The 2016 All Star Game Had The Lowest Ratings In It's History

Ok, I know I've been blogging about the All Star Game a lot over the past week, and I promise this will be the last one. Since there are no regular games being played this week, there really isn't much to talk about anyway.

So it came out today that Tuesday's All Star Game was viewed by 8.707 million people, which is the lowest viewership in the history of the event. For comparison's sake, the All Star Game was watched by 10.9 million people. As you can imagine, those are not good numbers, and we have to wonder how the game lost 2.2 millions viewers over the course of 12 months.

It gets worse when you look at the demographics for the viewers of the game. As I wrote about last month, baseball has a strong fan base among older people, but is competing with other sports like football and basketball for younger fans. However, the demographics for Tueday's game were not exactly encouraging in that department:

12-17 age group: 294K viewers 
18-34 age group: 1.2 million viewers 
35-49 age group: 1.5 million viewers 
50+ age group 5.2 million viewers 

With all do respect to my older friends, it is not a good thing for almost 60% of the game's viewership to be in the 50+ demographic. The MLB is trying to appeal to younger people who will be a source of money in the future. However, the MLB will not have access to this money if it does not captivate the fandom of the younger generation. 

Attracting a younger fanbase is of the utmost priority for Major League Baseball, and it is easy to look at the ratings for the All Star Game and say that the sky is falling for the game of baseball. However, I don't think that the All Star Game should be a barometer for baseball's popularity.

As I've said multiple times (like here and here), the All Star Game is riddled with problems. It no longer is the special event that it used to be. As a result, the All Star Game is just not a popular event anymore. Because of this, it should not be used to show that baseball cannot have strong ratings. Take me for example. As you can probably tell, I'm the biggest baseball fan in the world, yet I did not watch the All Star Game on Tuesday (I instead opted to go out to dinner). I watch just about every Met game, but really could not be interested in watching the game.

I suspect there are many people just like me: huge fans who watch all of their team's games, but not the All Star Game. I would qualify as a younger fan, which is very valuable to the MLB. I suspect there are many fans just like who did not watch the game, which is why I don't think the All Star Game is an accurate way to judge baseball's attraction of younger fans. The problems of the All Star Game are separate from the problems of baseball attracting younger fans. 

As bad as the ratings for the game look, it should be noted that the MLB All Star Game is still the most popular all star game in America. The NBA All Star Game only had 7.6 million viewers this year, while the NFL Pro Bowl only drew 5.0 million people. 

I think this shows that all star games in general just aren't that popular. Sports are fun to watch because they supply adrenaline, competition, and intensity. These are things that exhibitions like All star games do not supply. There is no doubt that the MLB All Star Game's ratings were disappointing, but this is because the quality of the Game is disappointing, not the sport itself. 

The Truth About Baseball's Popularity

A popular topic in the sports media industry today is how baseball is a "dying sport", a victim of the rising popularity of more exciting sports such as football and basketball. Go onto a sports blog such as Bleacher Report, and you will find numerous references to baseball being a sport that is on the decline. These articles are so prevalent because they generate interest and page views. Calling baseball a "dying sport" is a controversial statement, so therefore it also forces people to click on it so that they can disagree with it. Writing articles with controversial, attention-grabbing titles is far from a new concept, and is one that far predates the Internet. However, the problem with the latest fad of writing about the decline of baseball is that there is no truth to the rumor. In fact, baseball has grown in popularity over the last 15 years as opposed to declining.

2001 can easily be considered a very good year in terms of the popularity of baseball. 2001 saw the Seattle Mariners win more regular season games (116) than any other team in history. It saw Barry Bonds hit more home runs (73) than any other player in history. It also served as a venue for the country to unite after the 9/11 attacks, as is highlighted by such events as Mike Piazza's home run during the first game in New York City after 9/11 on September 21st and by President George W. Bush's first pitch during Game 3 of the World Series, which has since been the subject of ESPN's 30 For 30. In short, 2001 is a perfect example of a popular year for baseball.

Given all the events that happened in the baseball world in 2001, one would think that baseball was certainly more popular then than it is in 2016. However, this is not the case. In 2001, the total attendance of Major League Baseball was 72,267,544, with the average attendance at individual games being 29,739. So far in 2016, the MLB has drawn a total of 27,823,049 people, which averages out to 29,195 per game. So the average attendance at major league baseball games has remained virtually unchanged since 2001.

It also must be pointed out that the 2016 attendance numbers only represent the early part of the MLB season in April and May. Keep in mind that more fans begin to attend baseball games as the weather gets warmer and as children finish school for the year. For example, last year on June 13th, 2015 the average attendance at MLB games 29,476 per game. However, the average attendance at the end of the season had risen to 30,515 per game, which was higher than the average attendance during the 2001 season.

As these numbers demonstrate, the decline of baseball has been greatly exaggerated by the sports media industry. The popularity of baseball has not declined in the slightest. In fact, more people attended baseball games in 2015 than in 2001. This blog does not even go into detail about various factors that make the rise in attendance over the last 15 years even more impressive. For example, the price of tickets has gone through the roof over the past decade+. In 2001, the average price of a ticket  to a Boston Red Sox game was $36.08. In 2015, that price ballooned all the way to $52.34. Despite this enormous increase in price per ticket, the Red Sox drew 35,564 people per game in 2015, as opposed to 32,411 per game in 2001. Another factor that should have driven baseball attendance down is the simple fact that baseball stadiums hold less people than they used to. Take the 2 New York stadiums for example. The old Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium held 57,545 and 57,333 people, respectively. In 2009, both teams opened new ballparks, the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. These new stadiums hold 50,287 and 45,000 people respectively. So the average baseball attendance has gone up despite new stadiums being designed to hold less people.

As we can see, baseball is not declining in popularity. Rather, the exact opposite is happening.