Analysis Of Baseball Is Dying? Don T Be Stupid By Maury Brown

Introduction

They did it! The Astros finally won a World Series! Fifty-six years later and after many disappointing playoff moments, my hometown team can finally call themselves champions. Even though it will take a while to recover from Hurricane Harvey, the trophy is just what Houston and the surrounding area needed. Watching the diverse and talented Astros all season long inspired me to research why certain baseball teams are successful. I wanted to know if there were any specific statistics or factors that could help struggling teams become more competitive, because no team or city should have to wait 50 years for a championship.

In the beginning of the research process, I came across an article that discovered that walks plus hits per

Don't Be Stupid,” the author, Maury Brown, refutes the common belief that baseball’s popularity is significantly decreasing. He counters the common arguments like baseball has declining television ratings, aging demographics, and low youth participation rates with his interpretation of the facts. The author says that over the past 5 years the number of kids in Little League has stayed the same while the number of kids in Pop Warner Football has dropped over that time. Also, the record number of participants in Pop Warner Football was 248,899 people, which approximately equals twelve percent of the kids currently competing in Little League Baseball. When addressing television ratings, Brown points to the fact that the nature of people watching television has changed. People are watching more things over the internet now and lots of sports are suffering a drop in ratings, not just baseball. With a higher supply of baseball games being televised and on the internet, it is natural for the demand to drop. The only reason football seems more popular is due to the fewer number of games compared to baseball. In recent seasons, MLB had revenues topping $8 billion. The author questions how a company or organization can be dying when it takes in that much profit every year (Brown, 2014). Maury Brown owns a company and is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), the organization that elects players to the Hall of Fame. For this

In his opinion, baseball’s situation is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. According to the data, the difference in popularity between football and baseball is steadily declining while the split between baseball and basketball is steadily rising. For example, 56% of Americans do not follow basketball compared to the 47% who do not follow baseball. Even though baseball suffers from long game times, young people age 18-29 watch baseball more closely than basketball. This statistic contradicts the common belief that young people do not find baseball interesting. The one area basketball has baseball beat is in its postseason television ratings (Gaines, 2015). If baseball can quicken the pace of games and generate more excitement for playoff games, then its future can be even more secure compared to other sports. Although I have a problem with the way the author interprets the data (his language exaggerates the gap between baseball and basketball), I trust the numbers. If statistics show that baseball is not dying, then it makes my research more relevant for future