What never happened that you didn't hear about World Series winners or that you didn't hear about the Brewers winning. There's a reason for the later, and as far as the former, well, it's two teams that aren't known for their post season appearances.
- When sports do their major events has shifted in the last decades or so
- There's no longer a common TV culture.
That last point started more with Cable TV, but everyone still got 'over the air' so coverage on major TV networks usually provided a foundation of shared culture and events. It also provided major news summaries that most busy adults managed to see a bit of. As if any of us with jobs have time for that these days.
There's also the war for everyone's attention on "Social Media" and the Internet generally.
It's enough that I knew the two teams playing in the Series, that both teams have never won, and that the progress was looking really good for the Brewers all while not being the type that follows baseball at all.
I don't know why people in these comments are dragging politics into it. That strikes me as a terminally online take and I say that as an self-confessed politics frog.
If anything, the following of current events overall is way down to what it was decades ago by the general populace. People overall are incredibly ill-informed about so many things despite the wealth of information available.
Three things happened to baseball (IMHO):
1. The childhood funnel is drying up and has been for a long time. Kids now increasingly play soccer instead;
2. Take out the nostalgia and you're not left with much. There are too many games, they're too long and not enough happens. Football is bigger than ever; and
3. Structurally I think baseball made some huge mistakes, such as the soft salary cap system that created dynasties like the New York Yankees who could get rich on broadcast rights for a huge media market. The NFL has managed all of this so much better.
I'm not a huge sports fan but I find the systems fascinating. American sports evolved into a 3 pillar system. Basketball season into baseball season into football season through the calendar year. I wonder if baseball's timing over summer has contributed to this decline.
> I don't know why people in these comments are dragging politics into it.
It dominates news coverage even when we're not coming up on an election, and the high stakes involved makes it an even bigger topic, and one that weighs heavily on people's minds.
> People overall are incredibly ill-informed about so many things despite the wealth of information available.
The wealth of information available (and disinformation avilable) is partly to blame. It's easy to spend your time only on a small number of interests. Most people just let the algorithms of a small number of corporations feed them the vast majority of what they consume, so while technically there's a lot more information out there, they only see what those corporations choose to show them.
On point 2: in my experience, the tradeoff is that baseball is the most accessible in-person major league sport. The quantity, length, and seasonal timing of games means that tickets are almost always affordable and can fit into my schedule. I go to more and more MLB games every year, whereas a ticket to my NFL team is a serious expenditure, and that's assuming that my schedule works out to where I can attend one of 8 home games for the entire year.
Same. I vaguely recall maybe a mention of baseball playoffs somewhere or whatever they are called being on but barely anything compared to previous years. Last I heard I thought LA had some complete economic dominance on baseball players?
Basically the exact opposite of the NBA playoffs where similar to baseball i'm normally not into it but got totally absorbed this past year.
All news is politics news now in the US. Didn't used to be like that. (Dear readers, go watch some old 80s-90s TV news broadcasts on youtube if you don't believe me)
I have sometimes wondered what news we're missing out on when all the focus is on politics, but some of it is probably due to media consolidation. It's easier and cheaper to write and send out scripts on national issues to every station you own all over the country than invest time and money on reports that only matter to a single region/community.
I (an extremely casual fan) forgot the series was on until yesterday's game but enjoyed the final two. I think it doesn't help that these are two 'regional' teams (compared to the Dodgers or Yankees). Good baseball just the same.
Tuesday's game was definitely the highlight of the series in terms of good baseball. Monday's game sucked ass, and I missed the first two, but tonight was like Tuesday lite. Tuesday night was some of the best baseball I have watched. I wish Tampa Bay had won a couple of more to give us a full series, but it was clear by the 7th that this game was over.
Context: I'm an adult fan of baseball that didn't like sports at all as a kid, so I developed no team loyalty. I'm all about good, exciting baseball whoever wins.
Baseball in general is in long-term decline [1]. And of course football rules supreme. I try not to yuck someone else's yum and I'm not the biggest sports watcher in general but personally I find baseball to be boring. There's too many games. They go on for too long. Not much happens. I think the fandom, such that it is, is from older people with nostalgia from when it was a far bigger deal and when they probably grew up playing it themselves. The latter is increasingly being displaced by soccer
I find this to be completely the opposite of my recent experience. The games are fast and with much better, consistent payoff than other sports such as football and soccer. Progress is far more discrete and there's basically always something happening except during inning or player changes. I agree that there are a lot of games, but that's a feature: you don't have to pay attention to every game. Because of the discrete nature of progress and the number of games you can get meaningful statistics out of a single season. I say this as a relatively young person (<30) who only loosely follows other sports.
With football it’s possible to watch every game, which I think better fits today’s model of fandom.
Baseball I get the sense people watched or listened to some, often while doing something else, and followed the rest in the newspaper or the evening news highlights.
Both teams are small-ish markets. (Milwaukee is the smallest market.) Neither team has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani or Juan Soto. In other words, this was the series MLB didn't want, especially with the upcoming contracts talks.
What never happened that you didn't hear about World Series winners or that you didn't hear about the Brewers winning. There's a reason for the later, and as far as the former, well, it's two teams that aren't known for their post season appearances.
> it's two teams that aren't known for their post season appearances.
The Brewers have been in the postseason 8 of the last 9 years, and the Rays 6 of the last 9.
- Politics (in focus) others already pointed out
- When sports do their major events has shifted in the last decades or so
- There's no longer a common TV culture.
That last point started more with Cable TV, but everyone still got 'over the air' so coverage on major TV networks usually provided a foundation of shared culture and events. It also provided major news summaries that most busy adults managed to see a bit of. As if any of us with jobs have time for that these days.
There's also the war for everyone's attention on "Social Media" and the Internet generally.
It doesn't explain why it is not discussed on openair channels.
It's enough that I knew the two teams playing in the Series, that both teams have never won, and that the progress was looking really good for the Brewers all while not being the type that follows baseball at all.
I don't know why people in these comments are dragging politics into it. That strikes me as a terminally online take and I say that as an self-confessed politics frog.
If anything, the following of current events overall is way down to what it was decades ago by the general populace. People overall are incredibly ill-informed about so many things despite the wealth of information available.
Three things happened to baseball (IMHO):
1. The childhood funnel is drying up and has been for a long time. Kids now increasingly play soccer instead;
2. Take out the nostalgia and you're not left with much. There are too many games, they're too long and not enough happens. Football is bigger than ever; and
3. Structurally I think baseball made some huge mistakes, such as the soft salary cap system that created dynasties like the New York Yankees who could get rich on broadcast rights for a huge media market. The NFL has managed all of this so much better.
I'm not a huge sports fan but I find the systems fascinating. American sports evolved into a 3 pillar system. Basketball season into baseball season into football season through the calendar year. I wonder if baseball's timing over summer has contributed to this decline.
> I don't know why people in these comments are dragging politics into it.
It dominates news coverage even when we're not coming up on an election, and the high stakes involved makes it an even bigger topic, and one that weighs heavily on people's minds.
> People overall are incredibly ill-informed about so many things despite the wealth of information available.
The wealth of information available (and disinformation avilable) is partly to blame. It's easy to spend your time only on a small number of interests. Most people just let the algorithms of a small number of corporations feed them the vast majority of what they consume, so while technically there's a lot more information out there, they only see what those corporations choose to show them.
On point 2: in my experience, the tradeoff is that baseball is the most accessible in-person major league sport. The quantity, length, and seasonal timing of games means that tickets are almost always affordable and can fit into my schedule. I go to more and more MLB games every year, whereas a ticket to my NFL team is a serious expenditure, and that's assuming that my schedule works out to where I can attend one of 8 home games for the entire year.
The NFL and MLB seem to have similar numbers of recent dynasties and of different teams that have won a championship.
Same. I vaguely recall maybe a mention of baseball playoffs somewhere or whatever they are called being on but barely anything compared to previous years. Last I heard I thought LA had some complete economic dominance on baseball players?
Basically the exact opposite of the NBA playoffs where similar to baseball i'm normally not into it but got totally absorbed this past year.
All news is politics news now in the US. Didn't used to be like that. (Dear readers, go watch some old 80s-90s TV news broadcasts on youtube if you don't believe me)
I have sometimes wondered what news we're missing out on when all the focus is on politics, but some of it is probably due to media consolidation. It's easier and cheaper to write and send out scripts on national issues to every station you own all over the country than invest time and money on reports that only matter to a single region/community.
I (an extremely casual fan) forgot the series was on until yesterday's game but enjoyed the final two. I think it doesn't help that these are two 'regional' teams (compared to the Dodgers or Yankees). Good baseball just the same.
Tuesday's game was definitely the highlight of the series in terms of good baseball. Monday's game sucked ass, and I missed the first two, but tonight was like Tuesday lite. Tuesday night was some of the best baseball I have watched. I wish Tampa Bay had won a couple of more to give us a full series, but it was clear by the 7th that this game was over.
Context: I'm an adult fan of baseball that didn't like sports at all as a kid, so I developed no team loyalty. I'm all about good, exciting baseball whoever wins.
The first two were more like Tuesday, without the extra innings.
You read a headline about it on a website less than an hour after it happened?
The World Series is a multi game, multi day event. This one started last Friday.
Baseball in general is in long-term decline [1]. And of course football rules supreme. I try not to yuck someone else's yum and I'm not the biggest sports watcher in general but personally I find baseball to be boring. There's too many games. They go on for too long. Not much happens. I think the fandom, such that it is, is from older people with nostalgia from when it was a far bigger deal and when they probably grew up playing it themselves. The latter is increasingly being displaced by soccer
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/714281/football-top-sport-socce...
I find this to be completely the opposite of my recent experience. The games are fast and with much better, consistent payoff than other sports such as football and soccer. Progress is far more discrete and there's basically always something happening except during inning or player changes. I agree that there are a lot of games, but that's a feature: you don't have to pay attention to every game. Because of the discrete nature of progress and the number of games you can get meaningful statistics out of a single season. I say this as a relatively young person (<30) who only loosely follows other sports.
With football it’s possible to watch every game, which I think better fits today’s model of fandom.
Baseball I get the sense people watched or listened to some, often while doing something else, and followed the rest in the newspaper or the evening news highlights.
Both teams are small-ish markets. (Milwaukee is the smallest market.) Neither team has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani or Juan Soto. In other words, this was the series MLB didn't want, especially with the upcoming contracts talks.