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Baseball has long been viewed as “America’s Pastime,” but it’s become increasingly hard to argue that’s actually the case in recent years as the popularity of the sport has experienced a slow but steady decline. Major League Baseball has tried (and largely failed) to address that fairly glaring issue, but it looks like some of its efforts have finally paid off in a big way.
I’ve long maintained one of the MLB’s biggest issues when it comes to attracting (and retaining) fans is its schedule. It’s pretty hard for any functioning adult to set aside the time to watch 162 games over the course of the regular season—especially when those contests last more than three hours on average.
This year, the league took a pretty drastic step to address that issue with the introduction of a 30-second pitch clock that was obviously met with plenty of resistance from baseball purists who historically bristle at any significant change to the rules. With that said, evidence quickly emerged that suggested the new timer had a significant impact on cutting down on the length of the average game.
While larger bases and bans on defensive shifts may have contributed to a spike in offense, it’s also pretty clear the pitch clock (as well as rules dictating how frequently pitchers can step off the mound) gave baserunners an edge to take advantage of while trying to snag a bag, as the 3,503 steals that were recorded during the 2023 season were the most since 1987 and up 40% from the previous campaign.
It also seems like the combination of changes has given people more incentive to make the trek to the ballpark. After the regular season officially wrapped up, the MLB released some data showing more than 70,000,000 people had gone to a game in 2023, which was the highest number since 2017 and a 9.6% increase from 2022.
While that spike in interest isn’t reflected in the fairly lackluster television ratings that were recorded in 2023, it definitely seems like the league is doing something right.