MLB threw 120 years of history in the trash by adding a clock. Now fans are flocking to games and baseball is so freaking back.
- Adding a pitch clock has shortened the average time of Major League Baseball games by 26 minutes.
- Everyone loves it, attendance is up, and the sport feels trendy for the first time in decades.
These two charts really tell the story of the baseball season so far.
1. Since MLB added the pitch clock in April, the average game is 26 minutes shorter than in 2022. Games haven't been this short in 40 years (data via Baseball Reference):
The pitch clock was a legitimately revolutionary change.
It upended more than 100 years of tradition, forced players to adjust in ways they are still trying to figure out, and made a certain type of fan freak out about the nature of the sport.
2. That brings us to the second chart. This one shows the year-over-year change in average attendance by MLB teams through approximately 888 games (data via ESPN's attendance tracker):
Pretty much every team is seeing stronger attendance in 2023 compared to 2022.
Nearly 1,000 games into this new, timed era, it's hard to see it as anything other than an unequivocal success.
In addition to the objective measures, there also seems to be the sense that Americans have been turning to each other recently and saying, "You know what's pretty great? Baseball."
The ol' national pastime. An afternoon at the ballpark. Hot dogs, dingers, ice cream in a little helmet cup. And have you heard? Games are way, way shorter now.
