You came into this thread with an opinion. You have no facts to back up this opinion. You reinforce your view with opinions and guesses. Then you ignore actual facts that people have posted to contradict your view. Did you know that Yu Darvish's first start as a Ranger drew over 3 million Japanese fans, even though it started at 4am? You're a basketball fan on a basketball board so obviously your opinion is going to reflect that. That's fine but just know, however, that the majority of the United States does not agree with you and baseball will not be going anywhere.
Wait. You're a freaking teenager? That explains how you have so much time to put together your daily reports. I hope sports journalism is your chosen career path. I'd have fired Chip Bailey and hired you already if I worked for the chon...
I actually do think baseball has an interesting dilemma in the sense that their national tv ratings don't do very well. I don't think it is a sign the sport is dying though. Their regional tv contracts are still enormous, bigger than anything the NBA can ever dream about and their online subscription is also bigger than anything the NBA could ever dream about as is MLB Extra Innings. Regardless, whether or not they get national tv ratings up or not, their live attendance still dwarfs the NBA and their regional tv packages do as well. Baseball is fine.
The sport will get interesting because next year is the 2013 World Baseball Classic. This is the equivalent to the World Cup or the Olympic basketball tournament.
If I were betting futures #1 NFL #2 NBA #3 MLB #4 MLS Hockey, Golf, tennis, auto racing all shuffle depending on the times. Of course college football might be a strong #2 if they can get a 8 team playoff system implemented.
Attendance is up this year around MLB. MLB All Star game ratings this year were higher than last year, despite it being an 8-0 drubbing. Regional networks are killing it...the Astros new deal with Comcast is projected to bring them an extra $80 million in revenue per year. The Rangers and Angels each signed deals that will bring in those sorts of revenues too...that's just from the regional networks. The new major MLB network (shared money) deal is projected to be gigantic. To the tune of about $1.4 billion/year. Right now it makes a little over $800 million/year (ESPN, Fox, TBS)...all of those networks' deal expire next season. MLB revenues are sick right now. They're second only to the NFL, and they're closer to the NFL's then you'[d ever imagine. In short...no...the game is not dying. It's flourishing. To suggest it's dying is to ignore the financial realities. Networks are betting big on its future. Attendance is up. Ratings have been bad the past couple of World Series relative to their history...but every sport has had seasons where that's been true.
I don't think baseball is dying I just agree with the point that on a national scale the NFL and NBA are much bigger. Not many folks pay close attention to baseball as a whole it seems like most just follow their team. To be fair in Texas baseball will never grab everyone's attention unless it's your team. Living in the northeast I can say plenty of people pay attention to the sport and not just their personal rooting interest it's kind of like we are for football.
Aside from ratings over the last couple of years for championships, I don't see enough evidence to suggest that the NBA is much bigger than MLB in the United States. I don't see that at all. The NFL is in it's own classification...it's America's favorite ENTERTAINMENT option...not just America's favorite sport. Look at the top 10 rated shows each year, and there's typically about 5 NFL games on that list. It's almost not fair to compare MLB or NBA to it at this point.
I think it's ridiculous to suggest NBA is bigger nationally than MLB when MLB dwarfs the NBA in attendance and revenues. However, I think where NBA has the edge is that the NBA playoffs and finals hold more appeal to people than the MLB playoffs and finals. Baseball fans don't seem to invest as much into watching the World Series or playoffs as basketball fans. A lot of people suggest this is because of the regional nature of the game. NBA fans of other teams will watch the Heat vs Thunder in the Finals but MLB fans of other teams wouldn't watch the Royals vs Marlins in the World Series no matter the stars that play for them. (generalities) I think it is also indisputable that NBA stars have more "star power" than MLB stars outside of a few names like Derek Jeter.
Of course the NFL is king. Instead of pointing to just ratings the feeling I get when I travel around the country for business and observe the pulse of American sports fans it just seems like they are more tuned into the NBA especially the playoffs. Outside of someone's local MLB rooting interest it just seems their is little interest or at least a large declining interest for the game as a whole. It also does not help that the playoffs are during football season while the NBA playoffs are during the MLB season
That's antecdotal...but I don't see revenues/attendance to suggest America cares more about the NBA than MLB. Remember, it wasn't that long ago we were looking at the Cleveland/San Antonio Finals ratings thinkng the NBA had hit the depths of something they wouldn't return from. Those ratings were flat out awful
I think there is definitely something to this portion. I think it's also likely that the long MLB season knocks off a lot of fans by the time the playoffs come. Attrition. For a lot of people the hunt for October is more exciting than October.
There might be some truth to that. I love the Astros but it's rare to find myself watching a game that doesn't involve with them. (regular season) I will watch a lot of NBA games for stars. Basketball has advantage as Kobe Bryant is more than often than not on the court. Derek Jeter, Matt Kemp, Bryce Harper etc are not. If those guys are on I'll try to catch their at bats but won't make a point to watch the whole game. (non Astro/regular season)
The arguments that baseball is dying in this thread are pretty weak considering that baseball is currently going through major growth period. How can you say something is dying when it is growing and making more money? And for those comparing the NBA finals audience to MLB's world series viewership are missing a major point... Lebron vs. KD = ratings. If say Pujols and the Angels meet the Cards or the Giants in the WS we will see some big time TV ratings.
Sox/Yankees versus the Cubs has to baseballs dream world series. I think we are safe from seeing that for some time...
of course tv contracts in mlb are going to be bigger than the nba. There are 162 games that the networks can show, double that of the nba. That is going to be valuable to the networks. NBA 82 game season just signed a contract worth nearly 1 billion per year as well with ESPN/TNT.
