While revenues rise across the MLB, the league faces complex challenges in the near future. For one, the game has a marketing problem, something a revamped All-Star Game voting process has failed to rectify. While lucrative TV deals have lined owners’ pockets for years to come, and ensure a top-of-the-line broadcast product, attendance at games is declining. A players’ union revolt seems increasingly likely. If MLB is going to survive in a sports landscape where personalities drive audiences, they’re going to have to get pretty creative.
Luckily, MLB looks like it’s prepared to. Last week, commissioner Rob Manfred gave the Tampa Bay Rays permission to explore a partial relocation to Montreal, where half of the Rays’ home games would happen in Canada, and the other half would happen in St. Petersburg. There has been some fallout; the prospect of a new Rays stadium seems stuck in purgatory, and St. Petersburg’s mayor has said the city wouldn’t fund a new facility if the tenants were part-timers. “We’re looking for open minds,” said Rays principal owner Stu Sternberg, hopefully.
