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Sutton Impact: Plenty of room for baseball to grow — with calculated risks

I would like to preface this column by stating that I LOVE the game of a baseball — I played it and have been a fan for more than 60 years. I can still remember the first game I ever attended: A twi-night doubleheader between my hometown Pittsburgh Pirates and the recently relocated Los Angeles Dodgers. As you read this, the World Series is a memory for some and probably wasn’t even a blip on the radar for others. How can baseball — the sport long established as the national pastime in the U.S. — be declining in interest, especially as measured by participation and spectatorship?

There are symptoms of the decline everywhere. Open fields are now filled with soccer, lacrosse and Ultimate Frisbee players and occasionally international students playing cricket. “MLB the Show” is the eighth most popular sports-themed video game, trailing three soccer entries, plus games featuring the NBA, NFL, UFC, and the NHL.

Here are some suggestions:

Increase opportunities to play by creating a scaled-down youth version of the game. Soccer has futsal, basketball is played three-on-three (or even one-on-one), even football has six-man and eight-man variations. Why not baseball? I love the game and I grew up playing it almost daily in the summer. We adapted to the number of people we had by restricting where you could hit the ball, replacing a catcher with a wall with an etched strike zone, even using a variety of balls: tennis balls, rubber balls and wiffle balls depending upon how large our playing area was. Playing the game creates interest and understanding and that leads to interest and possible participation and spectatorship. Seven-on-seven games are a possibility, and easily created by eliminating either right field or left field hitting (depending upon the batter). Adding pitchers hand (if the ball is thrown back to the pitcher by a fielder prior to the runner reaching first base the batter would be out) would also eliminate the need for a first baseman reducing the game to six-on-six.

MLB and MiLB should allocate resources to teach the game through clinics and demonstrations using current and former players. Albert Spalding was instrumental in growing the game of baseball through clinics, tours and instructional manuals. Spalding, a fomer big league pitcher, wanted to create buyers for his sporting goods business. Perhaps a grassroots marketing campaign through Wilson, Rawlings or Nike could have a similar effect. This approach has taken the form of academies in the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean hotbeds — why not the U.S.?

I love that Commissioner Rob Manfred is promoting Little League and increasing awareness in the sport through the annual MLB Little League Classic. This brilliant showcase (entering its third year in 2019) humanizes MLB players and provides a great forum and social platform to promote baseball. 

Manfred also champions the Play Ball youth initiative, which he announced on his first day as commissioner in 2015. Play Ball has been an increasingly visible part of the league’s marquee events.

Also in 2015, MLB and the MLBPA created a new joint charity, the Youth Development Foundation, devoted to youth baseball and softball.

Other excellent programs include: RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities), Urban Youth Academy, the Pitch, Hit & Run skills competition, and the new Prospect Development Pipeline League.

What more can be done to increase interest and participation? Perhaps a more formal arrangement and development program: Junior MLB, a coed, grassroots baseball program offered initially in MLB markets but, like the NBA’s Junior NBA/WNBA program, expandable to the marketing areas of the respective MLB teams.

Increase interest in playing, viewing and attending the game by making it shorter in duration. This recent World Series is a great example of what many fans say is hurting baseball:

 Too many commercials.

 Long at-bats because batters keep stepping out, adjusting equipment or whatever their particular rituals involve.

 Inconsistent umpiring particularly with balls and strikes.

 Too much time reviewing and interpreting calls.

I won’t comment on the number of substitutions and the time that takes because that is strategy-driven and I can accept that — at least for now.

How about using technology to call balls and strikes? Chips in the baseball and a laser system defining the strike zone could make it easier and more consistent. The home plate umpire could receive the call from the laser operator and thus still be in position to make safe/out calls at home plate. The same system could be employed with chips in the balls, bases, player shoes and foul lines, eliminating the need for umpires altogether, but maybe that is too much for right now.

For the at-home viewer, why not offer split-screen commercial messages or make a commercial border that frames the action? If commercials add roughly two to three minutes every inning, that would shorten the games by 30 minutes, which would be significant.

Shorten the season to a more manageable 144 games by eliminating the first two to three weeks of April baseball. Less is really more and if each game becomes more meaningful, wouldn’t we be willing to pay more to attend or sponsor them? I believe we have proved that fans won’t come out in inclement weather and that attendance picks up when schools are no longer in session. Don’t continue moving games to March — move them to May.

Bring back some form of barnstorming. If access and interaction increase interest — and I believe that they do — use retired players to travel during the baseball season to promote the game of baseball to non-MLB markets. 

I love the game of baseball. I own a Pirates ticket plan and I live in Tampa. I have the Extra Innings package so I can watch the Pirates. But I’m approaching 68 years of age and am really not the target market to grow the game. 

Commissioner Manfred, I’m retiring next year and will have a little extra time on my hands. I’ve been told I’m a pretty fair sports marketer, so send me an email.

 

Bill Sutton (wsutton1@usf.edu) is the founding director of the sport and entertainment business management MBA at the University of South Florida and principal of Bill Sutton & Associates. Follow him on Twitter @Sutton_ImpactU.

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