3 Things MLB Can Do to Boost Viewership Amongst the Youth

Photo Courtesy of Sports Illustrated

While MLB has seen some of its highest ratings in years, they still have a major issue regarding youth viewership. According to a survey by Sports Business Journal, MLB has one of the highest average viewer ages out of all major sporting leagues in the United States, at 57 years old. Now, MLB has all the power in the world to fix this issue as most of the causes are a direct result of their past decisions. While other leagues are seeing their youth audiences grow, MLB is lagging behind with the gap only getting bigger as the years go on. As a young baseball fan, these are three things that I believe would help MLB grow its youth viewership very quickly.

1. Introduce the Pitch Clock to Speed Up the Game

Photo Courtesy of Tampa Bay Times

A big issue for getting youth to watch baseball is keeping them engaged for the entire game, as baseball games in recent years have on average been roughly three hours long. In addition to this, there is also an extreme amount of downtime during this period of time. To be exact, a study by National Arms Race found that out of those three hours, only about 10% is spent actually playing the game. This aspect of baseball makes it difficult for audiences, especially younger fans who are new to the game, to stay fully engaged and interested. To combat this, MLB should implement a pitching clock which in turn would drastically reduce the amount of downtime in between pitches while also increasing the amount of time that athletes are actually playing the game, resulting in an overall more captivating experience for new fans.

2. Embrace and Utilize Social Media

Photo Courtesy of USA Today

MLB in the past was notoriously slow in posting and making video highlights available online. In addition to this, their use of social media was very questionable as they were not posting meaningful content that was capturing the attention of younger audiences on those platforms. As of now, MLB has begun posting more engaging content that is drawing audiences to leave comments and share their posts, including things such as power rankings and highlight plays from games. Accounts such as JustBaseball have capitalized on this type of content, accumulating over 100 thousand followers on TikTok, proving that this short and sweet style of posts is popular amongst the younger generation. In recent years, the trend of posting short clips of highlights from games has taken over sports social media and if MLB were to capitalize on this strategy, they would see a great deal of attention from thousands of users across different social media platforms.

3. Allow For More Player Individuality and Creativity

Photo Courtesy of New York Yankees

Something that younger fans love to see, is athletes expressing their emotions and self during and outside of games. It makes players seem more personable and real, rather than just someone they see play on their television. While MLB has become more lenient in recent years with its guidelines on things such as custom cleats, there still is more work to be done. Take for example MLB Player’s Weekend, which was first introduced in the 2017 season and let players choose custom nicknames to be put on the back of special jerseys for one series. This event let players have almost full control over how they represent themselves and really allowed for their creativity to shine. These limited-edition jerseys were very different from the regular ones usually worn throughout the season and were a great way to help build a connection between players and fans. However, after the 2019 season, the event was canceled and has not been brought back since. What MLB needs to do, is bring back this event and add similar ones that let the player’s creativity shine. These special occasions are great PR boosters and bring great positive attention to the league itself, especially when they are highlighted across MLB’s various social media platforms. Both young and old sports fans love to collect and purchase special memorabilia and having that special connection with a player through their own-designed merchandise is a great way to get those who are new to the sport involved with the game.

With these changes, I believe that MLB would be putting the right foot forward when it comes to marketing the game to younger generations. While the MLB may be going strong now, it is important to continually build upon its audience and work to make sure that the game is ready for the future.

What do you think of my suggestions? What would you do differently? Leave a comment with some of your own ideas!