The recently completed World Series between Dodgers and Yankees It was the culmination of another brilliant season that maintains baseball as one of the favorite sports of people in the United States.
The levels of rating In the first duels of this autumn classic they were the highest in the American Union in the last five yearsHowever, the outcome was taking shape from the third meeting. Of course, this time the interest was greater because two of the most popular teams in the League faced each other.
In MLB they must be more than happy, because today the king of sports is experiencing a boom time, gaining followers among young people and remaining one of the sports most followed by fans in that countrywhich is not easy when the offer also includes Leagues like the NFL and NBA basketball.
People’s response and TV
In terms of numbers, this was the third consecutive campaign after the pandemic in which the Major Leagues They have improved their total attendance and therefore their average per game, going from 64.5 million and an average of 26,800 in 2022, to 71.3 million and an average of 29,500 in 2024.
The data is relevant if one considers that for the first time in 10 years there was growth in successive years in the average attendance, and also the first time since the 2010-2011 competitions in which total attendance increased.
The joint effort made by the commissioner Rob Manfred and the owners of the 30 teams by offering a 360 experience has been decisive for fans to come to the ball parks in greater numbers every year: screens, mascots, interaction with the players, promotions, restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, These are some of the many things found in baseball stadiums.
But the success of the Major Leagues is not only recorded in attendance, television has also played a very important role in the growth of the king of sports, where MLB.Tv has gained ground with its streaming broadcasts through its App on mobile devices, generating 14,500 million minutes of content in 2024: matches, summaries, highlights, interviews, reports, when in 2022 its production was 11.7 billion.
This dissemination has been vital for the internationalization of MLB, which has expanded its market, bringing regular season games on this calendar to Korea, Mexico City and Londonand has already secured a miniseries in Tokyo for 2025, between Dodgers and Cubs.
They last less and less
Another key point for baseball to remain in people’s preference has been the decrease in game time. And after the pandemic, The Major Leagues established the pitch clock for pitchers to eradicate dead time that was in the games, and it has worked, because of the 3 hours that the challenges lasted on average in 2021, 10, This season the average was just 2 hours 36.
And to attract new fans, it was key for MLB to take drastic measures to make the matches go faster.
Likewise, the good response from the people has led to the Major Leagues having healthy finances and their franchises being revalued.
Waiting for this year’s financial balance, where It was already reported that 1,900 million dollars came in from sponsorshipsin 2023 the League reported a record income of 11.6 billion dollars, one billion more than in 2022, while the value of the teams grew at least 4 percent, with the Yankees being the most expensive, with 7.5 billion dollars and the Marlins the least expensive, at $1 billion.
High payrolls
With the boom that baseball is experiencing in the United States, franchises have been able to put together more competitive teams, obviously there are teams that are financially stronger than others, even so, The average per team this season was 170.1 million dollarsthe highest in history.
Point and aside they were the champions Dodgersthat for this contest, they disbursed 1,250 million dollars in the contracts of Shohei Ohtanipitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and James Paxton and outfielder Teoscar Hernández.
We will have to wait five months for the start of the new MLB season, a League that is consolidating, is in the taste of the fans and will continue to grow.
RGS