Variety of sports, Those in Baseball from folks like Mel Allen, Red Barber and Vin Scully

By Arthur Solomon 05/25/2025 0

Vin Scully was to baseball broadcasting what Babe Ruth was to the game.

Baseball’s Broadcast Model, Says A Wall Street Journal Article

By Arthur Solomon

A February 7, 2024 survey from Gallup revealed that football is the favorite sport of U.S. adults.

”Forty-one percent of U.S. adults say football is their favorite sport to watch. Baseball and basketball essentially tie for second at 10% and 9%, respectively,” said the survey, which reported that “Football has been the top sport in Gallup polling since 1972, when it eclipsed baseball.

“When Gallup first asked Americans to name their favorite spectator sport in 1937, 34% named baseball and 23% football. Baseball continued to rank first in subsequent surveys conducted in 1948 and 1960, before football gained the top spot in 1972.

“Since then, no less than 28% of U.S. adults have ranked football as their favorite sport, with the percentages closer to 40% in polls taken over the past two decades.”

When I managed a major sports marketing account, one of the client’s once told me, ‘Whenever I go to a baseball game, mainly I see older white people, a few teenagers and young children with grandfathers. “Not exactly our target audience,” he said.

The Gallup report confirmed that and reported that polling showed that baseball is the sport of choice for elderly fans, reporting that “Older adults—in this case, those aged 65 and older—are three times as likely as the youngest adults to say baseball is their favorite sport, 16% to 5%.”

An article in the May 22 Wall Street Journal blamed part of baseball’s declining interest with young sports fans on several factors, a major one being the way baseball is televised.

In the article, written by James S. Hirsch, his young daughter, Amanda, age 26, says that baseball is out of touch with young adults and says the way it televises games has to be fixed.

Unlike how football games are televised, the baseball model is largely a regional one, driven by regional sports networks that serve local fans that prevent viewers from seeing other teams in action, she said. If viewers prefer to see another game they have to subscribe to MLB.com. That prevents local fans from becoming familiar with the stars of other teams.

Baseball should follow the NFL model and associate itself with celebrities that appeal to younger people, she says. (This can easily be done, in my opinion. Interviews during the games now are with former ballplayers familiar to home team audiences. Why not instead do interviews with pop stars?)

Baseball broadcasts are also dull in my opinion. Too many broadcasters talk about stars of the past, most of whom are dead or retired as if they were icons to be admired, many whose blemishes are covered up by announcers during an age when transparency is demanded in all aspects of life.

A recent example is when baseball commissioner Rob Manfred made Pete Rose eligible for the Hall of Fame, despite Rose having broken baseball’s rules against betting, serving a jail term for tax avoidance and having an affair with an underage girl. A person would have to read a print publication to get the entire story,

In the WSJ article, Amanda says rightfully that football does it correct and baseball can learn from it.

She cites as an example the NFL’s “Manning Cast,” with Payton and Eli Manning, who provide alternative commentary on Monday night’s NFL games. It achieves a huge audience because of the personalities who join the show.

She also mentions in the article one of my pet peeves about baseball announcers – the use of statistics and comparing today’s players to those of the past, which makes no sense because the game has changed so much over
the years, as have sports medicine, training and rules.

That the baseball model is broken and needs a 2025 overhaul is not a secret. That’s why Major League Baseball executives are trying new approaches, like a pitch clock, replays and taking the ball and strike calls out of the hands of umpires with new technology, now being tested in a minor league.

But all of that will not matter to younger fans and television viewers unless baseball changes its broadcast model and bring back broadcasters who make watching a game on television fun like,

Harry Caray, who would lead the crowd in singing Take “Me out to the Ball Game.” When announcing Chicago Cubs games

Dizzy Dean, who told TV viewers to switch to a better game,

Harry Kalas, who when things didn’t look good for the Philadelphia Phillies, would sing “High Hopes”

Rosey Rowswell, who would say, “Open the window, Aunt Minnie, here it comes!” and break a light bulb to sound as if a home run broke a window when announcing for the Pittsburgh Pirates,

Phil Rizzuto, the New York Yankees announcer, who would make no secret of leaving the announcer’s booth after the 7th inning so he could beat the traffic over the George Washington Bridge and also once said, “I like radio better than television because if you make a mistake on radio, they don’t know. You can make up anything on the radio”

John Madden, who attracted new fans for football because of his making watching football fan

Don Meredith, known as “Dandy Don,” on Monday Night Football, who would sing The Party’s Over by Willie Nelson when a game’s outcome was no longer in doubt.

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Today’s announcers seem to be cut out of a cookie cutter, treating a baseball game as if the destiny of mankind depended on a play being made.

Baseball game broadcasters, more than announcers of any other sports I’ve heard refer to the past and rely on nonsensical statistics that have no relation to today’s game. It’s like comparing the Wright Brother’s airplane to a jet.

Arguably the best baseball announcer of modern times was Vin Scully, who once said about statistics: “Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.” Or for that matter, launch angles, bat speed or what We Willie Keeler did in 1893.

Even though baseball is my favorite sport, (maybe because I’m in the “older” category, or maybe because it was the only sport that I wasn’t picked last for a team when I played it as a youngster), I acknowledge that if marketing the game on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a highest, I would, rate baseball a 2, while on the same scale, football would rate a 10).

Critics of baseball say that the game lacks action, compared to football. But studies don’t back that up because the average baseball game has about 18 minutes of action while a football game has around 11 minutes.

The main reason for football’s continuous growth, in my opinion, is because it has tapped into the culture of today’s younger population. And baseball is still appealing to the Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope crowd.

Once popular sports like prize fighting and horse racing have become almost afterthoughts and youngsters and TV viewers are increasingly being attracted to “new” sports, which are now being televised and are attracting the attention of sports marketers, like flag football, lacrosse, volleyball, pickleball, soccer and most of all sports that attract women like the WNBA and women’s soccer.

And most important, baseball must fix their outdated television broadcasting model and have announcers stop talking about the past. Which even turns off elders like me.

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MORE:

The audience for the 2025 NBA Playoffs on ESPN platforms (ESPN and ABC) is up 12% from last year, according to Nielsen. Through the Conference Semifinals (22 games), ESPN is averaging 4,883,000 viewers, making it the second-most watched NBA Playoffs since 2011.

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Game 7 of the Denver Nuggets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder series on ABC averaged 6,340,000 viewers, and peaked with 7,632,000 viewers at 5:15 p.m. ET. It was the most-watched program for May 18 in all key demographics.

In addition, Friday’s Game 6 between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks on ESPN averaged 5,730,000 viewers, peaking with 6,603,000 viewers at 9 p.m. It was the most-watched program of the day across all of television for May 16 and up 14 percent from last year’s comparable Game 6 between the Knicks and Indiana Pacers.

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Owned and operated by company president Jason Barrett, the company has had the privilege of helping Audacy, Bonneville, Hubbard Radio, Radio-One, Alpha Media, Max Media, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, Gow Media, Seven Bridges Broadcasting, and various sports betting and podcasting companies.

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Sunday night’s blockbuster win by Minnesota the over Oklahoma City was devouring. Witnessing and experiencing it reminds made me of Jack Buck, “I don’t believe what I just saw, I don’t believe what I just saw.” Last night was an ugly slaughter. In many ways tough to watch.

(Much of this content was provided by the people at Sports Business Journal)