[Image source: SB Nation]

I do not care about Baseball. I am a Cubs fan in name only. My mom grew up in Chicago going to Cub’s games and my dad was somehow a Cubs fan, so, by proxy, I became a Cubs fan. But I have never cared about Baseball. The only full games of Baseball I have ever watched were when the Cubs won the World Series. I’ve never watched a full regular season game, though I have tried many times. It’s just not my sport. I grew up watching Football and playing Soccer and Basketball, so those are the sports that hold my interest more. I live in a city very excited about hockey right now, so I keep up with that too. Baseball is just…meh. Not my thing.

All of that being said, is Baseball anyone’s thing anymore? Did anyone really even care about the World Series this year? Normally I will at least hear about what is going on or I’ll have some friends posting about it, but this year it seemed like it was radio silence. I did not even have to try that hard to pretend like it wasn’t happening. I just woke up to the news that the Red Sox had won it and I didn’t even know they had already won 3 games or were playing the potential series-winning game that night.

Was this just a boring playoffs and Baseball fans are still strong or is this a sign that Baseball is losing its footing as America’s Sport?

Baseball has the oldest fan base of any sport. 50% of its audience is 55 or older, which is above average for American sports. The average age is 53, compared with 37 for the NBA and 47 for the NFL. The number of players between the ages of 7 and 17 decreased by 47% between 2002 and 2013. The all-time lows in terms of Games 1-7 of the World Series viewership have all been set between 2008 and 2014.

Baseball seems to be losing viewers and the sports fans of America, especially the younger fans, are rapidly losing interest. There are plenty of reasons why this could be the case. Basketball is now the “cool” sport. It’s the sport that the kids are watching, it is the sport that has the major celebrity status. Joel Embiid is a social media star, Lebron is a hero because of his I Promise School. Hip Hop artists are dropping names like Derozen and Steph Curry. Drake, arguably the most relevant music artist, is vocal about his support of the Raptors. The NBA has allowed cultural protests where the NFL has been steadily against them. Culturally, no one is talking about Baseball. No one cares about the Baseball stars. They aren’t even controversial. They are not relevant, which is hurting the relevance of Baseball with today’s youth.

Also, Baseball is not a fun sport to watch for today’s impatient generation. Today’s generation can stream an action movie any time they want. They watch YouTube videos with adblockers to prevent anything from interrupting their entertainment. They can look up any information they need instantly. They are the generation of instant gratification and continuous stimulation. Baseball almost spits in the face of that.

The average length of a baseball game is just under 3 hours. Of those three hours, how often are players actually moving? How often are we anxiously waiting for the next pitch that ends up reaching the catcher who throws it straight back to the pitcher and we wait again? There is no constant excitement, there is no action.

There is also not obvious feats of athletic ability. Hitting a small baseball thrown by a major league pitcher is a skill that I will 100% never possess and I don’t understand how anyone is capable of doing it. Throwing a ball so it curves just the way you want it to at 90 mph is inconceivable to me. I am not at all knocking the insane athletic ability and skill of Baseball players. They are faster, stronger, quicker, and more agile than me in every single way. They are monster athletes.

They just don’t look impressive.

Hitting a home run is impressive, but it doesn’t look impressive. Running quickly to a base doesn’t look impressive. Throwing the perfect pitch doesn’t look impressive. In today’s image and excitement based culture, it’s all about how you look. A dunk? An ankle-breaking crossover? A one-handed catch in the end zone? A monster tackle? THAT’S impressive. It looks impressive. It looks fun and exciting. It looks like what Baseball is not: young, fast, and furious. It’s way harder to get Baseball highlights. In today’s world of under 30-second Instagram videos, you need highlights. Basketball is overflowing with highlights, you might have one semi-cool looking diving catch in a Baseball game.

Watching Baseball takes patience. Both the game and the season. Baseball games are slow-paced, we mentioned that, but so are the seasons. They play somewhere around 1,000 games a season. The season seems to last year-round. It takes effort to pay attention to a team for that long, especially when it doesn’t feel like every game matters. Teams will often play each other two or three nights in a row, so you just feel like you’re watching the same thing. The game is slow and the season is slow. Do I need to rehash why that is a negative in today’s culture?

I don’t know what the future of Baseball is. It could have a revival. It could make changes that bring viewers to it. I don’t know what they are going to do.

I do know that fewer and fewer kids care about Baseball. It will be impossible to bring kids into watching a sport they never cared about as kids when they become adults, no matter how many changes you make. If Baseball does not take serious strides to reach this generation, it’s not looking good for them.