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Legendary New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter is not only a Hall of Famer, but a pop culture star whose celebrity status has been unmatched by any ballplayer since his retirement in 2014. Jeter is a perhaps a symbol of baseball’s dwindling days as America’s most popular sport, a fall from grace that he’s noticed since his 1995 MLB debut.
“I’m a bit biased, I don’t know what you think about baseball being the number one sport back in the early ’90s, mid-’90s, but that’s the way I looked at it,” Jeter told former teammate Alex Rodriguez in a March 21 conversation on Bloomberg’s “The Deal.”
Jeter was drafted in 1992 by the Yankees, the team he grew up rooting for. He quickly reached superstardom as the Yankees won the World Series in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 as they remain the last MLB team to three-peat. Jeter viewed baseball as America’s most popular sport even before the Yankees dynasty, but MLB has since struggled to keep up with the NFL and NBA.
“In my opinion at that moment when we first came up, baseball was the number one sport in the country. I really do feel that way,” Jeter said. “I think now you know basketball, NFL has taken off. But at that moment I just think baseball was the number one sport. So many people played it, we all played it when we were younger. That’s probably the biggest difference in my mind.”
Jeter, A-Rod: Yankees Success Is Good for Baseball
“I don’t know if data supports this, but it certainly felt like baseball was number one,” Rodriguez said in his conversation with Jeter. “I remember the ’90s and when you guys started winning those championships, that wasn’t just a New York story, that was like a global story,” A-rod added.
“The Yankees being back on top was so good for the health of the game of baseball. They’re a little bit like the [Dallas] Cowboys and the [Los Angeles] Lakers, you either love them or hate them but you never walk by and say, ‘How do you feel about the Yankees, I don’t have an opinion.'”
Jeter and Rodriguez won a World Series together in 2009, the lone championship for A-rod and Jeter’s fifth. Both have dabbled in team ownership since their playing careers ended, as Jeter held a minority ownership stake in the Miami Marlins from 2017-2022 while A-rod now is part-owner of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.
“I think baseball’s in a better condition when the Yankees are doing well, when the Red Sox are doing well, when the Dodgers are doing well, when the Cubs they just won recently,” Jeter told Bloomberg. “When you have those big market teams that are having some success, I think it’s better for the sport.”
World Series Viewership Fell to All-Time Low in 2023
To Jeter’s point, the 2023 World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks was the least-watched World Series on record, with around 9.1. million average TV viewers. That’s less than the 11.6 million average viewers for the 2023 NBA Finals and a far cry from the whopping 123.4 million viewers for February’s 2024 Super Bowl, which was the most-watch telecast ever.
Baseball has made changes in recent years in attempt to make the game more entertaining for fans. These changes include a pitch clock to speed up pace of play, banning the infield shift to help boost offense, and increasing the size of bases to help encourage stolen bases. MLB revenue hit a league-record $11.6 billion in 2023.
Total attendance for MLB reached 70 million last season for the first year since 2017. However, last year’s 70.7 million attendance figure ranks as the third-lowest fan total for MLB seasons between 2000 and 2017, according to attendance stats tracked by Baseball Reference.
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