This point has been hammered home already, but it looks what we already knew has been confirmed yet again. Baseball has all but lost its title as the national pastime.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/10/24/vikings-giants-generates-higher-rating-than-world-series-game-1/
We can point to a number of reasons why baseball is where it is. Bud Selig,
MLB's dated approach to digital media, and the general lack of an attention span in the young people of America all come to mind. Whichever way you spin it, baseball has turned into a niche sport.
Can baseball come back? We shall see. I'm not optimistic. In the case of baseball, I think there's a couple things they could learn from European football (soccer) leagues that could make baseball better.
- In the English Premier League and other major European soccer leagues, the regular season championship is the most important accolade. Everybody wants to make it to the Champions League and get the big bucks, but the regular season championship has significant value. In Major League Baseball, the regular season is an eternity, and turns out to mean nothing. Much like the NFL and NHL, the MLB playoffs are a matter of getting in the tournament and letting chips fall where they may. The exhausting length of the baseball season loses casual fans.
- The other concept MLB could adopt is relegation between divisions. The English Premier League, the highest division of English football, has multiple small market teams who compete by being smart with player development and transfer fees, much like the Oakland A's and Tampa Bay Rays do in Major League Baseball.
I'd go into shortening the season, putting the pitcher on a clock, and fans being allowed to directly tweet their input on managerial decisions (KIDDING) But, really, what can be done to save baseball in America, if anything?
