In a recent Harris Poll, 33% of the adult sports fans said they like football the best. Only 14% said baseball was their favorite sport. It's not surprising, football is the king of sports in this country. But baseball is always going to be America's pastime.
With the Collective Bargaining Agreement up in December this year, maybe baseball should look at going back in time to make a few slight changes that could get more adults to pick baseball over football.
It's easy to say from my point of view that the season is way too long. I do a daily show on XM with Kevin Kennedy 12 months a year Monday through Friday ... 3 hours of baseball. Now Kevin and I love the show and so do our listeners, but I'm talking about the passive fan, the family man, who when his teams in baseball are out of the playoff picture September 1st and has to choose where to spend his or her hard-earned money, he will go to football games, college and/or pro.
I don't blame him. What, after 140 games and 30+ spring training games, they are supposed to keep watching meaningless games? No way ... it's time to be proactive.
Lets go back to 1961, when baseball went from a 154-game schedule to 162. Let's keep interleague play and wild-card teams, but let's shorten the season and add another round of the playoffs and two more wild-card teams. That way we don't lose fans to football because more teams and their fans will have hope after September 1st. Nothing beats playoff baseball, not even the NFL in the beginning of the season.