America’s pastime has taken a hit in viewership in the past years.
Major League Baseball has struggled to attract viewers and fan attendance recently, but things seem to be trending in the right direction in 2024.
Some issues that have been mentioned that could have affected recent viewership are the length of games and the new style of baseball including home runs and strikeouts.
According to ESPN PR on ‘X,’ the 2024 Sunday Night Baseball season finished with the most watched season in the last 5 years.
The 2024 Sunday Night Baseball season finished as the most-watched season in five years
Four games averaged over 2M viewers, with the top five games up 23% vs. 2023
More: https://t.co/mlbnhw4dmV pic.twitter.com/a2zNaiRmLF
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) September 24, 2024
The new age of Major League Baseball sounds exciting on paper as the number of home runs hit has steadily increased over the years.
However, the increase in home runs has also caused the increase of strikeouts to increase even more.
It appeared for a while that Major League games would consist of plenty of strikeouts with the occasional home run, and that is about it.
The old-school strategy of the game seemed to disappear, and it turned into who can hit the most balls out of the park will win the game.
Along with the arguably ‘boring,’ games, the length of games was getting out of hand regularly lasting 3-4 hours or more.
The MLB implemented some new rules to try and counteract the way the game was trending.
Some of these rules include the pitch clock to ensure that games keep moving and that constant breaks in action are avoided.
Another big rule change included limiting disengagements and implementing bigger bases to encourage players and teams to be more aggressive on the base paths.
The 6% increase in viewership from 2023 is a step in the right direction for the MLB.
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