Jul 14, 2015; Cincinnati, OH, USA; American League outfielder Mike Trout (27) of the Los Angeles Angels poses with the MVP trophy after the 2015 MLB All Star Game at Great American Ball Park. The American League all stars won 6-3. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has a precarious situation on his hands. He is in charge of a sport that has an increasingly aging audience, but that has recently found itself with a plethora of young talent.
Today, 50 percent of MLB viewers are more than 55-years-old. But this year’s All-Star Game had 20 players that were 25-years-old or younger, which has never happened before in All-Star Game history.
You only need to look so far as this FOX Sports promo video for the All-Star Game to see this weird dynamic. The video shows some of the young All-Stars struggling with technology that older generations would be familiar with, i.e. cassette tapes, VCR’s, rotary phones, etc.
It is a terrible ad, because most of these players would have had this technology when they were kids, apart from the rotary phone. However, the point is clear enough, when in the description FOX Sports places the caption “Warning: You’re about to feel really, really old.”
Manfred knows that if baseball keeps catering to this older audience, the sport and the league will surely be irrelevant sooner rather than later. He has already shown himself to be a keen supporter of implementing change into baseball, specifically in technology that modernizes and speeds up the game.
The new Commissioner has overseen MLB’s Statcast technology, the implementation of inning clocks and this year’s new rules for the Home Run Derby.
Differing from previous years, the Home Run Derby was made head-to-head bracket style, with a four-minute clock for each batter. The result was more home runs than last year, a shorter event than last year and better overall ratings than last year.
Yesterday, Manfred said that he is open to even more change in the MLB, in the form of expansion franchises, pitch clocks and a shorter season, among other things.
With the amount of young talent that he has at his disposal, Manfred would benefit from hastily implementing these changes for the good of growing the sport of baseball. Young sports fans are not going to welcome baseball overnight, and anything Manfred can do to speed up and excite the sport will surely be welcome while there still is this golden generation of young MLB talent.
The likes of Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Joc Pederson are not getting any younger, and technology is needed to match their place in the modern game.
