, repetitive advertising (this was not the case for games played before the CBS era -- not sure why the networks can only sell ad time to a handful of companies), horrendous announcing and hundreds of other entertainment options. It could be a lot worse.
There's no guarantee (for example) that if the Reds moved back to Riverfront that their attendance would go up, not unless you brought back the Big Red Machine.
This is true. I was thinking about this the other day, when I was listening to a few late season 1974 Pirates games. The Pirates were in the thick of an exciting pennant race at the end of the season, yet the crowds at Three Rivers were absolutely awful. I know the weather was bad, but I have a hard time seeing how this game would not sell out if it were played at PNC.
I've got more to say, but my wife is trying to get me to take the baby for a walk. More this afternoon.
That's a point I never thought about. I know little about video games. I've probably spent more time playing baseball video games than any other kind, and I sort of like the interplay between pitcher and batter in them. (I'm hopeless at everything else; I always have to set the fielding to Automatic or every hit against me is an IPHR.)
But I'm 51 and I grew up with dice baseball. To most kids, baseball video games probably feature less excitement than Pong.
I didn't think it was possible, but the crowd shots on Fox have actually gotten worse. The repetitive late-inning shots of that 50ish couple holding hands and the guy saying (essentially), "Don't worry, honey, it'll work out ok" were cringe-inducing and made baseball seem as hokey as a square dance.
And -- Dear God -- they've actually gone to a split screen of bad cliche shots to double the audience's "pleasure." Shot with pitcher's nose hairs and blackheads on the left, (generally female) fan with hands over mouth and worried look on the right.
First time, split screen of pitcher + weepy little kid in rally cap wringing hands: clever
Second time: insightful as to universality of crowd experience
Third time through 11th time: taken for granted and ignored
12th time: a frisson of annoyance
13th time through 11,000th time: increasing annoyance followed by assumption that FOX will soon give up on this ####
11,001st time through 514,000th time: soul-destroying existential revulsion at the banality of the human species, followed by the realization that hell is other people
(**) Which, who knows, they might have just spliced in from some other source.
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Stories from the NFL's summer training camps didn't always dominate summer sports news the way they do now.
Perhaps more than anything else, that marks the switch in popularity from decades past. Washington may be the extreme example of this, but in the Washington Post the total number of stories out of the Redskins' training camp in July FAR exceeds the number of stories on the Nats, who at that time are actually playing real games.
And yet when I was growing up, and Washington had the original Nats and the Redskins, the papers were full of baseball Spring training stories, the exhibition games were given regular writeups and weren't just an afterthought, and while the Redskins weren't shut out of coverage in July and August, they received about 10% of the column inches they do today. The difference is the rise of "football culture" and the corresponding decline of "baseball culture," the inevitable result of marketing and cultural forces that have been building up for over half a century. This doesn't mean at all that professional baseball can't thrive as never before, but that old "National Pastime" sobriquet rings pretty hollow.
I've been thinking about what is appealing about the different sports and it occurred to me that the rise of the NFL to popularity started soon after the beginning of the two platoon era. I'm not sure if that is a factor (college football was popular years before that) or why 22 vs 22 would be more popular than 11 vs 11, unless it allowed players to specialize at one position and get better at it. Personally, I'd rather see a non-specialist kick field goals like Lou Groza, but that might just be me.
I'd like to see two-way football, too, but it would probably lessen the importance of the quarterback -- and in the NFL, for marketing and other reasons, it's quarterbacks uber alles.
AFAIK pro football has always been two platoon. There used to be a handful of two way players, but it was a strictly voluntary phenomenon. IMO the shift in popularity from baseball to football came about due to the better adaptability of football to TV camera angles, the infinitely wise move on the NFL's part to require the TV blackout of home games beginning in 1951**, and the rise of college enrollment in general, which introduced far greater numbers of people to the spectacle of big time football on a live basis.
**The Rams went from televising road games only in 1949 to televising all their games in 1950, and then went back to televising road games only in 1951. Their attendance in 1950 was about half of what it was in the two surrounding years, even though they finished first in all three seasons.
You know, when I was a kid, my friends and I used to love playing RBI Baseball, and I know others enjoyed Bases Loaded, Baseball Stars, Dusty Diamond's All Star Softball and so on. We also had fun with Ken Griffey Jr Presents Major League Baseball in the strike year. Come to think of it, in the rare even that I do pull out an emulator and play an old video game, it tends to be one of those (Dusty Diamond is particularly addicting).
Most of the arcade style baseball games I've seen since 1994 have been lame. The emphasis is on graphical accuracy and rendering, not on play control. Fielding control is a joke (I hate pushing "up" to throw to second, rather than to run) and the pitcher - batter matchups leave a lot to be desired, in my opinion. It really was a lot more fun with RBI Baseball, when you had a very fast fastball, a pitch that bounced, curveballs that could change direction in mid-flight and the risk of throwing a slow ball down the middle of the plate when the pitcher tired. It was, and still is, a lot more fun to play.
I'm young, but, like you, I grew up on card-and-dice baseball. I simply don't understand why I don't have any friends who played APBA or Strat growing up, and I don't understand why those companies have had such a hard time finding young customers in the last 20 years or so. I know people who are nuts for fantasy sports (particularly football); if they care so much about individual statistics taken outside any realistic context, why can't they become interested in actually managing an abstract team? I chalk this one up to a general marketing failure (especially pushing inferior computer games at the expense of the board counterparts, with DMB being the exception) more than anything else.
Of course, you can't blame the decline of baseball culture on a single person or company. The blame does not lie solely with the decline of the Spink family, nor can we blame it all on the death of Dick Seitz, the rise of Upper Deck, Hal Richman's gradual aging, whoever was responsible for turning Baseball Weekly into a general sports newspaper (and, eventually, something more like Football Weekly), Dayne Meyer's acquisition of Diamond Mind Baseball, Tim McCarver, Joe Morgan, the rise in prominence of sabermetrics, Barry Halper's bogus memorabilia collection, or anything else. Baseball culture has declined due to a complex combination of things.
I didn't think it was possible, but the crowd shots on Fox have actually gotten worse. The repetitive late-inning shots of that 50ish couple holding hands and the guy saying (essentially), "Don't worry, honey, it'll work out ok" were cringe-inducing and made baseball seem as hokey as a square dance.
And -- Dear God -- they've actually gone to a split screen of bad cliche shots to double the audience's "pleasure." Shot with pitcher's nose hairs and blackheads on the left, (generally female) fan with hands over mouth and worried look on the right.
Have you ever rewatched ABC World Series broadcasts from the late 1970s and early 1980s? Sports Illustrated used to refer to it as "baseball wives on parade." It was very similar to what FOX did last night, except they would show the wives of players at bat rather than the cast of Glee or whatever FOX show being advertised.
...to the endlessly repetitive Geico ads (at this point they're almost approach FrankTV levels), the butchering of the National Anthem and God Bless America by every talentless pop star in the universe, and the pointless mid-game managerial interviews.
Agreed. I now mute the television when commercials come on. I can't make it through a game without a book or two (currently reading "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader": communist oppression provides a nice contrast with the national pastime), and I am sick of hearing God Bless America. It's nice to watch DVDs of old games and actually see the games, rather than hearing interviews with managers who completely ignore the action on the field (thank you Ozzie Guillen).
I'd like to see two-way football, too
Right now, the only thing that could get me to follow college and professional football again would be going back to the limited substitution game. Inflated passing statistics and constant high scores are tiresome, even for somebody who grew up watching BYU in the early 1990s. This Thanksgiving, I might turn a game on, or I might download and watch a real football game from Europe or Asia instead.
It's now in storage, but I have a copy of the Football edition of the New York Times Encyclopedia of Sports (published in 1979 -- I have one for Baseball and Hockey / Basketball as well). There are some interesting original articles in there debating the unlimited substitution game and the impact it would have for smaller colleges, dating from the late-1930s (before the first experiment) and the mid-1950s (when the NCAA went back to a limited substitution game). There were also concerns back then about giving the coaches too much influence over play calling on the field, something nobody even thinks of questioning today. The game has become a lot more structured and militant over the past few decades.
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You know what I'd like to read? I'd like to read about the resurgence of the Minor Leagues. I've got Sporting News articles from the late-1940s (especially 1948) about the rise of television and how it spells doom for the minors. That attendance has improved as much as it has is very impressive, especially given all the other entertainment options out there. I've seen some of it first hand. Salt Lake Bees games were sparsely attended around 2002 or 2003, and tickets behind home plate were cheap (less than $20, if I remember right -- a steal for an AAA team, in my opinion). Those same tickets cost quite a bit more these days, and yet attendance is notably higher. I know some of that is due to the death of Joe Buzas, who wasn't much of a businessman, but I also wonder if it isn't indicative of a more general trend towards increasing popularity of minor league baseball.
Still, I don't think you can say that baseball today is even close to as popular as it was 30 years ago, let alone 60. It's simply not as prominent as it once was. The hardcore fans are more intelligent and demanding than ever before, but marginal fans know and care much less than they once did.
I'll say this, too: if it didn't already exist, I highly doubt anybody would form a group like SABR today. Without TSN, people wouldn't be as aware of baseball's rich history, nor would they have as much interest. In my mind, we really owe a lot to the Spink family.
Interesting. WWII and the GI Bill might have aided football.
The newspaper evidence I've seen indicates that the NFL was always a two platoon league. I believe that's part of the reason why pro football was not popular in the early years.
I think Andy is exactly right. Isn't there a story about the Boston Braves broadcasting all their home games on local television in 1950 or 1951 or so? I thought I saw something on here about that, though it may have been several years ago. As I recall, it was something to the effect of the Braves attendance dropping dramatically and revenue completely collapsing as a result. Thus, the franchise moved west, only 5 years after a World Series appearance.
The ghost of Bill Wirtz agrees.
Dan, if I had the money, I'd commission you to write the definitive book on Spink and The Sporting News. I've got an original edition run from 1944 through 1962, and there's almost no way to convey to anyone who hasn't seen that paper in its prime just how thorough its coverage of the game was, and how important its role was in cementing baseball's role as the dominant sport in the national sporting culture. They didn't call it "The Bible of Baseball" for nothing.
IMO J.G. Taylor Spink is easily one of the ten most important figures in baseball history. Ruth, Ban Johnson, Branch Rickey, Robinson and O'Malley would be the only ones whom I'd probably put above him for sure, and even there it's not that easy a call. His paper was the ESPN / Fox / BB-Ref combined of its time, in terms of spreading the word and building a hardcore fan base. Seeing what TSN has become today is a bit like watching the fortune of the Vanderbilt family disintegrate with each successive generation, to the point where there are probably more than a few of them now on welfare.
I'd tend to doubt that as much of a factor. The problem with pro football in its early years is that many of the best college players never took it up, and the league itself was both lopsided in talent distribution** and woefully underfinanced. As recently as 1950, there were actually several major writers who openly argued the point that the quality level of the top college teams was better than the quality of the pros.
But there's another factor in the rise of pro football that helped it immensely compared to the college game, and that's the rising cost of the game that helped to kill off the sport at many small colleges that had formerly been powerhouses. In the 20's and 30's, when college football completely dominated the NFL in terms of public interest, there were dozens of smaller Catholic schools who competed with the big boys and often beat them: St. Mary's; Santa Clara; Georgetown; Fordham; San Francisco; Holy Cross; Boston College; and so on. Notre Dame was their model. In 1951 the San Francisco Dons had an unbeaten team that sent something like 8 players to the NFL, including 3 Hall of Famers. And yet due to rising costs, the school dropped the sport at the end of the year.
**The Bears, Packers, Giants and Redskins accounted for 23 of the 24 participants in the NFL's first dozen championship games.
Depends on how restrictive your roster and substitution rules are, but generally that's the way players pair up. If the practice were somehow to return, I would guess quarterbacks would always remain specialized and would still be as important as ever (if not more so). In arena football, even with fewer positions to cover, the QB's were specialists. Kickers, too, I think.
I really can't wait for the day when you can get access to just pure feeds. Give me the centerfield shot, the behind the plate shot, a shot from high up that lets you see the whole field - and cut out the announcers. I would be in heaven.
Done.
again a rating issue, and scarcity of games played issue... I do not know one person on the planet that watches sports center for play of the game during football season like they do for web gems. According to sports center there are no teams west of the Eastern time zone. Not really an valid argumnent.
When I first started to follow the CFL the roster size was only 32. It was quite common for the backup quarterback to play defensive back and for fullbacks to be backup linebackers.
I know one guy (Alan Ford) who saw semi-regular action at halfback (well more of a blocking back than anything else), all of the defensive back positions (wasn't fast enough to play corner, but somebody has to if a guy goes down), tight end and linebacker plus wide receiver in an an emergency. Oh, he punted and returned kicks when required.
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