The NFL is ready to celebrate its annual extravaganza, the best day on the sports calendar. More than 115 million people are expected to watch Super Bowl LVI between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night. Thanks to legalized gambling, an estimated 31.4 million fans will bet $7.6 billion on the game, according to the American Gaming Association. It isn't a national holiday, but it should be.
Then, there is baseball.
Do you remember baseball?
What will Bob Nutting be thinking as he watches Bengals-Rams? How about the other MLB owners and commissioner Rob Manfred? How envious will they be of the NFL product, all that's right about it and its stranglehold on the sporting public? While their sport, baseball, is dying a little more each day?
Take a little test just for fun.
Without looking, can you name the two teams in the World Series last season? The Atlanta Braves won, but what team did they beat? I had to think long and hard before I remembered it was the Houston Astros.
I used to love baseball more than any sport, but I don't think I watched 2 minutes of that World Series.
I don't think I'm the only person who has lost interest in what used to be a great game.
I get that it's especially hard to be a baseball fan in Pittsburgh because the Pirates have been irrelevant for nearly three decades with 25 losing seasons in the past 29 years. If you love baseball, you're living in the wrong town because the Pirates give you nothing in return for your passion.
But it's hard to be a baseball fan anywhere these days for a variety of reasons, the latest being the lockout that will delay the start of spring training this week and could delay the start of the regular season on March 31. To the surprise of no one, the owners and players can't agree on a new collective bargaining agreement. You know the same old story, right? Billionaire owners fighting with millionaire players for a bigger piece of the financial pie? Shame on both sides.
But even when baseball returns, it will be in serious trouble. The games are too long. There are too many strikeouts. Shifts and analytics have bogged things down. I could go on and on, but Jim Leyland — the smartest baseball man I've known — put it best last season:
"We've lost our younger audience a little bit. That's the audience we've got to get back. Let's face it, the young people want action. They don't want to just sit there."
MLB has tried to be better. It really has. It is so desperate to get back on the sporting public's radar that it has turned to gimmicks. It implemented rules for how bullpens can be used. It has started extra innings with a runner on second base. It has played 7-inning doubleheaders.
Nothing really has worked.
Baseball still is too slow. The games still last too long. There still is too little action.
I have no idea what the solution is.
Sadly, Manfred has no idea, either.
Bigger picture, people say there is nothing wrong with baseball that a salary cap won't fix. The other pro sports have one, right?
I hear the argument all the time:
The NHL shut down for an entire season to get a salary cap. Why can't MLB do the same?
I'll tell you why.
When the NHL owners locked out the players in 2004-05, most were hemorrhaging money. It was easy for them to take a united stand against the players. The subsequent salary cap saved a lot of NHL franchises, including the Penguins.
MLB's situation is different. All the owners still are making serious money, at least they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. They don't have the collective strength to shut down for a season and lose that revenue. They also know the MLB Players Association is too strong for the union to cave.
Maybe all of that will change if interest in baseball continues to wane. We'll see. I have my doubts.
In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy Super Bowl Sunday as the perfect topper to the NFL's spectacular postseason.
I'll bet I enjoy it a lot more than Manfred and Nutting and the other MLB owners.
Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com and Twitter@RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the "Cook and Joe" show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
