MLB's Big Market Problem. Atlanta is 7th largest media, Houston is 8th.

[Frobby]

Atlanta might be the 7th biggest market, but their payroll was 12th, and about $30 mm less than the Orioles spent just a few years ago.   

I do think the sport would be better off if all teams’ payrolls were within a relatively narrow band.  

[Philip]

1 hour ago, bobmc said:

Wow!  You young whippersnappers suck the life out of everything!  I don't see stoics - I see wads of chaw in player's grill, pearls dangling before swine, bats flipping everywhere, umps missing calls, sunflower seeds spit on dugout floors, water going in and quickly spit out rather than swallowing.  It's a cornucopia of action and style.  I see donnybrooks and butcher boys and great pieces of hitting.  I see wonderful, graceful catches, errors of commission and omission, dropped balls, bats splitting and balls hitting roofs and called dingers!  True, one never knows when the action will occur but that is my magic - the serendipity, the surprise, the glory of victory and the agony of defeat (to coin a term).  But alas, I am an OG .....   

Carry 

Most of your comment didn’t address what I said.

But you usually don’t see those things except on the replay, and frequently not even then, because the camera work is so bad. Now, on instant replay, of course, we get exquisite close-ups of the last half second of a play, but so what? In real time we don’t get to watch it happen except in blinks.

In football, the complexity is part of the game. It really is as complicated as war….or as Shaw said, as opera.

Basketball is nonstop. 48 minutes of aggressive ballet. 
And those are both OK

The excitement of baseball is that we constantly experience build up and then resolution. Sometimes the resolution is nothing, a foul ball, for instance, or a pop-up, and foul balls and pop-ups are boring, but we don’t know they’re going to happen until they actually happen, so the anticipation is itself exciting.

Strikeouts are not boring, But they would be more exciting if they were less plentiful.

But sometimes they result in a ball put into play, and that’s good. 
But one of the huge problems is that the way the cameras are used completely ruins the impact of a play, and completely eliminates the power of that anticipation, That few seconds before “it happens” that is one of the chief delights of baseball.

here’s an example:

Many years ago, I think Merwin Gonzalez, but it might have been Johnathan Villar, Stole home against Wey Yin Chen and the Orioles. Not only was the camera angle perfect, and we got to watch the whole thing start to finish, but the announcers picked up on the runner creeping away from third base, they were setting up the possibility, increasing the anticipation and therefore increasing the excitement, And then it happened. That year the Astros were awful and the Orioles were fabulous, but there we got to watch a marvelous little 15-second vignette, a tale told beautifully. And for those 15 seconds, the Astros made the Orioles look pretty dumb.
That kind of successful presentation is so rare as to be practically accidental, and the absence of it is part of the problem of baseball.

 

Edit: On a whim, I looked up that play where Villar stole home against the Orioles, and sadly I remembered it completely wrong.  it was exactly the same kind of bad camera work that we saw last week in Tampa.

Rats.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Philip
Addendum

[Oriole1940]

If MLB had a better product to put on the field, it would not matter as much, as to what the size of the market is.  But as long as they operate in the decades ago mentality, they need to worry.  As long as the Dodgers, Res Sox and Yankees are not in the WS, it is a win win situation foe me.     

[Porky]

5 hours ago, ChrisP said:

Not really on topic, but ..maybe...

Chris Russo was on DP last week and had a great point. MLB's fans don't follow the next round if their team doesn't advance. It's not like that with the NFL and others. 

The constant pitching changes etc and 3.5 hour games get old. Although, I don't think the abbreviated year last year did SP's any favors.

There's a lot of factors that contribute to MLB's shrinking popularity, but I think this point encapsulates so much of it. People are fans of teams, not the sport. This board is a perfect example of that - some of the most baseball-smart posters here are O's die-hards and don't bother to watch any game that doesn't include the Orioles.

Why is that? Lots of reasons. The most obvious at the moment being how difficult MLB makes it to watch their biggest games.

But, I don't think Big Markets vs Small Markets are a problem though. MLB has plenty of parity - and the Cardinals, Brewers, and Rays haven't had any trouble competing. The woes of the Orioles, Pirates, and Marlins have much, much, much more to do with mismanagement than anything.

 

 

[SteveA]

In the 21st century so far:

19 of 30 MLB teams have made the World Series at least once (63%)

23 of 32 NHL teams have made the Stanley Cup at least once (72%)

21 0f 32 NFL teams have made the Super Bowl at least once (66%)

16 of 30 NBA teams have made the NBA Finals at least once (53%).

So baseball does better than NBA in spreading around the ability to make the finals, but not as good as NFL or NHL.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

5 minutes ago, Porky said:

There's a lot of factors that contribute to MLB's shrinking popularity, but I think this point encapsulates so much of it. People are fans of teams, not the sport. This board is a perfect example of that - some of the most baseball-smart posters here are O's die-hards and don't bother to watch any game that doesn't include the Orioles.

Why is that? Lots of reasons. The most obvious at the moment being how difficult MLB makes it to watch their biggest games.

But, I don't think Big Markets vs Small Markets are a problem though. MLB has plenty of parity - and the Cardinals, Brewers, and Rays haven't had any trouble competing. The woes of the Orioles, Pirates, and Marlins have much, much, much more to do with mismanagement than anything.

 

 

You also see it in the marketing of MLB and NFL. The MLB does very little compared to the NFL to market their star players. The MLB did a better job in the 90's with Ken Griffey Jr. and "chicks dig the long ball" compared to today. Some of it is the best player in baseball Mike Trout doesn't seem to be the most charismatic star, but maybe I'm missing it but I don't see ad campaigns highlighting the game's best players.

The NFL is geared towards it's star players. So even small market teams get high ratings if they have an Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes or Peyton Manning. You don't see this in baseball ever and all we get is the Yankees/Red Sox jammed down our throats watching ESPN. MLB Network does better in their coverage, but they still focus more on the big market teams.

This probably won't change with the way baseball payrolls are currently structured. The NFL with the salary cap and revenue sharing gives every team a chance to compete. Baseball is geared towards the bug market teams due to local television contracts being where the real money is made. 

Small market teams can compete like the Rays and A's, but you have to really be on the ball as an organization. When the Red Sox screw up they can throw money at the problem, and trade away or cut bad contracts. It's not as easy for the Orioles and Rays to do the same. But the Rays have found a way to compete in MLB without having a large payroll.

It will be a real fight to change how baseball revenues are shared because I don't see the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc. sharing their local broadcasting revenues willingly. Large market team see it as their right playing in a large market that they are entitled to those revenue. But at the same time no one if going to pay $$$ to watch the Yankees, Dodgers, etc. to play intra-squad squad scrimmages.

I don't see anything changing with baseball regarding it's revenues anytime soon, but I think it would benefit to closer emulate the NFL when it comes to payroll and revenue sharing.

/end rant 

[BohKnowsBmore]

39 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

You also see it in the marketing of MLB and NFL. The MLB does very little compared to the NFL to market their star players. The MLB did a better job in the 90's with Ken Griffey Jr. and "chicks dig the long ball" compared to today. Some of it is the best player in baseball Mike Trout doesn't seem to be the most charismatic star, but maybe I'm missing it but I don't see ad campaigns highlighting the game's best players.

The NFL is geared towards it's star players. So even small market teams get high ratings if they have an Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes or Peyton Manning. You don't see this in baseball ever and all we get is the Yankees/Red Sox jammed down our throats watching ESPN. MLB Network does better in their coverage, but they still focus more on the big market teams.

This probably won't change with the way baseball payrolls are currently structured. The NFL with the salary cap and revenue sharing gives every team a chance to compete. Baseball is geared towards the bug market teams due to local television contracts being where the real money is made. 

Small market teams can compete like the Rays and A's, but you have to really be on the ball as an organization. When the Red Sox screw up they can throw money at the problem, and trade away or cut bad contracts. It's not as easy for the Orioles and Rays to do the same. But the Rays have found a way to compete in MLB without having a large payroll.

It will be a real fight to change how baseball revenues are shared because I don't see the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc. sharing their local broadcasting revenues willingly. Large market team see it as their right playing in a large market that they are entitled to those revenue. But at the same time no one if going to pay $$$ to watch the Yankees, Dodgers, etc. to play intra-squad squad scrimmages.

I don't see anything changing with baseball regarding it's revenues anytime soon, but I think it would benefit to closer emulate the NFL when it comes to payroll and revenue sharing.

/end rant 

What gets me about MLB's marketing (or lack thereof) is that they're willing to do things that fundamentally change the game (e.g., the special extra innings rules, 7-inning double-headers, etc.), which have the potential to piss off their long-time, core fanbase, but they don't seem willing to do any of the stuff that's more outreach-based to sell the existing product.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

20 minutes ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

What gets me about MLB's marketing (or lack thereof) is that they're willing to do things that fundamentally change the game (e.g., the special extra innings rules, 7-inning double-headers, etc.), which have the potential to piss off their long-time, core fanbase, but they don't seem willing to do any of the stuff that's more outreach-based to sell the existing product.

Yes, it's really odd that MLB did a better job of marketing the game in the 1990s compared to today. The only marketing we get on ESPN is watch the Yankees/Red Sox, Dodgers and what is Shohei Ohtani up to now. 

I know Ohtani is not a native English speaker, but he's very popular and should have a national marketing campaign by now. And MLB was late into allowing YouTube video clips until the last few years. Again another easy way to advertise the sport that wasn't utilized early enough. 

[Porky]

56 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

You also see it in the marketing of MLB and NFL. The MLB does very little compared to the NFL to market their star players. The MLB did a better job in the 90's with Ken Griffey Jr. and "chicks dig the long ball" compared to today. Some of it is the best player in baseball Mike Trout doesn't seem to be the most charismatic star, but maybe I'm missing it but I don't see ad campaigns highlighting the game's best players.

The NFL is geared towards it's star players. So even small market teams get high ratings if they have an Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes or Peyton Manning. You don't see this in baseball ever and all we get is the Yankees/Red Sox jammed down our throats watching ESPN. MLB Network does better in their coverage, but they still focus more on the big market teams.

This probably won't change with the way baseball payrolls are currently structured. The NFL with the salary cap and revenue sharing gives every team a chance to compete. Baseball is geared towards the bug market teams due to local television contracts being where the real money is made. 

Small market teams can compete like the Rays and A's, but you have to really be on the ball as an organization. When the Red Sox screw up they can throw money at the problem, and trade away or cut bad contracts. It's not as easy for the Orioles and Rays to do the same. But the Rays have found a way to compete in MLB without having a large payroll.

It will be a real fight to change how baseball revenues are shared because I don't see the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc. sharing their local broadcasting revenues willingly. Large market team see it as their right playing in a large market that they are entitled to those revenue. But at the same time no one if going to pay $$$ to watch the Yankees, Dodgers, etc. to play intra-squad squad scrimmages.

I don't see anything changing with baseball regarding it's revenues anytime soon, but I think it would benefit to closer emulate the NFL when it comes to payroll and revenue sharing.

/end rant 

There's plenty of instances over the years where a really, really lousy NFL game on a Thursday night completely dominates a MLB Playoff game in the ratings. There's also plenty of teams in the NFL that have been perpetually bad, say the Jaguars for instance. If you look further, soccer in Europe has far less parity and way more payroll imbalance than any American sports league - and people watch it a ton.

So, I don't really think that revenue imbalance is a huge issue when it comes to building a national audience for MLB games. If anything, having the same teams constantly making the playoffs helps pull in a national audience because your average person knows the people playing. For instance, the NFL has had Tom Brady dominate the Super Bowl for the last 20 years and the NBA has had LeBron in the Finals pretty much every year for the last decade.

 

[Porky]

34 minutes ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

What gets me about MLB's marketing (or lack thereof) is that they're willing to do things that fundamentally change the game (e.g., the special extra innings rules, 7-inning double-headers, etc.), which have the potential to piss off their long-time, core fanbase, but they don't seem willing to do any of the stuff that's more outreach-based to sell the existing product.

I agree, MLB is really terrible at marketing. They're also terrible at making sure the games are broadcast somewhere people can actually watch them. And, when they do get people to watch, the broadcasts are really boring from a production value standpoint. Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN can be absolutely painful to watch.

Which is silly, because they have plenty of really exciting players right now: Ohtani, Tatis Jr, Vlad Jr, Soto, Machado, Mookie Betts, Lindor, Judge, Harper, etc. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

4 minutes ago, Porky said:

I agree, MLB is really terrible at marketing. They're also terrible at making sure the games are broadcast somewhere people can actually watch them. And, when they do get people to watch, the broadcasts are really boring from a production value standpoint. Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN can be absolutely painful to watch.

Which is silly, because they have plenty of really exciting players right now: Ohtani, Tatis Jr, Vlad Jr, Soto, Machado, Mookie Betts, Lindor, Judge, Harper, etc. 

Yes, yes, yes. ESPN is terrible at broadcasting baseball. Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN is unwatchable to me. TBS does a much better job at broadcasting baseball and Fox Sports is better even though I'm no fan of Joe Buck. 

[SteveA]

4 minutes ago, Porky said:

I agree, MLB is really terrible at marketing. They're also terrible at making sure the games are broadcast somewhere people can actually watch them. And, when they do get people to watch, the broadcasts are really boring from a production value standpoint. Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN can be absolutely painful to watch.

Which is silly, because they have plenty of really exciting players right now: Ohtani, Tatis Jr, Vlad Jr, Soto, Machado, Mookie Betts, Lindor, Judge, Harper, etc. 

Two of those guys actually made the postseason, though one of them only got in one game.

That's part of the problem.   During the regular season, baseball is a regional game, I'll bet well over 90% of eyeballs watching MLB games are watching their local team play.  The national TV broadcasts on Sunday night, Saturday on Fox, etc, get very low ratings.

The All Star Game and postseason is when millions of people actually watch games in large numbers.   And you just listed a bunch of young superstar players, and just two of them even made the posteason.   And you didn't list Trout and Acuna, who also missed out on the postseason fun.

[GuidoSarducci]

Baseball has a somewhat unique aspect in that its pretty boring up until the point where its not.  But its really hard to tell when that point is coming.  

Basketball you might as well not bother watching the first three quarters.  The NFL can sometimes be like that as well 

But with baseball, the winning run could very well be scored in the first inning, and then not much happens the rest of the game.


 

[Hazmat]

On 10/25/2021 at 7:56 AM, Bahama O's Fan said:

MLB is losing simply because it's losing the youth. Kids in the street play basketball or soccer out in the yard. It's the reason those sports are more popular worldwide, they are easier (and cheaper) to facilitate and play. You only need a tiny piece of concrete, a ball and a rim to play basketball. You only need a ball and anything to mark a goal for soccer. Baseball requires gloves, balls, bats, protection gear and a large area to play. That space isn't available in urban areas and that equipment isn't always available to low income families living in extreme rural areas. Also, to the average person that may have never watched baseball, it is "boring". Now, if you know and understand the game, it isn't, but for the casual observer it has so little action and moves very slowly. If kids don't grow up playing and watching baseball, they won't want to watch it as adults. 

If I were in charge of MLB, I'd be in every city promoting and organizing Blitzball leagues for kids.  If you haven't watched Blitzball videos on Youtube, check them out.  Looks like a ton of fun and a great way of introducing kids to the game of baseball.  This may be happening to an extent as I see MLB players playing Blitzball in some videos.  In fact, on the Blitzball website, there is a video that includes M. Givens on a team of MLB players.

https://www.blitzball.com/

[Moose Milligan]

22 hours ago, Porky said:

There's a lot of factors that contribute to MLB's shrinking popularity, but I think this point encapsulates so much of it. People are fans of teams, not the sport. This board is a perfect example of that - some of the most baseball-smart posters here are O's die-hards and don't bother to watch any game that doesn't include the Orioles.

Why is that? Lots of reasons. The most obvious at the moment being how difficult MLB makes it to watch their biggest games.

But, I don't think Big Markets vs Small Markets are a problem though. MLB has plenty of parity - and the Cardinals, Brewers, and Rays haven't had any trouble competing. The woes of the Orioles, Pirates, and Marlins have much, much, much more to do with mismanagement than anything.

 

 

I think another reason is that the NBA and NFL promote their players better.  And the nature of those sports is that one guy can take over and dominate a game.  I don't watch Tampa Bay because of their team, I'm watching for Tom Brady to go 30/40 for 350 yards and 4 touchdowns.  I watch the Bucks for Giannis getting 30 points at 15 rebounds.

I could watch the Dodgers to see Mookie Betts but what if he goes 0-4?  Same with Ohtani.  The game I went to this past summer, I went to go see him and he was relatively disappointing.