It's Discount Week! 🎁 Pick up new Marketplace gear at a discount when you donate today! Get My Gear!

As baseball’s attendance and TV audience decline, its grassroots popularity is booming, study finds

Ben Bradford Feb 21, 2019
HTML EMBED:
COPY
A boy bats during baseball practice at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Washington, DC, on May 7, 2018. ISSAM AHMED/AFP/Getty Images

As baseball’s attendance and TV audience decline, its grassroots popularity is booming, study finds

Ben Bradford Feb 21, 2019
A boy bats during baseball practice at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Washington, DC, on May 7, 2018. ISSAM AHMED/AFP/Getty Images
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Spring training for the 2019 Major League Baseball season opens today. Baseball is coming off a rough year, with declining TV ratings and its lowest attendance since 2003. But reports of the national pastime’s coming demise may be exaggerated: A new study finds that participation in the sport at the grassroots level is surging.

Click the audio player above to hear the full story.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.