Baseball is dying. America's new pastime is on the gridiron. Baseball is the domain of old men and stat geeks.
Such grand pronouncements have been a steady presence in recent years, with pundits furrowing their brows and wringing their hands over the reported demise of the sport that once held the United States in thrall.
These deep thinkers, usually armed with the latest TV ratings, worry what will become of baseball as it fades from the national conversation.
The facts, however, appear to suggest baseball’s future is far brighter than the doom-mongers would concede.
Consider the news that the two best offensive players in the game – Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, the two-time reigning American League Most Valuable Player, and Mike Trout of the Anaheim Angels, MVP runner-up to Cabrera in his first two major-league seasons – signed massive contract extensions last week.
Cabrera and Detroit agreed to a 10-year, US$292 million (Dh1.07 billion) contract, the biggest in sports history, while Anaheim secured the future of their rising star with a six-year, $144.5m deal.
While the track record of giving long-term contracts to players in their 30s, such as Cabrera, is decidedly mixed (see: Rodriguez, Alex), the fact teams are willing to entertain such deals speaks to baseball’s rude financial health.
There were only five $200-plus million deals in baseball history prior to this winter; Cabrera’s was the third such deal this off-season, following Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers (seven years, $215m) and Seattle Mariners recruit Robinson Cano (10 years, $240m).
Just four players made $20m or more in salary in the 2009 season, three of them New York Yankees, but 22 players across 11 teams will equal or better that income threshold this year.
As with most sports, the driving force behind this financial largesse is TV revenue as networks scramble for DVR-proof programming.
Every team in Major League Baseball will receive $12.4m a year for the next eight years as part of the league’s national TV contract, which is more than twice as large as its predecessor, and that is on top of local TV deals.
The Dodgers, Mariners and Philadelphia Phillies each have local contracts worth billions of dollars, with other clubs set to follow suit in the near future.
Baseball’s vitality extends beyond TV deals.
Last season brought MLB’s sixth-highest attendance in its history, more than 74 million, and all of the top 10 seasons in attendance have come during the past decade.
If this is what baseball’s death looks like, every sport should be in such poor health.
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