A's relocation, MLB's jersey problem, and short-term profits
Major League Baseball's fixation on short-term profits are turning fans off to the game. In Oakland, A's owner John Fisher is planning to relocate the franchise to Las Vegas after putting in minimal effort for nearly 20 years and then claiming there are no fans in the tenth-largest market in the country.
When he bought the team, the A's had cracked two million in attendance four years in a row, and would make it five consecutive in 2005, the year he bought the club. That was middle-of-the-pack in the American League. In the 18 seasons since, it has happened all of one time. The last three seasons the A's haven't cracked one million fans, topping out at 832,352 last season thanks to fan-led reverse boycott games.
When this happens over the course of time, typically there would be some blame on ownership. In any other business someone would look at those numbers and try to figure out what they're doing wrong. There would be at least some accountability. Instead, the blame has been passed to the fans and the League has co-signed Fisher's claims to fit their own narrative.
The fact that Baseball has allowed Fisher to run the team into the ground and then has helped him along in his relocation efforts is just disgusting. Where was the League when Fisher was looking for a place to build in Oakland? Not only is Commissioner Rob Manfred taking the brunt of the fan's ire for Fisher, but he hasn't even bothered to get the whole story of what exactly went down in Oakland from the other parties involved.
This same method has been used during spring training with the entire uniform fiasco. The jersey look cheap, the players say they feel cheap, and it's hurting the marketability of the sport. Yet the league is saying that they're great. Nothing to see here. Except there is a little too much to see, and that's the problem.
Baseball under Manfred doesn't like to act until they have to. They were told for years that the Houston Astros were up to something and waited until a story broke years later to do...nothing.
They'd rather not spend the money until they're forced to fix a big problem, and it's the same thing that Fisher did in Oakland. He could have invested in the club, the Coliseum, or both in the nearly 20 years he's owned the club, but he refused. He consistently had key players traded way as they became "too expensive." He put zero effort into building up the product.
For years people have said that MLB has a problem marketing its stars, and while that's true, it sure doesn't feel like they have an interest in doing so, either. Shohei Ohtani is literally a current day Babe Ruth, but you sure wouldn't know it unless you're paying attention to the sport already. Baseball has a hard time breaking through into pop culture these days, which is wild because there are so many young, engaging players that the public would love to see more of.
The problem is with Manfred. He's not trying to grow the game at all. He preaches diversity and inclusion, but will then disparage the people of Oakland who are fighting to show that they want the A's to stay.
The problem with baseball is that they're focused on the short-term profits without thinking about the long-term damage they're doing to the sport. With each misstep or threat of relocation, the League loses more and more fans. Back in 2005, the White Sox and Astros World Series drew an average of 17.162 fans per game. The Astros weren't a hated team just yet and everyone seems to forget that the Sox won a title this millennium. They still drew over 17 million.
When the Yankees and Phillies played in 2009 it was up to 19.334. Those are two huge markets that were battling it out, and yet they were still up just slightly over a World Series that most people forget about, and way down from the 23 to 25 million people that had watched recent Series.
This past year the Rangers and Diamondbacks drew an average viewership of 9.082. The Rangers were going for their first-ever title, and the Diamondbacks had the Rookie of the Year and hadn't won a championship in 20 years. The story should have been there to get people to tune in. But the networks don't tend to talk about teams outside of the largest markets. The nationally broadcast games revolve around the same five or six teams every year. The other 24-25 teams just exist to fill out a schedule.
With the TV ratings dropping at a similar rate as the A's attendance numbers, should the entirety of MLB be relocated?
If MLB wanted to grow the game, they could say that they want every team featured nationally at least once over the course of the season, and if it meant a slight dip in the payout they received for the TV rights, then so be it. They'd be getting their entire product in front of more fans.
The League has a number of problems that they need to address, but the way they go about business makes it seem like they're all just going to collect their checks and cash out while waiting for the next group that's in charge to clean up their mess. The new group of owners and stakeholders also won't receive the same benefits that the current group enjoys.
Baseball is doing fine financially, but they're having a hard time connecting with the youth. Shorter games could help, but having just a touch of pride in product they're putting out would go a long way too.