How MLB can make baseball relevant in the rapidly changing Internet

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“The king of baseball, the king of American sports, is sick,” A New York Times The story of the disappearance of amateurs and sandlots begins in small towns. Hundreds of thousands of fans attended the opening matches of the season, and star players made their money in the huge stadiums. “Yet critics say His Royal Highness is disturbed.”

The story goes back to 1925. But it seems that it could have been published a hundred years later.

“Baseball is dying” is a perennial claim that sounds like old news (literally) — but by the numbers there is truth to it. World Series viewership is Far from its peak Decades ago. Attendance at stadiums has not yet matched 2007 numbers. Even with growing viewership and attendance, baseball is dwarfed by football, both in Huge audience numbers and In American fiction. A few years ago, realizing that games were getting longer and longer at their expense, MLB implemented a pitch clock to speed things up; This season, it will be the league An automated system calls balls and strikeswhich are nicknamed “Robot Ompz”, at home plate when a player defies the call of a human umpire.

But MLB will enter the 2026 season With real momentum – The 2025 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays was a certified success. The final game of the Series was the most-watched World Series game in eight years in the United States, and broke international viewing records. The enthusiasm spread to social media: Ploski later I mentioned That on match day 7, at least 3 percent of everyone The posts on the platform were about baseball. TikTok and MLB jointly said that baseball is “one of the fastest-growing sports communities” on the platform. The league said its social media accounts are across platforms such as Facebook, X and Instagram It had record views and engagement During the series.

Even with the pitch clock, ball challenges and automatic strikeouts, baseball is a slow, routine game. The teams play every day, and there is no big event with a Bad Bunny performance to end the season. Some have complained that MLB is bad at marketing its stars, and fails to make them household names (when MLB was introduced program Providing players with social content in 2019 (some players even said it felt too late).

Can MLB turn its hard-earned attention into something sustainable?

Spring training has just begun, and with it a series of announcements — most notably this one MLB has been partnering with TikTok To bring more baseball-related content and features to the platform. The idea is that TikTok will serve as a “second screen” for baseball fans to follow or watch game highlights.

The most interesting thing to me is the shift in MLB’s social media strategy. As part of the TikTok partnership, MLB is giving some creators access to the league’s archives, supposedly to make it easier for people to make breakdowns, fan edits, or anything else without getting copyright strikes or searching for footage. Back in the fall after the World Series, I wrote That if MLB really wants to speak directly to new potential fans, they should just hand the keys over to the creators who are already making fandom-focused baseball content (Lionsgate has While promoting her films last year). We’re not there yet, but this seems like a step in that direction.

Over the past few years, it has been clear that MLB has been using online fandom tactics to generate engagement and excitement on social media sites. Some of MLB’s social content appears indistinguishable from what a fan account might post — and the league and teams are making the most of unfettered access to players.

“I’m going to pass the phone to Big Dumper,” says Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ designated hitter and pitcher, sounding a little sad. In a recent clip It was shared to MLB’s Instagram account (More on Big Dumper aka Cal Raleigh here). Made by the San Diego Padres Players take photos based on Lin-Manuel Miranda memes. There’s a running joke about administrators (read: social media teams) running different team and league accounts: Here’s MLB’s post From Blackpink and Jonas Brothers concertsthe Chicago Cubs account posted From the audience at the matchand Detroit Tigers account asks players what they got for Superintendent’s birthday.

MLB has also realized that fan content tagging its players, games, and teams is undoubtedly useful even if it is not controlled by the league itself. Gone are the days of hitting Jomboy with copyright claims — last summer, MLB Announce It has acquired a minority stake in media company Jimmy (“Jumboy”) O’Brien Pumps viral crashes Game moments and other content.

“We look forward to bringing baseball fans more entertaining content to help expand baseball’s online presence and deepen the connection between our sport and its fans,” the league said. He said at that time. Well, yes!

Individual players like Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts are also trying to expand their reach to new audiences — Betts hosts his own podcast, called On the baseWhere he interviews other players. Betts’ attempts to market himself to younger audiences have sometimes been sloppy, to say the least, as when he joined forces with right-wing manosphere-adjacent streamer Aden Ross (you may recognize the name: Ross, too The Los Angeles Rams hosted Puka Nacua(An appearance for which Nacua eventually apologized). It’s a move that speaks to how thirsty people (even millionaire professional athletes) are for a slice of online audience.

The World Baseball Classic – where professional players play for their home countries – begins next week, marking the first time since 2023 that the event has been held. The final series match between the United States and Japan Breaking viewing numbersbut we’ll see if interest has increased since then, now that Shohei Ohtani has become a two-time world champion.

Another thing to watch: themed evenings at ballparks, and I’m not just talking about the talented players. My personal favorite is the Hello Kitty nights done by bands (incl Exclusive Hello Kitty baseball merchandise). Over the past two years, the Dodgers sincere Game for vtubers — Virtual banners Humans play it behind the scenes – trying to capitalize on fanbases and other collectors and generate hype. A One Piece trading card was given away at a specially themed Dodgers game last summer Sold for $14,999.99.

The thing about relying on social media to reach people is that it’s cheap for the audience, it costs a potential fan nothing to watch players mess around or be exposed to viral TikTok trends. Subscribing to a range of live streaming platforms to watch actual games is much more expensive, and attending in person is even more expensive. The metrics of last year’s World Series are a bright spot for MLB, but it can’t be a matchup between the Blue Jays and Dodgers every year. Players move, get injured, and go through stagnation. Stars will eventually retire. The challenge for MLB will not just be to market the game as it is now, but to figure out how to make it part of the broader culture — and people’s lives — in the decades to come.

Of course, all of this heads toward December, when the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL Players Association and the league expires. Perhaps the biggest issue in the negotiations is “competitive balance,” which is essentially the idea that big-market teams with money to spend can simply buy their way into championships. Team owners They may push for a salary cap For the players, the fear is that stalled negotiations could lead to a lockout, which in turn could mean losing regular season games. Baseball never seems to be a good way to ignite any excitement MLB has created.