Over the years, I’ve noticed a significant decline in baseball game attendance, at least at the games I’ve attended. Lately, I’ve seen that number in the 14–15 thousands, compared to the high 20 thousands I frequently saw as a child. The capacity is 39,860 at Petco Park. I don’t know the last time I saw that number even close to being reached.
Other sports have taken the stage in the last few years as well, such as hockey and Formula 1. Hockey has been around for a while, but with “Heated Rivalry” and “Off Campus,” the sport became popular again; F1 has also exploded in popularity recently. Neither of these sports are new, but the shows and movies, as well as the media influence around their players and drivers have sparked a rise in popularity.
America’s pastime sport since the 1830s, has slowly become a dwindling sport that can’t achieve the viewer attention it deserves. There is so much to do at the ballparks, and with the game as a whole, but I’ve noticed that there isn’t as much engagement with baseball as there has been in the past. Despite major stadium improvements across Major League Baseball (MLB), games seem to have less and less attendance and support.
Though, in my experience, interest in the MLB’s regular season is down, I feel a lot of people are interested in how the current World Series is progressing, and who will come out on top. The Milwaukee Brewers are playing in the World Series for the first time in 44 years, and have become something of a fan-favorite. Though the Tampa Bay Rays are still young, they are in the World Series for the third time in team history. Even if only temporarily, I can see greater energy and enthusiasm for baseball around me again. The last time I saw people this excited about baseball was in 2023 in the midst of a Padres’ crowd so excited that San Diego State had made the finals of March Madness that the energy spilled over into the game in front of them. For an example of baseball drawing a crowd on its own merit though, one must turn to a new imagining of the sport.
In the past six years, a new division of baseball has picked up, and it’s more fun than most would have ever thought: Banana Ball. Banana Ball, which originated from the minor league team the Savannah Bananas, has gained much more new attention and popularity than baseball recently, MLB and MiLB alike, because of their audience entertainment and how they play the game. The “sport” isn’t based around which team can get the most runs anymore; it’s about which can get the most out of the crowd and who can have the most fun during batter change and inning change — MLB baseball’s deadtime.
While Banana Ball keeps the integrity of baseball and has quickly gained popularity, it isn’t the same as the traditional MLB experience. There is still something so comforting about sitting down at the stadium with a hotdog and a chocolate and vanilla swirl cone, and collectively cheering about a man hitting a ball with a stick over the perimeter of the outfield for a homerun.
While more sports and other variations of baseball have been making a not-so-quiet rise in popularity, the quietness of baseball has been here all along, and it won’t go away any time soon.
