Shohei Ohtani/Fernando Tatis Jr.
MLBBy Jessica Kleinschmidt on

There were instant results after the new MLB rules were implemented before the 2023 season. The primary being timing. That aspect of the game dropped significantly when the pitch clock was introduced, and the numbers continued to improve as time went on.

The average game time in 2024 was 2:36, the shortest average in 40 years (1984, 2:35).

That correlated in other ways as MLB announced increases in attendance, viewership, streaming, and fan engagement.

“The increased enthusiasm baseball fans of all ages have shown the last two seasons is evident in all of the ways we track fan engagement,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “Building off last year’s momentum, the 2024 season was memorable with historic performances, emerging young stars, a series of successful special events, and tight pennant races. We thank all the fans for their outstanding support and look forward to an exciting postseason.”

Television had a huge increase in viewership. According to Major League Baseball, younger fans embraced the sport at a significant rate.

MLB’s national television partners registered double digit growth in the Adult 18-34 category including ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball (+12%), FS1 (+24%) and MLB Network (+36%). In addition, Fox registered a +9% increase in the 18-34 demo. (via MLB)

ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball finished with its most-watched season in five years (2019) with an average audience of 1,505,000 viewers — a six percent increase over last year.

FS1’s MLB viewership increased by nine percent while MLB Network saw an increase of 11 percent. Baltimore Orioles rookie Jackson Holiday’s debut on April 10 averaged 626,000 viewers making it the second most-watched regular season game ever on the Network.

Streaming is of course the shiny new thing that also saw an increase.

MLB.TV set a new high of 14.5 billion minutes watched, a jump of +14 percent over last year’s previous high mark of 12.7 billion minutes watched.

Shohei Ohtani made an impact on the social platform in his own right.

“MLB’s biggest day in its Twitter/X history and included the account’s top two posts of all-time focused around Ohtani’s 50/50 accomplishment and his 6-for-6 performance in the same game.”

The younger audience saw growth as well.

The percentage of ticket buyers ages 18-35 jumped 8.5 percent since 2019.

As far as being offline, casual participation in baseball is at more than 8.9 million participants, also an all-time high and an increase of +108%  since the launch of MLB’s PLAY BALL program.

Baseball and softball, combined, also had the highest participation among boys and girls ages 6-12.

Former professional baseball player Cody Decker turned analyst embraced the new rule changes, and even wished they were put into fruition during his playing days.

“My first through when the clock was adopted was, ‘Jesus, we waste a LOT of time out here,'” he told Awful Announcing.

Finally, international viewership in MLB went up significantly.

Global viewership has increased +18% versus last season with double digit growth in Asia (+32%) and Latin America (+16%).

In addition to the pitch clock, larger bases led to stolen bases also increasing to 3,617, the most in 109 years (1915) and the third most in any Major League season since 1900, behind 1914 (4,574) and 1915 (4,108).

A faster paced, more exciting game on the field certainly led to positive results for Major League Baseball in all areas this season.

About Jessica Kleinschmidt

Jess is a baseball fan with Reno, Nev. roots residing in the Bay Area. She is the host of "Short and to the Point" and is also a broadcaster with the Oakland A's Radio Network. She previously worked for MLB.com and NBC Sports Bay Area.

View all posts by Jessica Kleinschmidt