If Major League Baseball (MLB) is genuinely listening to what its fans are saying – Joe Torre and Rob Manfred – here you have it – with no spin…
Reflections On Baseball publishes widely on many Facebook Groups for Mets, Yankees, and general fans of baseball. I write, then readers read, and often a discussion ensues via the comment section Facebook provides.
Yesterday, I wrote a column titled “The Disappearing Breed Of The Casual Baseball Fan”. It received wide readership, but more importantly, the story sparked an interest among fans to reply with comments and their reasons why baseball has witnessed a decrease in attendance and TV viewership that reached its lowest point since 2003, and even more significantly, what these fans would do if only they could be Commissioner of Baseball for a day.
If I can locate the email addresses for the powers that be at MLB (can you help?), I will forward this article to them. Comments that follow are naked and are not touched by my hand.
Besides the at home experience has surpassed being at the game
Dan Skantar This Serious Fan is losing interest, too. With dynamic pricing I am reluctant to make a spur of the moment decision to buy a walkup ticket. Why pay more when I can watch on TV or just listen on the radio? Replay is killing my enjoyment, too.
Steve Cole Sounds like MLB isn’t worried. Why lose sleep over chump-change casual fans when you’re awash in guaranteed mega-profits from TV and merchandise for beaucoups years to come? Meh.
Steven Levine I was a rabid fan who went to 70 games a year. They lost me with nets, no backpack rule and other ticky-tack “rules” that ruined the experience. Now saving $13,000 a year and found other things to do with my time! 
Sandy Dubowski They priced the causal and avid fan out of the ballpark. TV and radio like the old days is the medium for most fans now.
Bill Wahl You don’t have to cut the season back to 154 games. Just go back to doubleheaders every Sunday. That would cut 10 games off each team’s schedule and allow for two days off a week. A win for the players, the owners and the fans. 
Marc Campano What did baseball have in the “Golden Era”? (For me that’s the 60’s & 7O’s) that they don’t have now? Structure! Go back to 4 divisions AL & NL East & West, 4 divisional winners, 2 league championship series leading up to one world championship! Never mind the concept everybody gets a damn trophy!
Eddie Irace Do away with divisions, do away with inter league, top 5 teams record wise advance 4 seed plays 5 seed in best of 3 series. Then you reseed for the remaining series
Sid Percyz They’ve dis-enfranchised the last 2 generations of people. How many kids, let alone adults, can sustain conciousness when a World Series game ends at mid-night on a school / worknight. I agree with you John in your comment about being oblivious to the…See MoreAnd from here, we could go on forever…
The ongoing theme expressed here, MLB, is that fans are not happy campers, and if indeed you care about more than the “Blue Seats” at Yankee Stadium and elsewhere, you need to take heed of what your fan base is saying.
Regretfully, $10 billion a year (MLB’s total take last year) stands in the way of casual fans like myself and those above. Or, maybe not.
Because we have options too, for instance, we can boycott major league teams, choosing instead to bring ourselves, grandkids, and families to minor league games that proliferate the areas we live in. For myself, that means, for instance catching ten games in Syracuse for the Triple-A teams of the Mets and Yankees, rather than pay the exorbitant prices at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, where all the best seats are “owned” by scalpers.
But that’s not the point, either. We are fans of baseball. To you (MLB), we may not matter much anymore given the TV contract dollars coming your way, enough to support the annual player payroll of more than half of the major league teams when combined.
Nevertheless, here we sit…waiting for answers.
Written by Steve Contursi, Editor, Reflections On Baseball
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Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
