On the clock
We’re roughly a third of the way through the MLB 2023 season, though fans (and players) could be forgiven for feeling like this year’s competition is whizzing by, with the average game duration down ~15% compared to the 2022 season.
That’s down to some new rule changes that have been implemented this year, notably the addition of a pitch timer to speed up the action and shorten the gaps between pitching and batting, as the MLB continues its efforts to get more eyes back on America’s pastime.
Timely
The game-shortening regulations have arrived at a strange moment in time for baseball, with youth interest in the sport waning — just 7% of Americans under 30 say baseball is their favorite sport, behind football, basketball, soccer, and “something else” — and attendance figures falling. At this current rate, the MLB will have shaved 68,000 minutes or 47 days worth of action by the end of the season, but whether that translates to reinvigorated interest remains to be seen.
Baseball games used to be much shorter affairs 100 years ago, in the heyday of stars like Babe Ruth, running for just 1 hour and 54 minutes on average in the 1923 season. As the years progressed, however, matches became more drawn out with more pitches and longer times between them, peaking in 2021 when the average game came in at 3 hours and 11 minutes.
