Regarding the current MLB lockout, one of the questions I hear most often from frustrated fans is: Don't they realize the damage they're doing to the game?
My response is usually: They realize the damage the other side is doing to the game.
Each side is convinced of their own righteousness, and rationalizes that fans will see it the way they do.
Besides, once a settlement is in place and the game is back on the field, fans will forgive and forget, and eventually, return to the ballpark. After all, haven't they always?
Indeed, they (mostly) have.
The last time baseball weathered a work stoppage -- this one cut across two seasons, 1994-1995, and resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series -- fans did come back. It may have taken an epic (and we now understand, tainted) home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, but it happened.
In 1993, the last full season before the players strike, MLB drew 70.2 million fans. After significant decreases in 1996 (60.1 million) and 1997 (63.2 million), attendance was at an all-time high in 1998 at 70.6. From there, it took off, albeit partly fueled by the expansion of two teams (Arizona and Tampa Bay). It's further worth noting that it wasn't until 2006, some 11 years after the strike was settled, that MLB matched its average attendance per game from the first half of 1994.
Still, the point is made: It may take some time, but eventually, fans return. Every time, they insist they're through with the sport, that they're sick of being taken for granted, that they no longer will be disrespected, and every time, they make their way back.
But...
This is a vastly different time. Since baseball's last work stoppage, more than a quarter century ago, the world has changed drastically. Baseball is not operating in the same universe it once was.
In 1995, the Internet was a fledgling invention, utilized by only a select few. Social media didn't exist. If you wanted to watch a movie at home, you had to drive to the nearest Blockbuster (look it up, kids). You couldn't use your phone to do more than have a conversation, and even then, it had to be in your home. Soccer and lacrosse were niche sports. Video games were rudimentary, and options included either a mountain of electronics hooked up to your TV, or a handheld GameBoy with a screen the size of a few postage stamps.
And On Demand? That was something your parents did when they wanted a household chore completed.
Fantasy sports were in their infancy. If you wanted to get some action down on a football game, your options were a football card at work, or access to a bookie.
In short, there were far, far fewer entertainment options. That world is barely recognizable today.
There's Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime and HBOMax and Disney+. Often, you can watch a first-run movie from your couch. If you prefer, you can watch the best soccer in the world, or any other sport you wish -- at anytime of the day, on virtually any device. Want to make a bet? Just whip out your phone -- or (ugh) if you live in the Commonwealth, drive over the state line to New Hampshire or Rhode Island.
In short, the world we live in barely resembles the landscape from nearly 30 years ago, the last time baseball dodged a proverbial bullet. The world is far more past-faced -- an unfavorable contrast to the game's languid pace -- and there are multitudes of more options for the entertainment dollar, and the hearts and minds of the American consumer in search of ways to spend his/her leisure time.
Not only has the world around baseball changed dramatically, but so, too, has the world's interest in the game.
In the mid-1990s, football was already king, but baseball was a clear No. 2 in popularity. In the 1993 World Series, the last before the strike, MLB averaged 24.7 million viewers. (And remember: that Series, for the second straight year, included a Canadian team, likely depressing that number in the U.S.).
Know how many people watched the most recent World Series between the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros? An average of 11.75 million, or, less than half of the total for 1993.
So, in the last three decades, baseball has seen its viewing audience for its crown jewel event drop off the table.
Yes, it's a far more crowded sports marketplace than ever before. (That's sort of the point). Meanwhile, as recently as 2017, the NBA attracted an average of 20.4 million for its Finals. The pandemic -- or other factors -- sent basketball's numbers downward in recent seasons, to the point where the World Series outrated the most recent Finals -- but just barely.
And, of course, the demographics are even more foreboding. For the most part, young fans can't be bothered with baseball. They don't play it nearly as much, and they certainly don't watch it. They (rightfully) complain that the game on the field is too slow-paced, that it lacks action and that it requires too much of an investment of time.
(Both the players and owners have largely tabled any moves toward improving the product itself until after such time that a new CBA is in place, though the owners did, at the 11th hour, make proposals on a pitch clock and banning shifts as a means to muddy an already fraught negotiating climate).
Much of the problems stem from poor marketing, the responsibility of the league. While the NBA successfully promotes both its game and its individual stars, making the latter household names, MLB has mostly fumbled its promotional responsibilities, perhaps out of fear that increased visibility will lead to -- horrors! - higher salary demands.
Commissioner Rob Manfred, when asked a few years back about his sport's inability to successfully market its stars, resorted to a familiar tactic in attempting to explain his failures. He blamed Mike Trout, the game's best player, for not wanting to be promoted -- yet another shrewd bit of scapegoating on the part of the commissioner, who would rather assign blame to others than take responsibility for the sport's ineptitude.
In the short-term, baseball will cede the month of March to college basketball. Should it return in mid-April -- a best-case scenario, but also a decided longshot -- it will debut against the backdrop of both the NBA and NHL playoffs, which will have the benefit of some momentum, unlike baseball's attempt at a (delayed) start from a standing position.
Next will come the NFL draft. And if you don't think that will dwarf whatever is (or isn't) going on with baseball, then you weren't paying attention when the NFL Scouting Combine -- a glorified beauty pageant for aspiring NFLers -- that managed to blot out the sun at a time when baseball was busy lopping off the first week of its regular season, once more oblivious to the self-inflicted damage it was committing.
And those are just the short-term issues. Long-term, baseball will be facing another uphill climb just to get back to the level it was at pre-lockout. When it arrives, it will be to the same unsatisfying product that existed last year, with any meaningful on-field rule changes, aimed at making the game more appealing, likely a year away -- or longer.
Even if baseball could lay confidently reclaim every single fan who loved the game pre-lockout, it would still be standing still -- with an increasingly older fan base. Shouldn't the goal here be to grow the game, rather than simply retaining the status quo?
In the 1970s, 1980s, and even the 1990s, baseball can afford its arrogant stance. Though it antagonized and alienated its most loyal customers with its regularly scheduled work stoppages, it could confidently say: They'll be back. And they were, largely. Such was the hold baseball had on its fan base.
But that world is gone now, as outmoded as flannel uniforms and scheduled doubleheaders.
In 2022, when you invite an already dwindling fan base to find something else to do with their attention and dollars, they're likely going to find alternatives -- if for no other reason than there have never been as many options. And if you were already uninterested in baseball, it's not as though weeks and months of back and forth haggling over dollar signs and profits are about to rope you in and fill you with intrigue.
In the meantime, while it argues over tax thresholds, pre-arbitration bonus pools and rookie salaries, perhaps the owners and players can solve this existential question, posed long ago by noted philosopher-king Lawrence Peter "Yogi'' Berra: "If people don't want to come to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them?''
How indeed, Yogi.
How indeed.