Out of Left Field: Long live baseball

Last week, we watched perhaps one of the greatest baseball games ever played; definitely an all-timer. Game 7 of the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians had it all: excitement from the first at bat, a Dexter Fowler home run, an unexpected comeback against Aroldis Chapman in the form of a Rajai Davis home run and the end of sports' longest drought. Major League Baseball (MLB) fans could not have been happier about the way this game was played. Game 7 was the perfect game to draw in casual fans as well as make fans out of people tuning in for the first time. At my house alone, I had nine people over to watch, most of whom were casual fans. But they stayed. They stayed through the pitching changes, through the rain delay, into extra innings and witnessed history.

This World Series also made history in television ratings. The viewership for game 7 exceeded 40 million, the most for any single baseball game since game 7 of the 1991 World Series. Viewership increased 70 percent from game 7 of the 2014 World Series to last Wednesday’s game. These numbers are encouraging for a sport that many have suggested is dying.

This year has seen postseason baseball ratings soar while football ratings have tanked. I think a large part of this trend has to do with the product each league is producing. The National Football League this year is, in a word, boring. The primetime games have been incredibly underwhelming, a result of either two mediocre teams or lopsided games. Some of the "marquee" match-ups the NFL has thrown at us include Jets vs. Bills, Jaguars vs. Titans and a tie between the Seahawks and Cardinals. The dullness of this year’s NFL has produced a massive decrease in ratings for the king of American sports. Monday Night Football ratings are down 20 percent, Thursday Night Football down 21 percent and Sunday Night Football down 18.5 percent. These results, while partially affected by the election, indicate that the NFL’s product is going stale.

Baseball, on the other hand, is seeing more and more viewership. The number of television viewers has increased by 5 percent from last year, which is even more impressive when you consider the downturn in the NFL’s viewership and the 25 percent decrease in Olympic viewership. Baseball features a slew of young and exciting players to draw in a growing audience. Specifically in the World Series, players like Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez and Kris Bryant all brought a unique energy that is helping to revitalize baseball and make it fun again. This contrasts with the NFL’s crackdown on celebrations, for which many players have criticized the league.

There are definitely improvements that MLB can make to repopularize baseball. I think this starts with decreasing the time of the game and rebranding it to a younger audience (I’ve seen enough Viagra commercials for a lifetime while watching baseball). But don’t let anyone fool you. Baseball is not dying and as this World Series exhibited, is here to stay.