Description

The popularity of your offering will dictate the viability of your longevity. And for baseball it’s a question they’ve been wrestling with for years. TheScore reports MLB, like all entertainment businesses, is trying to grow revenues and add new fans. One big problem: its paying customer base is shrinking unlike other sports.

MLB's on pace for its worst attendance season in a year not dramatically affected by COVID since 1995 and 1996, when the sport was coming out of a damaging strike.

MLB attendance peaked in 2007 and has been gradually declining since, and that drop has accelerated in recent years.

From 2007-19, attendance declined by about 1% per year on average, and 14% total. But compared to 2019, the last full season without COVID restrictions, attendance is down 7.5% this year.

Now, attendance per game is down 13.6% since Manfred's first full year in 2015.

Joe Bohringer has spent more than 30 years in baseball, most recently as the Assistant General Manager for the Seattle Mariners. He also served as the Director of Pro Scouting for the Chicago Cubs. His experience is wide-ranging and comprehensive to say he is a baseball lifer wouldn’t be a stretch. Making him the perfect person to have a conversation with about the viability of baseball in today’s sports landscape. Does baseball have a prosperous future? Can it compete on a national level with other major sports? And finally, what can the MLB do to attract a younger more dynamic fanbase?  Bohringer joined me this week to answer those questions and more.

LinkedIn: @JoeBohringer