Poll of the Day > Is baseball still popular with today's kids? (playing and/or spectating)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just wondering. I remember growing up in the 1990s, baseball was portrayed by the media as a sport everyday boys liked to play and for people to spectate - especially with the teams Cubs, White Sox, and Red Sox still "cursed" back then.

I'm sure other sports have encroached on its territory since. Still just as popular, but now so are other things. Kids just have more options now.

When I was a kid, Little League was the thing we did.

Salrite posted...

I'm sure other sports have encroached on its territory since. Still just as popular, but now so are other things. Kids just have more options now.

When I was a kid, Little League was the thing we did.

Yep! I could see that.

I didn't play any sports as a kid because I wasn't interested in them.

Little League (and T-Ball before that) was fun for its time. Just got to play with friends. I never cared about the competition of it. I just looked forward to hitting the ball.

From my perspective, people have cared less about baseball pretty much every year that passes for decades now. It's why it's arguably been passed by football (and even basketball) as "America's Pastime" for the most part.

Part of the whole to-do over the McGwire/Sosa homerun race was because interest in baseball was dying for years and then suddenly something interesting was happening that people were paying attention to again. And that was 25 years ago. The sport really hasn't gotten any more popular since then.

Even NASCAR is more popular in the US than baseball is, no matter how many people love to make fun of it.

And baseball's other problem is that it really isn't popular outside of the US (except in Japan). So if the US stops caring about baseball entirely, the whole sport basically dies.

That being said, there's still millions of people watching it. It's not completely dead yet. Though it'll be interesting to see what happens once the Boomers and Gen X die off and the only people left to care are Millennials and Gen Z kids who grew up not really giving much of a shit about sports in general.

nah

Sure. Kids still like baseball. Its just a slow paced game and football and basketball are more exciting.

Ive never known anybody who was into baseball.

The most popular sport, by far, with the kids I teach is Gaelic football.

There are still youth baseball leagues, including the Little League World Series and high school baseball, so yes.

I'm more interested in why you think baseball isn't still popular. If it wasn't still popular MLB would have a lack of people trying to play for the big leagues, which isn't the case.

Kids have not visited this site in 20 years.

Where I live, soccer def seems to be gaining popularity. Wouldn't be surprised if it surpasses baseball in my lifetime (or already has idk the stats)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3415d534.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/33bbc2bc.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8d891f66.png

This survey only goes down to age 18, but at that age, baseball ranks below basketball and soccer, and is tied with ice hockey.

I live next to a field and while there are two or three baseball diamonds I don't think I've seen kids use them as that. They're mainly there playing volleyball or fooling around.

No I do not watch them. I only peak out when they're making absurd noise way past their bedtime.

No one outside the USA likes baseball except Japan.

Baseball is popular in South Korea

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Though it'll be interesting to see what happens once the Boomers and Gen X die off and the only people left to care are Millennials and Gen Z kids who grew up not really giving much of a shit about sports in general.

This is just not true, at least for millennials, almost all millennial men I know love football

captpackrat posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3415d534.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/33bbc2bc.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8d891f66.png

This survey only goes down to age 18, but at that age, baseball ranks below basketball and soccer, and is tied with ice hockey.

I don't trust any list that puts soccer that high, the big 4 are the big 4 for a reason, I'm pretty sure Motorsports are still bigger too, and I live in the north with a substantial Latino population.

Sources: my decade+ of working directly with the public in a sports loving area

Muscles posted...

I don't trust any list that puts soccer that high, the big 4 are the big 4 for a reason, I'm pretty sure Motorsports are still bigger too, and I live in the north with a substantial Latino population.

Sources: my decade+ of working directly with the public in a sports loving area

"Sometimes I talk to local people about sports and that means I know better than actual nationwide statistics."

adjl posted...

"Sometimes I talk to local people about sports and that means I know better than actual nationwide statistics."

Nice try but I have talked to 1,000s of people about sports, that's a significant sample size

And did you select those respondents randomly from across the country? Or did you talk to them in the context of viewing or otherwise being adjacent to sports in which you are personally interested and/or are of significant local relevance?

Maybe if baseball weren't slow and boring as hell it would be more popular. I'm sure it was interesting back when there were only two sports on TV and those two sports comprised 30% of all the material being broadcast nationally. If there were ever a sport that needed a complete overhaul.

SunWuKung420 posted...

There are still youth baseball leagues, including the Little League World Series and high school baseball, so yes.

I'm more interested in why you think baseball isn't still popular. If it wasn't still popular MLB would have a lack of people trying to play for the big leagues, which isn't the case.

I dunno, I just heard the idea it wasn't popular among today's kids around the Internet I guess. (For that matter I am a baseball fan.) Also, I get the idea that stuff like video games are competing with sports in general...

adjl posted...

And did you select those respondents randomly from across the country? Or did you talk to them in the context of viewing or otherwise being adjacent to sports in which you are personally interested and/or are of significant local relevance?

Probably the thousands of sports generals he posted on here before the people who actually posted in them went away.

adjl posted...

And did you select those respondents randomly from across the country? Or did you talk to them in the context of viewing or otherwise being adjacent to sports in which you are personally interested and/or are of significant local relevance?

Well a lot of them were from outside the Chicago area, sometimes when I went to other places but also there are a lot of people from different states and even different countries around here, so yes. I have talked to them outside of the sports I do like or adjacent to sports I like, though a vast majority still go football > other big 4 sports > other sports.

Judgmenl posted...

Probably the thousands of sports generals he posted on here before the people who actually posted in them went away.

I'm talking strictly about people I have talked to in real life, going to specific sports boards/forums/subreddits isn't a good way of getting a general idea about sports

Muscles posted...

Well a lot of them were from outside the Chicago area, sometimes when I went to other places but also there are a lot of people from different states and even different countries around here, so yes. I have talked to them outside of the sports I do like or adjacent to sports I like, though a vast majority still go football > other big 4 sports > other sports.

I'm talking strictly about people I have talked to in real life, going to specific sports boards/forums/subreddits isn't a good way of getting a general idea about sports

Yea I know, I'm not a huge sports fan, but during Red Sox season I go pretty hard and I'm the "Red Sox fan" in an office full of people who if they watch sports it's Football.

Muscles posted...

Well a lot of them were from outside the Chicago area, sometimes when I went to other places but also there are a lot of people from different states and even different countries around here, so yes. I have talked to them outside of the sports I do like or adjacent to sports I like, though a vast majority still go football > other big 4 sports > other sports.

So... not a randomly selected sample from across the country?

A large volume of anecdotal evidence is still anecdotal evidence. You haven't controlled your sampling to ensure a representative cross-section of the general population, your sampling carries an intrinsic bias in that you're going to gravitate to contexts in which discussing sports you like is more common than discussing sports you don't care about, and you're going largely off of vague recollections of trends instead of recording your results.

Vibes are not data. When presented with data that conflicts with your personal experience, your response should not be to presume that the data is wrong, but rather to presume that your personal experience has been non-representative. If you're really convinced that there's an issue with the data, dig into the methodology and see if it supports the conclusions, or maybe even devise your own experiment to collect a proper sample. I can tell you, though, that when you start with "I refuse to believe this is real because soccer is so high" when soccer only managed a 5% share, it's pretty much a given that the discrepancy is because of your biases and not any issue with the data.

Hive minds like reddit are not accurate representations of reality. Basically every niche (or even non-niche hobby in this case Sports/Baseball) are not at all representative of the type of people you'd talk to in real life. I could list tons of experiences I've had (and I'm not known for experiences) that contradict what is going on with reddit, so I think that Muscles is right here and it also matches a lot of my experiences where I know two people who semi-regularly stay informed about the Red Sox but they're both in their 60s. I'd love to shit talk and watch a game next season at like a sports bar or something if I knew of one locally (too bad I moved out at the end of the season).

That being said Hockey is on the table, I just can't keep track of when Bruins games are on and the pace of play is totally different from Baseball where you can pretty easily keep track of game state. I also kinda wanted to go to a Fleet game because they're hosted in my city.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5d29f9ac.png
Well this thread made me put words to action.
I am now a Fleet/PWHL fan.

Judgmenl posted...

Hive minds like reddit are not accurate representations of reality.

Who said anything about Reddit? The stats capt linked come from a Gallup poll, the full methodology and results of which are readily available if you look for them. The main bias you'd be concerned about with those stats are that they were collected via phone surveys, so they're excluding people that aren't okay answering phone surveys, but I'm reasonably comfortable assuming that that won't do anything to confound a poll about sports interests.

If hitting a ball with a stick isn't a popular game for your generation you need to count your blessings, that is such a simple form of entertainment.

adjl posted...

Who said anything about Reddit? The stats capt linked come from a Gallup poll, the full methodology and results of which are readily available if you look for them. The main bias you'd be concerned about with those stats are that they were collected via phone surveys, so they're excluding people that aren't okay answering phone surveys, but I'm reasonably comfortable assuming that that won't do anything to confound a poll about sports interests.

I'm more interested in that the stats are collected by people who do phone surveys. You have to go out of your way to be involved in phone surveys. It's very similar to any other kind of survey. I don't know how many times I've had to, for example decline the Steam Hardware Survey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMcfzTTKTaQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP0yr_1X_hY

Damn_Underscore posted...

If hitting a ball with a stick isn't a popular game for your generation you need to count your blessings, that is such a simple form of entertainment.

Hitting things with a stick is fuckin amazing though

man101 posted...

Maybe if baseball weren't slow and boring as hell it would be more popular. I'm sure it was interesting back when there were only two sports on TV and those two sports comprised 30% of all the material being broadcast nationally. If there were ever a sport that needed a complete overhaul.

I don't know, every time I look up at a football game, they've stopped the clock to putter around with their thumbs up their asses or rolling around moaning because they fell down and went boom. In fact, I see that a lot in basketball, too. And despite the stereotype that soccer players are always flopping, I don't think I've ever seen it there.

Baseball is always moving, it's easy to make sense of. I watch football and just see a bunch of roided up dudes running around for three hours.