This week’s Club Sportico looks at competing narratives of optimism and pessimism heading into the 2025 MLB season.
First the optimism: Long criticized for its stubborn adherence to tradition and a relatively staid product, MLB has pushed the envelope in recent years. Rules changes have shortened the length of games, and a new generation of stars like Shohei Ohtani, Elly De La Cruz and Aaron Judge have breathed new life into the sport.
At the Sportico House at SXSW this week, Jomboy Media COO Courtney Hirsch spoke about how companies like hers are finally re-packaging the sport for the digital media era. Afterwards, Jomboy’s Talkin’ Baseball podcast broke down how those changes have led to new excitement for fans. More changes could soon be on the way. They spoke about new ways to possibly incentivize starting pitchers to go deeper into games, and also counter narratives to the idea that the high-spending Dodgers have sapped the sport of its parity.
On the other hand, two MLB teams—the Nationals and Angels—were put up for sale in the last few years only to come off the market without agreeing to a deal. The Minnesota Twins, currently in conversations with potential buyers, could soon be the third. MLB valuations are up 20% in the last three years, as opposed to 77% in the NBA and 92% in the NHL. Valuations and interest from billionaires are hardly the best metrics to determine a sport’s overall health, but the underlying trend lines are not overly positive.
Here is an excerpt of that essay ✍️:
“At a time when a sport’s success seems to hinge largely on how much fun it is to be a fan outside of live games, baseball has lagged behind its peers. But Jomboy Media’s success—particularly with the 18-to-35 year-old fans that are talked about as a dying breed—shows there’s a lot of meat left on the bone. It’s an underserved market, one itching for new ways to talk about MLB.
On Tuesday evening, the Talkin’ Baseball podcast did a 45-minute live show breaking down how the game is changing. They detailed how MLB was slowly emerging from its “three true outcomes” era, and how rules changes like the pitch clock, infield shift and the three-batter-minimum have improved the sport for both fans and players. Baseball was long chastised for being too staid and traditional, but MLB has taken some major swings (sorry) in the last few years, and they’ve largely been home runs (sorry!). At one point, as the Talkin’ Baseball hosts were bouncing around ideas for how to incentivize starting pitchers to go deeper into games, I got a little jealous that similar conversations in other sports—like banning the tush push, for example—are typically far less fun.”
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