Northland posted:USA Today has of history of 'baseball is dying' articles. This one is nothing more than the equivalent of an old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn. The MLB is thriving and is better than it has ever been. Modern MLB players are far superior to those in the past. MLB parks are far superior to those in the past. The MLB is putting a quality product out through numerous mediums and languages. And there are millions world wide who are still fans and ballpark attendance is not the only measure of how MLB is doing.
And if a robo-ump does a better job why would we not want to use it?
Both tv ratings and ballpark attendance are down a lot compared to 20 years ago.
I also agree that mlb is still a great product but they are mostly doing well financially because they are being able to squeeze more money out of their shrinking and aging audience.
I don't think that this has to do with the style or quality of play which I think is great but this development imo is worrysome at least to a degree.
Imo mlb will have a tough time when TV is dead and completely replaced by streaming because the young people don't like to pay as much for streaming as the old folks do for cable. This problem means no more multi billion dollar cable deals.
Mlb definitely isn't dying but they definitely need find ways to attract more young people, they can't rely too much on the still good financial numbers because the demographics aren't so favorable.