Game one of the World Series was between the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The 2023 World Series was the least watched World Series of all time. Baseball for the longest time has been considered America’s pastime, due to incredible feats like watching a ball be launched 550 ft or a pitcher throwing a fastball 107 mph.
Why don’t as many people watch the game anymore? A lot of people say they do a poor job of promoting the sport-whether it’s putting the games on commercials, poor habits of promoting it on social media, and failure to get the sport to the public eye. ESPN’s coverage of Taylor Swift attending Travis Kelce’s football games on Instagram seemed to outweigh their coverage of the MLB postseason leading up to the World Series.
A lot of people claim that baseball’s boring. To combat this, the MLB added a 20 second ‘pitch clock’ to combat If you’re not familiar, the new pitch clock rules are that the pitcher is only given 15 seconds to throw a pitch or it is an automatic ball. The hitter can’t take more than one timeout or it is an automatic strike, and the pitcher can only throw over to first base to check the runner two times per at bat. After these rule changes, it is hard to argue the fact that the pace of the game is why baseball is a dying sport. The no salary cap is also a big reason, due to the simple fact that teams can spend as much money as they want through free agency and trades. They can now have the same leaders of the AL and NL every year, and that could get pretty boring to people due to teams having all the money in the world to pay for these players and nobody can stop them.
People aren’t as excited to watch baseball games because it is just another one of those games where players are so inconsistent. It’s hard to hit 70 mph curveballs and mid 90 fastballs. For instance, when you watch a basketball game, people can pretty much guarantee that LeBron James is going to perform and put on a show. In baseball, guys who are historic for hitting- like Aaron Judge- can-go three for four with two home runs, but then go the next night zero for four with three strikeouts. It’s hard to tell what will happen. So that’s why more people are attracted to football and basketball more than baseball. I hope that these fears of baseball dying do not come to fruition. It’s up to Rob Manfred (the MLB commissioner) to promote his sport and to get more eyes glued to the baseball screen. No matter what there will be the same teams heading to spring training in February 2024.
