4 ms·

Baseball has a rapidly-dissolving semi-religious status in the US (losing some ground to the NFL), and its owners definitely don't get it. I think it's mostly

by mbg721 5y ago

Baseball has a rapidly-dissolving semi-religious status in the US (losing some ground to the NFL), and its owners definitely don't get it. I think it's mostly gone after '94 anyway. My personal guess is that its popularity is correlated with family size.

asdff 5y ago
It depends on the market. Small markets have been hurting, but teams like the dodgers have been making millions hand over fist the last 10 years, revenue only being down really because of expected covid cancellations.
- mbg721 5y ago
  Why are the Dodgers making money? Is it TV rights, or the way revenue is divided up, or are they just filling up the stadium because demand is huge?
  - EduardoBautista 5y ago
    The have the highest average attendance in baseball by a significant margin. https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance
    - asdff 5y ago
      They just dumped millions into renovations too, and eventually there will even be a gondola from the metro system up the hill to the stadium. It seems the owners are pretty bullish.
      - mbg721 5y ago
        That's wild; I had no idea. I'm a big fan of the character of Dodger Stadium too.
  - jacobkg 5y ago
    All of the above. Dodgers signed a massive $8B TV deal and also routinely fill their stadium which has the second largest capacity in MLB
mikepurvis 5y ago
Canada too. Here in Waterloo Region we have a particularly goofy situation where I believe a number of prominent public parks were formed after the land was donated in the early 20th century by wealthy local industrialists, with the single eternal proviso that there had to always be a functional baseball diamond on the property. I'm sure this made sense at the time, but it's super frustrating now living in these neighbourhoods where there's a big park with vast green space that is mostly unused, and the amenities people actually want and use (tennis courts, playground, community garden, skate park, hangout space) shunted to the very edges of the space, and no room for potential alternative uses such as a soccer pitch.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Maybe they should band up, gather money, buy some property and then bulldoze it and build a park?
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    ... I guess? The point is more just that you can't know the future, and any constraint like that should have limitations on it, with an upperbound of something like 99 years. That's more than enough time for your kids, grand kids, and even their kids to all enjoy playing baseball in the park, while not saddling your community with your specific vision of outdoor recreation for all time. Like sure, the land donation was no doubt generous and appreciated, and the people involved would have foregone a potential payday had they sold it to a developer to be carved up instead. But on the flipside, it was probably also a big tax writeoff, and the city inherited the unbounded future cost of its maintenance, lost tax revenue, and so on.
kevinmchugh 5y ago
I found statista saying average US family size to be basically steady for the last 30 years.[0] (median might be better but I couldn't find it). I would expect football to have fallen in popularity if it were about ability to field a team. The steroid scandal, hd TVs, changing media consumption, sabremetrics, rule changes make more sense to me. 0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a-family-in-the-us/#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20family%20in%202021%20consisted%20of%203.13%20persons https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a....
- mbg721 5y ago
  30 years is a short enough time in this case; one generation (my age) might play baseball because their parents did, even though the neighborhood doesn't have 18 kids with nothing to do, but the next would find no reason to.
marktangotango 5y ago
Baseball was a game for the "dog days" of summer, and no air conditioning. The typical, agrarian 3 months summer vacations meant there were hordes of kids trying to fill in the time between dusk and dawn. Now kids stay inside and play vidya games all summer. Baseballs time is past, imo.
- mbg721 5y ago
  It was also a game that made more sense with larger families. Back when kids all ran free until the Prince Spaghetti Night bell rang, you had all the positions covered and didn't need the "ghost man on first".

by mbg721 5y ago

asdff 5y ago

It depends on the market. Small markets have been hurting, but teams like the dodgers have been making millions hand over fist the last 10 years, revenue only being down really because of expected covid cancellations.

mbg721 5y ago
Why are the Dodgers making money? Is it TV rights, or the way revenue is divided up, or are they just filling up the stadium because demand is huge?
- EduardoBautista 5y ago
  The have the highest average attendance in baseball by a significant margin. https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance
  - asdff 5y ago
    They just dumped millions into renovations too, and eventually there will even be a gondola from the metro system up the hill to the stadium. It seems the owners are pretty bullish.
    - mbg721 5y ago
      That's wild; I had no idea. I'm a big fan of the character of Dodger Stadium too.
- jacobkg 5y ago
  All of the above. Dodgers signed a massive $8B TV deal and also routinely fill their stadium which has the second largest capacity in MLB

mikepurvis 5y ago

Canada too. Here in Waterloo Region we have a particularly goofy situation where I believe a number of prominent public parks were formed after the land was donated in the early 20th century by wealthy local industrialists, with the single eternal proviso that there had to always be a functional baseball diamond on the property. I'm sure this made sense at the time, but it's super frustrating now living in these neighbourhoods where there's a big park with vast green space that is mostly unused, and the amenities people actually want and use (tennis courts, playground, community garden, skate park, hangout space) shunted to the very edges of the space, and no room for potential alternative uses such as a soccer pitch.

Ekaros 5y ago
Maybe they should band up, gather money, buy some property and then bulldoze it and build a park?
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  ... I guess? The point is more just that you can't know the future, and any constraint like that should have limitations on it, with an upperbound of something like 99 years. That's more than enough time for your kids, grand kids, and even their kids to all enjoy playing baseball in the park, while not saddling your community with your specific vision of outdoor recreation for all time. Like sure, the land donation was no doubt generous and appreciated, and the people involved would have foregone a potential payday had they sold it to a developer to be carved up instead. But on the flipside, it was probably also a big tax writeoff, and the city inherited the unbounded future cost of its maintenance, lost tax revenue, and so on.

kevinmchugh 5y ago

I found statista saying average US family size to be basically steady for the last 30 years.[0] (median might be better but I couldn't find it). I would expect football to have fallen in popularity if it were about ability to field a team. The steroid scandal, hd TVs, changing media consumption, sabremetrics, rule changes make more sense to me. 0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a-family-in-the-us/#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20family%20in%202021%20consisted%20of%203.13%20persons https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a....

mbg721 5y ago
30 years is a short enough time in this case; one generation (my age) might play baseball because their parents did, even though the neighborhood doesn't have 18 kids with nothing to do, but the next would find no reason to.

marktangotango 5y ago

Baseball was a game for the "dog days" of summer, and no air conditioning. The typical, agrarian 3 months summer vacations meant there were hordes of kids trying to fill in the time between dusk and dawn. Now kids stay inside and play vidya games all summer. Baseballs time is past, imo.

mbg721 5y ago
It was also a game that made more sense with larger families. Back when kids all ran free until the Prince Spaghetti Night bell rang, you had all the positions covered and didn't need the "ghost man on first".