Baseball’s Ratings Boom: Is MLB’s Revival Fueled by Fans or Betting?

Major League Baseball ratings have exploded recently. In the past year, MLB attendances have reached a seven game high, the 2024 World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers was the most watched Fall Classic in eight years, and international viewership has increased by 18%. You really can’t argue with the numbers. And if numbers aren’t enough for you, I get it. I’m not much of a numbers guy either, to be completely honest. So let me share a little personal anecdote. I’m a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, and my grandfather was a season ticket holder at Fenway Park for the majority of my childhood. Many of my best memories were spent at America’s Most Beloved Ballpark. Whether it be Brock Holt hitting for the cycle, Game 2 of the 2013 World Series, or Hanley Ramirez’s walk-off grand slam against the Yankees on my eleventh birthday- I was there for all of it. Fenway was everything. Baseball was everything. I played little league every year. At least 80% of my wardrobe was Red Sox shirts. Me and my brother had countless binders full of baseball cards. The game of baseball was the most important thing in the world to me. Until it wasn’t. My grandfather gave up his season tickets in 2018. I haven’t been to Fenway since. COVID hit in 2020, and changed what going to games looked like. The Red Sox traded Mookie Betts the same year, and changed what the team looked like. As for me, I had focused my attention on other sports. As a kid, it was only baseball. But I was starting to see why people watch sports such as soccer, football, and basketball. After being the cornerstone of my personality for the better part of a decade, it seems like the presence that baseball had in my life came to a screeching halt. 

Fast forward to 2025, and if I’m not sitting down to watch every inning of a Red Sox game on TV, I’m watching the highlights on YouTube. And if I’m ever checking my phone during a game, it’s to text my little cousin who’s also bound to be watching the games nine times out of ten. Being a baseball fan is a full time job. 162 games a year isn’t for the faint of heart. But my heart is very much back in the game. And I doubt my story is a unique one. As the numbers from earlier show, more and more people have started either watching baseball for the first time, or getting back into it recently. I guess the main question is, why? The Red Sox haven’t made the playoffs in four years, and just traded fan favorite slugger Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants for a bag of baseballs and a new washing machine. I love my Sox, and we have plenty of exciting players in the clubhouse. But let’s not pretend it’s their on field product which has led me to crawl back to America’s Pastime in recent years. I guess to fully understand the recent growth of baseball, we have to look at the chain of events in what changes have taken place within the MLB in recent years. 

We’re going all the way back to 2017; the last time the ratings were anywhere near as high as they are today. 2017 was the year that the intentional walk rule was implemented. Meaning that, instead of a pitcher throwing four consecutive balls to intentionally walk a batter, the pitcher’s head coach would just need to give a sign to signal they wish to walk the batter. This was done in order to save the pitcher’s arm, and make the game move by quicker. It didn’t seem like too big a change, and to be honest, it wasn’t a very drastic one. However, some baseball purists met the change with opposition. Many didn’t see the point of it, and thought it was an unnecessary change. Others cited instances such as when Miguel Cabrera hit an RBI single on an attempted intentional walk in 2006 as reasons why the new change could potentially take away from the game. The rule was implemented regardless, and is still in place today. Three years later in 2020, baseball wasn’t alone in the sense that they had to adapt to the changes they encountered because of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of these changes was that once a game reached extra innings, each team would get an automatic runner on second base at the start of their ups. This was originally implemented to shorten games during the pandemic, as well as reduce player injuries, but the league made it a permanent change that is still in effect today. Many longtime fans of the sport opposed, and for a rather simple reason- the “ghost runner rule” largely favors the home team. Yes, both teams get the extra runner. But having an extra runner, and having an extra runner with the ability to hit a walk off are two completely different things. I wasn’t too surprised when the rule was implemented during the COVID season, but I was when it was implemented on a permanent basis. I was first exposed to the extra runner rule when I was at a local New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL) game back home in Massachusetts a few months ago. The NECBL is basically a wooden bat summer league that gives college baseball athletes something to do for a few months between seasons. Tickets for these games are ten bucks, and the attendance is in the hundreds to thousands. For me, it makes perfect sense to want to speed up these games once it gets into extra innings. Most people are probably only there for a family day out. But to have it implemented in the Majors? I just don’t get it. As a kid that grew up going to Fenway, few instances are better than when a game reaches extra innings. The anticipation. The energy buzzing through the air. The pitching duels. The fact that you were going to get home WAY past your bedtime. The fact that the governing body of professional baseball would want to cut down on all this just to make the game go by quicker is just silly to me. COVID was a strange time, I got it then. But times are different now. There’s no need for such practices.

One of baseball’s most significant, and equally controversial changes came in 2023, when the pitch clock was added. This wasn’t the first time we had seen something of the like, as the pitch clock was implemented at the collegiate level back in 2011. Less and less people were watching Major League Baseball every year, and the league decided a good way to combat this would be to make an attempt to speed the game up. Pitchers will now have 15 seconds to deliver a pitch when there’s no runners on base, and 20 seconds to deliver if there’s at least one runner on base. After the first season of the pitch clock being implemented, the average MLB game lasted 2 hours and 40 minutes. Just two years earlier in 2021, the average game time reached a record 3 hours and 10 minutes. Baseball games were getting shorter, and in the day and age of rapid fire social media, the shorter the games, the more marketable the league. And it wasn’t just the viewership that was increasing. There were considerable differences occurring on the field as well. The first season with the pitch clock also saw new restrictions on defensive shifts, as well as a different distances between bases. This led to an overall increase in batting average, as well as stolen bases across the league. 

Now, what does this all mean? The intentional walk sign. The extra runner. The pitch clock. It’s making baseball faster. It’s bringing in more viewers. And what does that mean? More people are betting on baseball. But here’s the catch- people who bet on baseball don’t necessarily consider themselves fans of the sport, or even bring in regular viewing. I’m someone who’s dabbled in online gambling. I’ve betted on the Egyptian Premier League, a soccer competition I know nothing about. And this is how some people view baseball. Quicker games and higher viewing makes it easier to bet on. And if betting companies are profiting from baseball, then this means more money for the MLB. But what about the real fans? 

As someone that comes from a baseball family, very few of these new rules are met with a positive response. And it’s not like we’re a bunch of oldheads. My fourteen year old cousin, my uncle, and myself usually share opinions on these sorts of things. I’m part of many online baseball communities that feel the same way. Baseball is America’s Pastime. It’s about spending a summer afternoon at the park with a lemonade and a pretzel. It’s the long, drawn out battles over an extended period of time that make this game special. It’s these aspects of the game which shouldn’t be compromised at the expense of the real fans, and for the profit of betting companies. Now, I don’t want to sound like too much of an oldhead. Is the fact that more people are watching baseball better for the sport? Yes. I love baseball, and if more people are getting into it, then that makes me happy. I can even be counted as one, given the recent resurgence of my interest in the sport. Maybe the pitch clock is a net positive if it’s making baseball more accessible. But, there’s a middle ground. We need to find a way to ensure that the league making the game more marketable is in the best interest of the fans, and of the game of baseball- not betting companies. And I’m not sure what the answer is, either. But what I do know is that the next time baseball’s recent meteoric rise is being discussed, you should take a moment to ask yourself: who’s really benefiting in all this?