What happened to baseball? (Popularity wise)

Football has passed it (along with everything else) but the notion that baseball is fading into obscurity is one we've heard for years and it's an idea that is entirely baseless. That said, its popularity has not grown the way the NFL's has or even the way the NBA's has (although the NBA's popularity can be rather up and down).

Baseball's attendance, TV revenues and merch sales are doing just fine. But they don't market their stars as successfully as the NBA does, and they aren't as cutthroat with their players the way the NFL is (MLB's players union is infinitely more powerful than its NFL counterpart).

I used to argue all the time with that impossible jackass jimanchower on the old board about this. He'd say baseball is obviously dying because it used to be #1 but now football is #1, ergo fewer people like baseball today then 30 years ago. I'd simply explain to him that if 30 years ago, 10 million people watched baseball while 5 million watched football, and today 10 million people watched baseball but 15 million watched football, it just means that football is more popular than it was previously (and more popular than baseball), but baseball is just as popular as it was back then. He couldn't wrap his head around this, but he was also the most argumentative fuckface this earth has ever spawned.

There are always going to be people who say they don't like the long season, the long games, the constant pitching changes. Years ago, people bitched about the institution of the DH. Years before that, they bitched about having night games and letting black people play. So it's not like people bitching is new to the sport. People will bitch about literally everything. Doesn't necessarily mean there is a correlation between a sport's popularity.

But as others have noted, you're starting to see the cracks in the NFL's armor. Yeah, it's #1 but for how much longer? Youth participation is at an all-time low (and shrinking), lawsuits and further CTE studies will inevitably result in swooping changes to the way the game is played, turning it into a game of 2-hand touch and people are starting to change the channel on Sundays.

klawrencio is stupid.
He said this:

"...Years before that, they bitched about having night games and letting black people play. So it's not like people bitching is new to the sport. People will bitch about literally everything..."

Oh, he is right about people have always bitched about something. Yes, he's right, but as we know even a broken clock is right twice a day. 

But he misses the point that what people are bitching about nowadays is a fundamental way the game is played.

-Instant replay to stop the game just because a manager takes a "what the hell" approach has fundamentally changed the game.
- Twelve pitching changes a game has fundamentally changed the game.
- Pitch count (in 1974 there were 1,089 complete games, in 2017 there were just 80) has fundamentally changed the game.
- Interleague play (what is the real excitement now for a World Series matchup?) has fundamentally changed the game
- Pitch count again...a star pitcher (Strasburg) was not allowed to pitch in his team's playoff series!...has fundamentally changed the game

The game is NOT what we grew up watching. I see a pitcher now mow down the three batters he faces in the seventh...and then I see the manager make a change to bring in another guy just to pitch the eighth. The game has become a chore to watch. A form of entertainment should not be a chore to watch.

It's boring and not a sport.

Personnel changes are made in all sports. But they take zero time in the game. Hell, in hockey changes are made on the fly -- while play is going on! But in baseball it affects the presentation of the game. And what is presented to the public is thee most important thing about any sport...because sports are entertainment!

You seem to forget that baseball is for the fans. If zero fans watch, Joe Girardi and his "pitching change to get the best possible matchup" is absolutely meaningless. Girardi can do whatever the hell he likes if he is performing before no one, but the sport would not exist if people did not watch. And do you really think people want to watch 12 pitching changes in a game?

The sport is being hurt by 12 pitching changes a game. You can't see that? Average baseball game ran a tick over two hours. Now they are over three hours long! Clearly the big shots at MLB realize that is a problem because they have had committee after committee to look into it.

When we were young starters went as far as they could (remember the complete game?) and a relief guy would work an inning or two. Now we have moved into not just 9th inning specialist, but 8th and 7th and middle relief specialists. I shit you not, there will be a day when a pitcher will just go one inning each. And don't laugh at that. Did you ever think we would see a guy just pitch the 7th, then another just pitch the 8th, then another just pitch the 9th? We see that every night! We will see 9 pitchers pitch a nine inning ball game. We are very close to that already. The sport has been fundamentally changed by this new approach to managing.

That is the common cop-out answer as to why young people people do not enjoy baseball as they do other sports. Fact is, that answer it is bullshit.

Fucking LORD OF THE RINGS movies are 4 hours long each...and there are three of them! And the young ate them up. "Game Of Thrones" is now in its seventh season and the fucking Lannisters are still ruling Kings Landing. Nothing has changed in seven years! Yet people still watch.

This notion of the young and poor attention spans is horseshit. Give them something good, give them the pure sport of baseball, and they will watch. Do you really think watching the ninth pitcher of the game throwing his warm up pitches is disliked because of poor attention spans? No, it is disliked because it isn't fucking baseball! Watching three umps stand around with headphones on to listen to a replay call isn't fucking baseball!

Do you not get that? Hitting, running, pitching, a great fielding play...we all would love that. But another call to the bullpen (the tenth of the game) no one can like especially after seeing it for the 70th time in a month!

You know how many home runs - the signature play in baseball - were hit last year? 5,610.
You know how many pitching changes the fans had to sit through last year?  48,560!
When the dull shit occurs ten times more than the good shit, Houston, we have a problem.

Jesus H.

What are the the most common gripes against baseball?

"The season is too long"
"It's boring"
"There's no action, just standing around"

All common complaints of people who can't focus on anything for more than 30 seconds.

Maybe baseball should have CGI dragons grabbing fly balls and sword fights between managers and pitchers before a pitching change.

The pitch clock will be in place by 2019 tops. Limits on pitching changes, never. I am agreeing with you, the pace of play in the game is ludicrous.

There was a recent ESPN report of the 100 most popular athletes and I think the only baseball player was Babe Ruth.

Limit the number of pitchers on a roster? Yeah, the Player's Union will love that. It's nice not having a strike every five years, no? Another strike/lockout will kill baseball. The game will be on a level with women's Badminton. MLBPA would never give anything in the way of roster limits.

3 minutes between pitches would be rather extreme.  Steve Trachsel was the slowest guy I ever saw in terms of taking his time between pitches, and at most he'd take about 30 seconds.  Obviously that adds up over the course of a game, but still. 

It's all a matter of preference.  I find, and have always found, the NBA game to be insufferable.  It's like watching ping pong.  Just never got into it. 

I used to love football but over the past few years, with the rule changes, the oppressive regime of Goodell and the owners, the thuggishness of the players, the me-first prima donna aspect that seems to pervade all of the skill positions and the general off-the-field drama that has taken over, I just can't watch it anymore.  The war of attrition that used to take place at the line of scrimmage is nothing like what it used to be and now 38-35 games are considered "quality" games.  Not for this guy.  I have no interest in a game the outcome of which is largely determined by who has the ball last.  

But baseball never bores me.  I'm sure it bores others just like Game of Thrones bores others.  We like what we like.  But this idea that baseball is dying a slow death is one that is just silly and there is no empirical data to support such a drastic proclamation.  Attendance is a tad lower than it was 10 years ago but that's a natural ebb and flow (not to mention skyrocketing ticket prices - nobody mentioned that).  If someone wants to take his kid to the game, he's spending $100 minimum between tickets, parking and food.  That's insane.  

But no, it's not "too late."  It's doing fine.