The Downfall of the MLB

Major League Baseball, or the MLB, is a remarkably successful franchise, and has been since the mid 1900’s. The MLB was created in 1847, in Cincinnati Ohio, and started gaining popularity in the 1920’s. After that The MLB boomed for the most part. It stuttered during WW2 but regained its viewers and attendees shortly after and continued to rise in viewers throughout the nineteen hundreds. The MLB’s peak attendance was in 2007 with 79 million attendees across the season. This means that across every single MLB game played there were 79 million attendants accumulated. Although, it is not certain that 2007 was at its peak of TV or streaming viewership as well.

However, unfortunately for the MLB, from 2007 to 2019, this amazing attendance declined quickly. Game attendance decreased by about one percent each year until 2019. Then things got even worse for the MLB, because just like everything else, Covid had a deep negative impact on them. While the MLB did not allow viewers in 2020 or 2021, in 2022 the overall season attendance had decreased by 7.5% since 2019. And this is not just because it is easier to watch at home, neither is it entirely the pandemic’s fault, and the MLB is completely aware of all the excess issues that are contributing to their downward spiral. There are multiple problems contributing to the downfall of Major League Baseball. The biggest one being pay caps. A pay cap is a maximum salary that a team can pay a player to ensure that not one team can hog all the talent to themselves. This becomes a problem when some areas have a much higher collection of baseball fans than others. For example, when one team like the LA Dodgers rake in 565 million dollars a year and another like the Oakland A’s are making less than half that, at 206 million-it becomes an immediate problem for the less profitable team. Although this can cause quick spiral downfalls of teams, due to the lesser support of fans, this is not the only problem the MLB faces.

About anyone in America could name a famous football or basketball player; but not everyone could say the same for baseball players. Which would seem odd because not everyone watches sports at all, yet they most likely could name all the big names, like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, and many more. And you may have noticed that some of these names are not even current or relevant players. However, they are still huge stars. What the MLB lacks is giving their talented players, and upcoming stars, the spotlight of greatness to promote them and spread excitement amongst the youth and others inspired by these stars. The only problem is, “How would they go about doing that?” The most straight forward answer to that is that they cannot. Not as easy as other sports like football, soccer, and basketball, that is.

A fitting example would be shoes. There have been tens or hundreds of shoe lines that have been inspired or owned by professional athletes who made brand deals with shoe companies. A big one that pops up into people’s head almost immediately would be Jordans, named after Michael Jordan. There are thousands of distinct types of Jordans, ranging from legitimate basketball shoes to nice and expensive sneakers. Originally when a shoe deal is first made, it is just for the athlete to wear the company’s shoe as a form of advertisement.

And in most cases the shoe itself becomes popular amongst young athletes. This is seen in football, basketball, and soccer, but not as much in baseball. Why is that?

 Well, it is because baseball is a simplistic sport. Especially when most of the gear is provided for you by your team. Teams often have their bats, helmets and other gear specially made for the players. Which means that a lot of times it is hard for a baseball player to be unique, and it is not worth any brands time or money to invest in a player and a product, just for it to be unsuccessful because it hardly stands out. Not to mention that baseball is not a sport any person can be incredibly unique at. Of course, there are players with incredible talent, but it is hard to have an identifying move, or to add a new tactic to the game when the game is as basic as it is. To be frank, Baseball is not a complicated sport; it is a complicated franchise. Which in today’s world, with short attention spans and thousands of other forms of entertainment, the MLB just does not cut it.