Major League Baseball's popularity remains on the decline, as the league's current product -- which is chock full of strikeouts, dead time, and three true outcomes -- just hasn't piqued enough fans' interest or attention.
Suffice to say, MLB has a laundry list of issues that desperately need to be resolved. And according to Hall of Fame slugger and Fox Sports MLB analyst Frank Thomas, one of the first steps back to relevancy includes the league marketing its superstars in a more effective, consistent way.
"The biggest thing we do wrong in MLB is we focus on too many new stars every season and don't put that stranglehold on the five to 10 superstars we have in the league and put a lot of focus on them," Thomas told The DA Show on Tuesday. "You can't have a revolving set of stars every season. You look at the All-Star Game, you never know what you're going to get, you never know who's going to make the team.
"But in the league, people know who the top players are, and you've got to highlight those guys... I really believe you've got to have a third committee there to help pick the teams, of veterans who know who the top players are. It's hard to exclude superstars, and we do that yearly at the All-Star Game... Being an All-Star in this league is cumulative over the last couple years, and the fans will gravitate more toward the sport if we highlight our stars yearly."
During this year's All-Star Game at Coors Field, a league record 40 players made their first Midsummer Classic appearance. There was also a record number of replacements named to the rosters, as several selected players opted not to attend the event for various reasons.
Baseball's average audience is older than that of other major U.S. sports. According to data from Sports Business Journal, the average viewer of nationally televised MLB games was 57 in 2016 -- up from 52 in 2000. Another alarming stat is that just 7-percent of MLB's viewers are under the age of 18.
The entire MLB conversation between Thomas and DA can be accessed in the audio and video players above.
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