MLB attendance trending down for the 4th straight season

CantHaveTkachev

Legends
Nov 30, 2004
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St. OILbert, AB
I literally said players are selling out to hit homers because the analytics say trying to hit a homer is a lot easier than trying to string together 3 straight singles against someone like Max Scherzer. :laugh:
so then we agree that a combination of more home runs, walks and strikeouts along with super long games...is the reason attendance is down for the 3rd straight year :)

you may think it's insignificant, but 4 less balls in play is a big deal IMO...people come to the park to watch hits, great plays in the field and yes even homers.
unfortunately, only 1 is trending upwards
 

AdmiralsFan24

Registered User
Mar 22, 2011
14,979
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Wisconsin
you may think it's insignificant, but 4 less balls in play is a big deal IMO...people come to the park to watch hits, great plays in the field and yes even homers.

Rank these in order of which gets the most cheers at a game.

1. Solo home run
2. A strikeout to end an inning
3. A single to left field
 

MNNumbers

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Nov 17, 2011
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There are on average 14.5 hits per game that are not home runs and 8.72 strikeouts per team. So around 27 outs on average and 8.72 strikeouts mean 18.28 balls put in play that are outs plus the 14.5 hits for 32.78 balls in play that aren't home runs.

15.84 hits in 2009 and 20.09 balls in play for 35.93 balls in play that aren't home runs.

16.38 hits in 1999 and 20.59 balls in play for 36.97 balls in play that aren't home runs.

It's really not that big of a difference and it's easily explained as I said earlier by pitchers throwing harder and managers not being afraid to use their relievers early instead of letting a starter go through the lineup 3 or more times. It may not seem like much but the difference between 92 and 97 is huge. Even 94 and 97 is a huge difference. So there's not really any way to fix it other than moving the mound back which creates a whole new set of problems.
I'm confused.

I get the 14.5 hits that are not homers.

But then it seems like a per team thing is missing here. 8.72 Ks. That means 18.28 outs on batted balls per team.

To me, that means that the influence from increasing strike outs needs to be doubled.

Right?

By that math, it's about 51.1 this year, versus 56 or so 10 years ago.

Down 10%.
 

AdmiralsFan24

Registered User
Mar 22, 2011
14,979
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Wisconsin
I'm confused.

I get the 14.5 hits that are not homers.

But then it seems like a per team thing is missing here. 8.72 Ks. That means 18.28 outs on batted balls per team.

To me, that means that the influence from increasing strike outs needs to be doubled.

Right?

By that math, it's about 51.1 this year, versus 56 or so 10 years ago.

Down 10%.

Yeah I probably didn't do the math as well as I should have. 14.5 hits between the two teams that aren't homers. 18.28 outs via batted balls per team. So for one team it'd be 7.25 hits that aren't homers, 18.28 batted balls that are outs and 8.72 strikeouts.
 

LeHab

Registered User
Aug 31, 2005
15,956
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btw, specialization is killing the game as well. the rays were the first to really cotton onto the idea that "****, teams shorten games from the 9th and up, what's to stop us from doing the same in reverse?" have a split guy start, work his way through the split and then turn it to either a long man or just bullpen the game to the middle innings and see where the leverage is.

is it fun to watch? lord no! but since they implemented it, they've taken off and been able to roll a pitching staff full of guys with options back and forth to durham. what do they care?

I actually applaud Rays for pioneering reliever as SP and shift. Going cashless is another good move. Instead of complaining about being a small market they are looking for ways to get an edge within rules. Today as the lowest payroll team they are ahead of the highest on less than a third of the budget. Success won't be long lived but worth noting nevertheless.
 

Melrose Munch

Registered User
Mar 18, 2007
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there is literally nothing stopping them from competing for a spot. there is no salary cap. most of baseball decided to take the last two offseasons off, save their tens of millions from national and local tv as well as bam and not spend it.

teams treat the cbt like a cap but it's really not. it's just a further way for owners to pretend they spend too much money. the draft is capped. international signings are capped...all of this money goes right to the owners who have no reason to pay players when they're getting close to 100 million before anyone comes in to watch games.

"expand their playoff format" to what exactly? they play 162 games! if you're not good enough to make it after 162 games in 185 days, you're not good enough. the idea that we watch this many games only to have two teams "make the playoffs" in the form of a one-game play-in game trying to recapture the magic of a night that happened 8 years ago is ridiculous. the idea that the world series is now pushing halloween is ridiculous.

they don't need more playoff teams.
It's a business. An entertainment business. More teams in the playoffs is more money, in theory anyway.
 

Jets4Life

Registered User
Dec 25, 2003
7,191
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Westward Ho, Alberta
Baseball is a dying sport. It's incredibly boring, and most fans will be dead in 25 years. Football overtook it in popularity in the 70s. Basketball overtook it in popularity in the 90s. There is a good chance hockey will overtake it eventually.

There are also no places to put teams. It took forever to move the Expos, and if Washington had not agreed to eventually take them, Minnesota and Montreal would have contracted. Now we have the same situation in Tampa Bay. If Montreal does not build a new stadium, the Rays will fold.
 

robert terwilliger

the bart, the
Nov 14, 2005
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It's a business. An entertainment business. More teams in the playoffs is more money, in theory anyway.
that's what they said when they added the second wildcard and all it did was turn 1 playoff spot into two halves of one. teams used to know that they were good enough for the wildcard and would go for that, nobody is going to give up real assets for 50 innings of a starting pitcher so they might be able to get the second wildcard and possibly have a road playoff game.

i don't think there are a lot of entertainment companies willingly putting out shit products either.
 
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Burke the Legend

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Feb 22, 2012
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If they go to 32 teams and re-order to 8 x 4 divisions, maybe that's time also for a deep reform of the schedule? Expand playoffs to 16 teams and cut down regular season schedule to accommodate. Adding so many more playoff games has to be more lucrative than the 12 missing regular season games if they cut it down to 150. Even below average teams could benefit still because if even if you're 5th or 6th in your division you could be in a race for that 4th spot down the stretch so still retaining fan interest in August than if your club was basically eliminated in early July.
 
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JianYang

Registered User
Sep 29, 2017
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I feel like this was a story back in the 90s too, until everyone started smashing home runs.

Time to bring the steroids back.
 

cutchemist42

Registered User
Apr 7, 2011
6,705
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Winnipeg
It is true that they've turned the Wildcard race into something to not care about. I dont even really consider it as part of the true playoffs and dont credit the current wildcard teams for making it as much as I did in the past.

For me to care about the race involves deeper tinkering of the system but simply.....there needs to be less regular season games and more playoff games.
 

Roadrage

Registered User
Mar 25, 2010
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170
Next door
play 150 games then half the league makes the postseason.
oh god. oh god why.
Why not? Seems half the teams are out of the running before August begins and are looking to be sellers. I think most people would rather their team have a chance in the playoffs then watching 12-20 more useless and futile regular season games. Allow trading draft picks would be good too. We could see the Washington Nationals trade their 1st rounder next season and 2 blue chip prospects for Noah Syndergaard for example.
 

tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
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Last time I posted in this thread, I went to look something up and was shocked to find that I had missed the ASG. Not just missed watching it, but missed that it was happening altogether. There was a time when completely missing that the ASG was happening, would have been unimaginable. It would have been like not noticing the Olympics.

I don't know if it was just a fluke thing that happened to me, but it gave me pause to realize how much less MLB marketing manages to penetrate mainstream culture these days.
 

robert terwilliger

the bart, the
Nov 14, 2005
24,059
511
sw florida
Why not? Seems half the teams are out of the running before August begins and are looking to be sellers. I think most people would rather their team have a chance in the playoffs then watching 12-20 more useless and futile regular season games. Allow trading draft picks would be good too. We could see the Washington Nationals trade their 1st rounder next season and 2 blue chip prospects for Noah Syndergaard for example.

first off, half the teams are out of the running from the beginning of the season but that's a different ball of wax.

second, if you're not good enough after 150 games, you're not good enough. the idea of turning the postseason into a second season does two things:

- it absolutely trivializes the regular season from the start because it's never about the regular season or having a good roster. it's about what you're going to do in the postseason. and if you're not in it for the postseason, what are you even doing?

- it lengthens the postseason even further, which even in this scenario of the season being 150 games, the playoffs would be going until nearly thanksgiving with half the league making the playoffs. it's bad enough we're encroaching on halloween now and that's just with the stupid half wildcard spots.

allowing draft picks to be traded doesn't really work in the mlb system either. international slot money is different because it's a pool. draft picks have a soft cap (the nationals first round pick this year was capped at $3,609,700) that teams will try to game by drafting a player that's easier to sign with that pick in order to draft other players later and be able to offer them more. how would that work in your proposal? the nationals lose that money from their overall pool ($5,979,600)? i doubt they agree to give up over half of their draft pool as well as two blue chip prospects (which they don't really have) just to bring syndergaard in.

if you're talking overthrowing the entire draft and turning it into a free agency thing, that's great in theory. but this bell has been rung. owners got everything they wanted and are hinting at an international draft next. none of this is good news for the baseball fan.
 
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JTToilinginToronto

Isles Fan
Jan 18, 2019
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Like I said previously ITT, the biggest problem for MLB attendance is the amount of games. 162 games, which means 81 home games. Let's say there's 40k seats in the average stadium. That's 3.2M butts to fill effectively in a condensed schedule in effectively one season of the year (summer). Many of the games are back-to-back for a week or two at a time.

In a time where humans have so much responsibility (work, home, family) and so many entertainment options, it's just a really hard task to get 3.2M people to buy expensive tickets to sit in a hot stadium effectively every single day for a straight week or two at a single time.
 

NCRanger

Bettman's Enemy
Feb 4, 2007
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Last time I posted in this thread, I went to look something up and was shocked to find that I had missed the ASG. Not just missed watching it, but missed that it was happening altogether. There was a time when completely missing that the ASG was happening, would have been unimaginable. It would have been like not noticing the Olympics.

I don't know if it was just a fluke thing that happened to me, but it gave me pause to realize how much less MLB marketing manages to penetrate mainstream culture these days.

1. The All-Star Game was extremely early this year. It's "always" the second Tuesday of July, but I also thought if the date "digit" was single, the All-Star Game was moved out (meaning it would never be the 8th or the 9th -- it would be the 15th or 16th). MLB used to make it the "highlight of the summer". This year, it felt like something they just wanted to get past.

2. Fox advertised the heck out of it during the Women's World Cup, BUT, I rarely saw anything else about it except during the World Cup. (but #3)

3. The advertising for the game was very "Latin" in flair; you would have seemed to have had to know it was for the All-Star game. If you happened not to like the music, you probably would have buried your head in your phone or went to get something to drink. The ads were NOT directed at your typical or casual baseball fan at all.

4. The promotion during the regular games prior to the ASG was extremely weak.

5. The voting system was extremely confusing. By the time I knew it was time to vote, it was basically over.

This was the first time in over 40 years that I didn't vote, because I completely forgot. I've been voting for the All-Stars since the old punch out ballots you mailed in existed.
 
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tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
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This same bull**** has been repeated for the past 100 years and never came to fruition.

This is like the old "everyone says soccer is going to be big in 20 years and it never comes to fruition".

Then you actually look at where soccer actually is in ratings and participation and it's like... oh. It came to fruition.

The numbers don't lie. Baseball's age demographics are troubling. It won't completely die off overnight, but 25 years is about how long it took boxing and horse racing to go from baseball-like status to niche sports.
 

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