This here is Ken Griffey, Jr. He was the coolest baseball player of the 90's (sorry Omar Vizquel!), arguably the best player of that generation (Barry Bonds would win in a landslide, except his head grew about 8 inches because of...workouts), and most importantly he was marketable as hell.
This guy had his own candy bar, video game, and a great shoe!
So of course you would think Major League Baseball would build on the marketability of Ken Griffey, Jr., hell, even some other 80's and 90's baseball stars during that time and continue to be toe to toe with the NFL and the NBA at this very moment in popularity, right!? Right!?
No.
Oh baseball, what went wrong with you? Bad ratings. Bad attendance (you can say attendance is great, but look at the stands if you catch it on TV). No marketable stars. It's long. It can't catch the attention of millennial's who would rather see something fast, quick, and more entertaining.
Baseball was the first sport I really fell in love with. Besides Griffey, there was Kirby Puckett and his Puck Pack (he was a horrible person off the field, let that be known), Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds, Maddux, Randy Johnson...a who's who of people to market, real quick, name me the most marketable star in baseball right now? I'll go ahead and wait.
Oh Mike Trout you may say? Yeah, what does he look like?
Is this him? Or is it Tim Salmon? Maybe it's Bryce Harper? Maybe Clayton Kershaw?
Is this Clayton Kershaw? Because if you thought it was you are wrong, although he has a striking resemblance to Fernando Valenzuela.
Besides the Chicago Cubs World Series win in 2016, has there been anything marketable about the sport lately? Are you super excited to see the Diamondbacks play the Reds on a Sunday? Can you name a single player on either if you were a casual fan? To compare leagues could you name a few Bengals or Cardinals if they were to play football this fall? I bet you can at least name 4-5 as a casual fan of the NFL.
I love baseball, and more should really get in to it. Where baseball is failing is they aren't picking up any steam in this interesting time for sports. The NFL is having issue after issue, domestic violence, kneeling, concussions, the Cleveland Browns...The NBA is pulling in great ratings...but only for it's playoff games, and more particularly games featuring LeBron James, other than that it's tank city for most franchises and you're getting the same teams in the finals 4 years straight, and now it'll be even more boring with LeBron leaving the east.
Baseball? As I stated earlier, bad attendance, bad ratings, no marketable stars. Let's fix this.
How to Fix Major League Baseball
- allow some emotions! Bat flips, celebrate after a strikeout! Show some emotion.
Market that it's fun! The players who still go by the "unwritten rules" of baseball suck. Someone hits a monster home run so the retort is to throw at that hitter the next time he's up? Suck it up. If someone does that how about a new rule, that pitcher has to stand in the box and the person batting can throw directly at his stupid face.
- get women involved! Have you seen how the NFL and NBA have embraced women coaches? You mean to tell me there aren't capable females who can coach or manage baseball? And market better to girls and women! Get them involved in the game, it's another thing the NFL and NBA have a heads up over MLB on.
- speaking of marketing, it's time to market more to African American's as well. It's embarrassing how few are currently playing the sport. Growing up most of my favorite players were black, I can't name more than 5 players off the top of my head that play now (Denard Span, Jason Heyward, Carl Edwards...um....okay 3). Market this sport better MLB!
- have pyro or fireworks or cheerleaders or awesome intro music for each person. Get people involved in the live game. I went to a game this year, and it was fun because I was with my friends, and it was Wrigley which is always great. But if you're going to a game in Kansas City, which I've also done, it doesn't have that same feel to it. If you make the game more fun or interactive it won't matter how long the game goes.
Oh and get bad ass entrances. WWE/UFC, music cranked, pyro, get me amped!
- that being said, some things seem outdated as for the pace. How many times do you need to attempt to pick off a runner? They already made it faster to intentionally walk someone, that's good. The extra innings experiment in the minor leagues I think is an interesting idea (a runner starts at 2nd automatically to start the inning, sign me up!).
- add two more teams. Right now it's 3 divisions per league, with 2 wildcards for each. How about 4 divisions with 4 teams? Cool. Make the divisions matter. The wild card is kind of cool, but I think it's a cheat to the division winner. As for cities to add? Charlotte, Montreal or Vegas? Oh and movie Tampa Bay, dear god they don't deserve a team.
- can we get the managers to stop wearing the jersey's?
Creepy. It's just not flattering to see a man over 45 wear a jersey of any sort. The only way I'd be on board with this in any league is if Bill Belichick put full pads and jersey on for every Patriots game in the NFL or for the NBA coaches to have their own shorts and jersey.
- do something about the DH. Either keep it in both or get rid of it. It's like if the NFL decided to not use a kicker in the AFC and you had to go for two each time, but the NFC made you have the option to kick or go for it. It's dumb and makes no sense.
While we're at it, make TV more interesting. The announcers are boring as all hell. It's like watching golf with bats.
For the World Series, have it at a warm weather or domed site, make that a thing. If you're playing in to October and New York makes it (which they will this year), it's going to snow and you'll have delays.
- lastly, figure out who your star players are and market them! If I didn't play fantasy baseball I wouldn't know who most people are, and I LIKE BASEBALL! Kris Bryant, Bryce Harper, Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Aaron Judge. After those guys, there's not much else, and I still couldn't recognize a single one of them off the street. Start building up some players and make them important. It's what the other leagues do.
Thanks for reading,
Jeff
