In an effort to make the game more attractive to viewers, MLB has worked tirelessly to improve pace-of-play. However, is game time really the problem?
Let’s face it, MLB has a problem. With the NFL reigning supreme over all American professional sports, the NBA has officially surpassed baseball in popularity, according to Gallup. What’s worse, soccer isn’t too far behind baseball, who could soon fall to the 4th most popular sport in the US.
To remedy this issue, baseball has been focusing their attention on pace-of-play. In fact, over the next two seasons, baseball fans will notice less time between innings, fewer relief appearances, and as we’re already seeing, fewer mound visits.
Look closer at the data, however, and you’ll find that baseball’s pace isn’t really the problem at all. At least not compared to the most popular American sport.
According to Baseball Reference, the average MLB game was 3:04 (read three hours and four minutes) in 2018. The NFL, which is more popular than church, averages 3:12. Not only that, according to the Wall Street Journal, of those 3:12, spectators only get a mere 11-minutes of action.
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Instead, fans are bombarded with an endless stream of commercials and non-stop in-studio coverage of other games around the league.
So what is MLB’s problem then?
Look no further than ESPN’s “World Fame 100” to find baseball’s biggest problem. This is where ESPN ranks the worlds 100 most famous athletes based on Google searches.
Shift through the list of athletes found on this list and you’ll have to scroll all the way down to 99th place to find baseball’s only player on the list, Bryce Harper. On the other hand, eight different NFL players appeared on the list, while NBA players appeared 16 times.
The real difference between these sports, aside from the NBA, is not pace-of-play. It’s social media presence and it’s marketing.
For instance, by just looking at followers, when we compare Harper to Blake Griffin, an NBA player who was ranked 100 on ESPN’s “World Fame 100” and Griffin outnumbers Harper by more than 2 million followers.
The problem is that fans aren’t talking about MLB. At least not as much as they are about the NFL, and certainly not as much as they do about the NBA.
So, how do you fix this problem?
First and foremost, follow Trevor Bauer and Alex Bregman‘s lead. Bregman’s YouTube Channel is filled with the type of content fans want to see. They want to see him at the cages; they want to see him pranking umpires; they want to see his locker room. Spectators are interested in the human side of these players, not the robotic figures they see at the ballpark.
Bauer’s Twitter presence and latest venture, Momentum, is also exactly what baseball needs at this moment. On Twitter, Bauer is constantly interacting with regular folks, not just verified celebrities, players, and reporters. Momentum provides fans with “player-driven” content, letting us into the daily lives of athletes across every sport.
MLB also has to stop cracking down on people sharing their content on social media. Open up the floodgates. Let people see their content for free and start to generate a buzz around the game.
Baseball needs to televise Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton taking BP; encourage guys to do bat-flips and to shout after they punch a batter out.
Sure, improving pace-of-play will help, but it doesn’t stop there.