Baseball Attendance Is Down 14 Percent Since 2007

No sport has worse marketing than baseball. They had Opening Day this year and I had no idea it was happening. That never happens to me. If I don’t know what’s going on, then there’s a problem. However, this is a two fold issue. Ticket prices keep going up. Fewer fans are showing up. That’s a bad, bad combo. Attendance across the sport is down 14 percent since 2007. Not great.

Eric Fisher of Sportsbusiness.com reported the following:

“Major League Baseball ended its 2019 regular season with a total attendance of 68.49 million, down 1.7 percent from a year ago and the league’s sixth decline at the gate in the last seven seasons.

The total is league’s lowest since 2003, when the Washington Nationals were still existing in Canada as the low-drawing Montreal Expos. MLB is also down 14 percent compared to its highwater mark of 79.5 million set in 2007.

MLB’s continued downturn at the gate has been largely a foregone conclusion since the late spring, when decreased season ticket sales left too big of a hole to be filled by improved walk-up sales. Still, baseball sells by far more tickets than any other US pro sport given the everyday nature of its playing schedule, and the attendance figure remains a key measure of the health of the sport industry.”

I could fix baseball tomorrow. Stop testing for steroids. Use the old balls and stop juicing them. It’s all gimmicks. It’s not authentic. Guess what? Fans showed up when steroids ran rampant. Bring them back or at least stop testing for them.

Let fans post social videos like the NBA. Baseball is like the USSR trying to control their content. Let fans go nuts with it. It promotes the sport for free. Baseball doesn’t get it.

Get rid of the Wildcard game. You play 162 games and a one game playoff decides the Wildcard. It’s beyond stupid.

Put the DH in the NL. It’s the only sports league in the world that doesn’t have uniform rules. Makes no sense. In a sport that needs more offense, how about adding a legit bat in half the league. That sure as hell would help. NOBODY wants to watch the pitcher hit.

Use better promos. It costs an arm and a leg for a beer and a hot dog. Do something different. Run promos. Get fans to the Park. Figure it out.

I listed a few things off the top of my head. It’s not that hard. Baseball needs to get rid of that dope Rob Manfred. How do you expect that guy to run a league? He can barely speak.

It’s a joke. Baseball figure it out before you lose more fans. It’s a great sport that deserves the right kind of love.