MLB and the Detroit Tigers Bandwagon Thread

[AlabamAlum]

Game length may be a reason but it’s hardly a slam dunk. There are many other reasons: fans may not be going because the prices are going up, not just for tickets, but parking, souvenirs, and food. Beers are $12.50 a piece or more at many ballparks for example - and when you consider that MLB baseball was once a very affordable professional sport, that’s a huge increase. Throw in the pandemic and a nearly 8-month season, you have some other causes to consider.

I cynically think it’s more due to network and cable TV wanting to keep the games at 3 hours to more easily package time frames and prevent bleed over into other programs and games without taking ownership to address the increased ad breaks that contribute to the problem.

[iam416]

MLB attendance is down from it's peak in 2008 (when games were 2:50 instead of 3:05!). It's still waaaaay higher than anything before the early 90s. It's mostly held steady in the 28.5 to 31 per game range. Which is astoundingly high, IMO, given that you have 81 home games. There's no way, e.g., the NBA could match that.

[iam416]

Game length may be a reason but it’s hardly a slam dunk. There are many other reasons: fans may not be going because the prices are going up, not just for tickets, but parking, souvenirs, and food. Beers are $12.50 a piece or more at many ballparks for example - and when you consider that MLB baseball was once a very affordable professional sport, that’s a huge increase. Throw in the pandemic and a nearly 8-month season, you have some other causes to consider.

I cynically think it’s more due to network and cable TV wanting to keep the games at 3 hours to more easily package time frames and prevent bleed over into other programs and games without taking ownership to address the increased ad breaks that contribute to the problem.

It'll be interesting to see where this year logs in. I completely agree with you on the pricing. I really don't care if a game is an extra 15 minutes when I'm actually going or watching. My actual objection is to the new game strategies that tend to increase time -- the overuse of the bullpen and the general shift to K/HR approaches that lead to more pitches. But, that's not going to change.

Anyway, I do care if it costs $70 a ticket for baseline seats. Indians ticket prices are insane. Reds/Pirates prices (the other two driveable options for me) are far more sane. So, I end up opting for Reds games more than Tribe games.

Yeah, I remember going to Pirates games with my 14u baseball team in the 80s, sitting in baseline seats for about $10 per ticket. Then again, there were roughly 5000 people there, so the Pirates had to meet the market.

But, the higher ticket prices sort of reflect the market, too. People WANT to go to baseball games. Even if they're only averaged 28,500 instead of 30,000. That's still a ton of demand for all good seats.

[iam416]

So, what's interesting over 2021 vs the peak attendance numbers is that there were almost 3 more plate appearances per game in 2007 than in 2021. But, there was 0.15 more pitches per PA and, more importantly, 0.5 more pitchers per game in 2021. And 2021 games were 20 minutes longer, on average.

Also, it seems like baseball game times have generally been right around 2:50 since the early 90s.Sometimes a little lower, sometimes a littlle higher. Last year was the first time at 3:10. In 2020, it was 3:00. Now, again, I'm not sure how much difference 20 minutes makes. In human perception terms, (IMO), 2:50 and 3:05 are both "3 hr games".

[AlabamAlum]

Absolutely. And we are at 2+ years of the pandemic which affects attendance. It’s really hard to avoid apple/orange comparisons on attendance pre-pandemic and intra/post pandemic.

I mean, I get the people like froot who think going from a 2:50 to 3:10 game length is a big issue even if I don’t share that viewpoint, but it just seems to me that medicine to fix the issue is worse than the issue itself in most cases (except, of course for reducing ad break frequency and length).

[AlabamAlum]

This isn’t the right forum, but college football, especially on ESPN, is suffering from an ever-exanding commercial break issue. It seems ESPN is taking at least one long ad break every 3-5 minutes. CFB hitting a 4-hour window for games on ESPN is a real thing.

[AlabamAlum]

Going to games, you see the red hat on the field as much as your own quarterback. That might be an exaggeration, but it’s a slight one.

[iam416]

I mean, I get the people like froot who think going from a 2:50 to 3:10 game length is a big issue even if I don’t share that viewpoint, but it just seems to me that medicine to fix the issue is worse than the issue itself in most cases (except, of course for reducing ad break frequency and length).

Correct. And you're right we CFB. The B10 games on FOX, in particular, are insane. I think they allocate 4 hours to the time slot and are hellbent on filling it.

But, yeah, if you cut down on between-innings changeovers by 30 seconds that's 8 to 8.5 minutes you save per game. But, that's ad time.

[AlabamAlum]

CBS has a ton of breaks on SEC games, too. In years past I never complained, though, because frequent breaks from Gary Danielson are absolutely essential.

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[Tom W]

Going to games, you see the red hat on the field as much as your own quarterback. That might be an exaggeration, but it’s a slight one.

It's not an exaggeration. Everybody in the stadium hates the guy in the red hat.

[CGVT]

This isn’t the right forum, but college football, especially on ESPN, is suffering from an ever-exanding commercial break issue. It seems ESPN is taking at least one long ad break every 3-5 minutes. CFB hitting a 4-hour window for games on ESPN is a real thing.

Part of the reason I like to watch smaller conferences on ESPN+, but even those games are lasting longer.

We went to bowl game in South Florida that was broadcast on ESPN this year and it was nearly unwatchable. They trotted out some group to be "recognized" every fucking break. Chamber or Commerce, the mayor, fire fighters, first responders, local women's group, YMCA etc etc. The game took forever to be played. It was beyond tedious.

BTW, one of the few times I agree with The Geezer. Keep the damn batter in the box.

Do you remember when Mike Hargrove was dubbed "The human rain delay" because of his between pitch bullshit? Now that is the norm. I'd bet that Hargrove would probably be one of the quicker batters if he played today.

[Mike]

I'm all for a pitch clock and batters staying in the box. Just play baseball and stop treating every pitch like its a 25 foot putt to win the Masters.

Gotta love baseball prices, though. We're taking my boys to their first game this year and every Sunday this season is family day where you can get one of those deals of 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs, and 4 pops for $69. All the kids activities like the merry-go-round and Ferris wheel are free also. The seats are decent, too, upper deck infield with a nice view of the skyline.

[froot loops]

College football is very bad for length, but it's once a week, it's a little bit different. A local guy on the radio always defends baseball about the length problem and he uses college football to defend it. A 4 hour game sucks, but at least it is on a Saturday.

I agree that length of games isn't the only reason for the declining interest. MLB has kind of screwed the pooch on the hot stove league, it used to be a big deal. Nowadays it's nothing. The way teams operate these days is they try to elongate the players service time so they can wrong out an extra season and because of the way they use analytics, a lot of teams just sit out free agency. All of it is very logical but it creates less anticipation during the winter months. It fails in comparison to the NBA and NFL, they create interest in the off-season.

[AlabamAlum]

Once a week? You guys up north don’t take college football seriously if that’s the case. It’s Tuesday MACtion, Thursday games, often Friday games, and at least 3 on Saturday.