An Analysis of Major League Baseball's 2023 Rule Changes on Gameplay and Attendance

Presenter

Mikey Walsh

Campus

UMass Boston

Sponsor

Zaur Rzakhanov, Department of Accounting and Finance, UMass Boston

Schedule

Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board C16, Poster Showcase Room (163), Row 2 (C11-C20) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

Major League Baseball (MLB) has a problem. In 2022, league-wide attendance had fallen to 64.5 million, a 4-million person decline from pre-pandemic attendance in 2019. League-wide attendance has been steadily trending downwards since 2012. Fans' fading interest in watching and attending games is a major concern for the league's success as a business. As a result of this declining interest and attendance, MLB introduced three new radical rule changes for the 2023 MLB season. These rules included larger bases, a pitch clock, and the banning of the defensive shift. These rules are intended to speed up games, while increasing the excitement within them.  

I will measure the effectiveness of the rule changes in changing the style and pace of play by analyzing popular baseball statistics like stolen bases, time of game, and batting average on balls in play. This information will be critical in determining if the rule changes positively impacted the business of baseball. The key indicator of this will be an increase in league-wide attendance in 2023. I will run a regression model to determine if teams with a lower population density within a 30-minute commute to their stadium experienced a higher increase in attendance than those with a higher population density. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of these rule changes in making a more exciting, eventful game for fans.

Keywords

Sport Business, Major League Baseball, Consumer Decision Making, Rule Changes, Sports

Research Area

Consumer Behavior and Marketing Research

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