Can Someone Point Me to the Pols/Studies that Show Baseball is not Actually Dying?

riboflav

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Jan 20, 2006
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NOVA
I'm in an argument with a friend who swears baseball is on its last legs (because of several years of declining attendance and youth interest and participation). I've seen posters here link to actual real polls or studies that show that is not the case. Unfortunately, after searching for the last 30 minutes on SoSH, I can't find them. Please help!
 
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InstaFace

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Sep 27, 2016
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Pittsburgh, PA
I mean, this should do for a start. But that's at the MLB level.

Youth sports is declining across all sports and demographics. There are isolated exceptions you can find to this, some sports where the decline is faster than average, or accelerating... but it's pretty across-the-board.

If you're talking little league specifically, you've got the gold-standard research body in this discipline, the SFIA. And from 2013-2018, youth participation increased by 3 million despite the declines I mentioned in lots of other areas. But that obscures the difference between "casual" players (who play 1-12 times per year) and "core" players (13+ times per year) and the respective trends there; it obscures any age groups that would suggest what the next 5-10 years of youth play will look like (just lumps all "kids" together). But it's probably good enough to win an argument with a friend.
 

McBride11

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Jul 15, 2005
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Durham, NC
I mean, this should do for a start. But that's at the MLB level.

Youth sports is declining across all sports and demographics. There are isolated exceptions you can find to this, some sports where the decline is faster than average, or accelerating... but it's pretty across-the-board.

If you're talking little league specifically, you've got the gold-standard research body in this discipline, the SFIA. And from 2013-2018, youth participation increased by 3 million despite the declines I mentioned in lots of other areas. But that obscures the difference between "casual" players (who play 1-12 times per year) and "core" players (13+ times per year) and the respective trends there; it obscures any age groups that would suggest what the next 5-10 years of youth play will look like (just lumps all "kids" together). But it's probably good enough to win an argument with a friend.
Whoa really? Was the youth sports thing discussed elsewhere prior? What are the theories behind that?
 

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Apr 12, 2001
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I'm in an argument with a friend who swears baseball is on its last legs (because of several years of declining attendance and youth interest and participation). I've seen posters here link to actual real polls or studies that show that is not the case. Unfortunately, after searching for the last 30 minutes on SoSH, I can't find them. Please help!
This is anecdotal of course, but baseball isn't on its last legs. Industries that generate multi-billion dollars in revenue usually aren't. Industries where smart, successful people are clamoring to buy franchises (look how much the Royals are going to go for), isn't a sign of an industry that's about to go away.

There's a lot of reasons why 2019 baseball isn't the same as 1952 baseball, but you can say that about most, if not all, things.

The game of baseball will bury us all.
 

InstaFace

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Sep 27, 2016
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Pittsburgh, PA
Whoa really? Was the youth sports thing discussed elsewhere prior? What are the theories behind that?
The leading theories, none of which can exactly be run as a controlled experiment, can be boiled down to:

1. Industrialization: Increased focus on competition, and higher participation cost, at expense of enjoyment or healthy living
2. Spectator Culture: Aggressive parents on sidelines, tense atmosphere; kids drop out when they realize they can’t be "the best" and meet perceived standards
3. Lack of Role Models: A cutthroat professional system encourages aggression, misconduct, and seeing opponents as enemies

There are lots of articles about this trend. The bigger question in my mind is why baseball has avoided the precipitous drop that other major sports have seen in youth participation - because, looking at it even from the perspective of an informed fan, all 3 of those threads seem to be present in baseball. Maybe not quite as much as youth football or soccer, but no less so than (say) basketball or track. In the town I just moved to, we have friends with boys aged 6 and 8 who play baseball, and already they're hearing that if they're not paying extra to play fall ball, or taking extra private lessons to work on skills during downtime, then they're going to be left behind by the travel teams and lose any hope of playing beyond little league.