The Rob Manfred era of the MLB has felt more like baseball is treading water than gaining ground. While the NBA and NFL have aggressively expanded their reach and grown their fan bases, the MLB often seems content with the status quo. Sure, starting the 2024 & 2025 seasons with a series in Japan was cool, but Japan already loves baseball. That’s not expansion. That’s a vacation.

Since 2001, MLB attendance steadily declined year over year—until 2023, when it finally saw its first increase this century. While the recent uptick is a positive sign, there are still major hurdles preventing sustained, long-term growth—and even bigger challenges looming on the horizon.

So, what would it take for the MLB to level up and reclaim the title of “America’s Pastime?” Today, I’m putting on my commissioner hat and outlining four moves I’d make on day one to help baseball thrive, not just survive.

Remove streaming restrictions 

Baseball’s blackout rules are one of the biggest buzzkills for fans trying to watch their team. MLB.TV charges $149.99 for a full-season package that claims to give you access to every game, but if you’re a Mariners fan living in Seattle? Nope. Your games are blacked out unless you also pay for your local broadcaster. MLB’s geographic blackout rules prevent local fans from watching their favorite teams, which sucks. 

So, if you want to be able to watch your local team as well as other teams games, you’re looking at $149.99 for MLB.TV plus another cost, likely $10-$20 a month. That’s a hefty price tag just to be able to watch games at home, especially when, and let’s be honest with ourselves here, most fans aren’t watching all 162 games. Most probably aren’t even watching half. At that point, the value just isn’t there.

The root of the issue? Local stations want to protect their broadcasting rights, and the MLB lets them, which is commendable. But it’s time for the league to find a modern solution. Give local stations a revenue share from MLB.TV subscriptions, or let them keep the in-game ad dollars. Whatever it takes, just make it easier for fans to actually watch games through a single subscription with one price point.

When the games are this hard to access, it becomes a blocker to fans engaging with and consuming games. 

Make going to games cheaper 

One of MLB’s biggest advantages? Being an outdoor summer sport. School’s out, the sun’s shining, and families are looking for things to do. But with current prices, going to a game is a luxury, not a casual weekend outing.

Take the Colorado Rockies. For a family of four, the cheapest tickets you’ll find right now (4/17) are $12 each, $48 total, for a Friday game against the Reds. Add concessions at Coors Field (around $24 per person for a meal and soda), and you’re already at $144. Toss in ticket fees, taxes, parking, gas, maybe a beer or two—and that family trip easily crosses $200. And that’s for one of the worst and supposedly one of the cheapest teams to see in the league, playing against another bad team. Try going to a game at Dodgers or Yankee Stadium, or see a game featuring Padres or Cubs, and that price point will be much higher.

Many families simply can’t afford that more than once or twice a season. That’s a huge missed opportunity for MLB to grow its audience.

So what can be done?

Start with concessions. Teams fear that lowering prices cuts into revenue, but Atlanta sports teams proved otherwise. After slashing food prices in 2019, the Atlanta Falcons saw a 30% jump in transactions and a 20% bump in merch sales. Follow that model, and a family’s food cost could drop from $88 to closer to $40 while still maintaining high revenue levels for the team.

Then, discount weekday tickets for kids. Monday–Thursday games usually draw smaller crowds. Why not give families a reason to show up? Offer 25–50% off for kids under 16, and suddenly, that midweek game is a budget-friendly family outing.

It’s a win-win: families save money, ballparks fill up, and the league plants the seeds for the next generation of fans—kids who remember the thrill of going to games, not the hit to their parents’ wallets.

Cut the regular season to 132 games

Alright, I know, it sounds strange for a baseball fan to say fewer games would be a good thing. But hear me out: the MLB should drop the regular season to 132 games by cutting out September entirely.

Here’s the backstory: The American League expanded to 162 games in 1961, followed by the National League in 1962. The reason? More expansion teams meant more matchups, and this was before interleague play, so the goal was for every team to face every other team in its league the same number of times. To make that math work, they increased the schedule from 154 games to 162. Made sense then, but that logic doesn’t hold up today. Now, the 162-game grind just exists because… well, it always has. The only thing really keeping it in place is tradition and the headache of rewriting the record books.

But trimming the schedule would bring major upsides. First, player health. Ending the season earlier would reduce wear and tear and eliminate the awkwardness of cold-weather playoff games. More importantly, it would crank up the stakes. Right now, a mid-May matchup feels meaningless. Even June can feel like filler. Most fans don’t start paying close attention until after the All-Star break—more than halfway through the season.

With fewer games, each game would matter more. Each win, each loss, each clutch moment has bigger implications. That heightened urgency would naturally drive fan engagement and excitement throughout the season—not just in the final stretch.

Sure, there might be a short-term dip in revenue. But more engaged fans mean more ticket sales, better ratings, and increased demand. Broadcast partners would pay more for a tighter, more meaningful schedule. In the long run, it’s a smarter, more sustainable path.

Install a salary floor and cap 

The first three ideas were about fixing what’s broken today. This one? It’s about securing the future.

Right now, the spending gap in the MLB is getting out of control. For the 2025 season, the Dodgers are set to outspend the Marlins by a jaw-dropping $263 million. That’s not just unbalanced—it’s unsustainable. If this continues, baseball risks becoming as predictable as the Premier League, where just six different clubs have won the title since 2000. And at least the Premier League has relegation to keep things spicy, the MLB doesn’t.

To restore competitive balance, the league needs both a salary floor and a salary cap.

Let’s start with the floor. Too many teams have spent years pinching pennies, fielding bargain-bin rosters with no real shot at contending. No one’s saying the Marlins need to spend like the Dodgers, but a $64 million team salary is absurdly low. For context, the Marlins are spending $180 million less than the NFL’s lowest-salaried team and $80 million less than the NBA’s lowest spender, and there are plenty of other MLB teams low on the salary scale as well. A salary floor of $125-$150 million would force teams to invest in their rosters and make the league more competitive.

Now, the cap. Without one, a floor just inflates contract prices. A cap, say, around $250-$275 million, would rein in the biggest spenders without totally flattening the playing field. That’s still plenty of room to build superteams, but it forces smarter, more strategic spending. And, as a bonus, free agency would get a jolt of life. More teams would be in the mix, deals would happen faster, and offseason drama would be electric again.

This isn’t about punishing big markets, far from it. It’s about creating a league where any team can dream big and have a real shot.

The big picture

If the MLB wants to thrive, not just survive, it’s time to stop clinging to the past and start building a bolder future. The league can’t afford to keep moving at a glacial pace while other sports are sprinting ahead.

Baseball is still great. But great isn’t enough anymore. The pressure’s on Rob Manfred and the league’s leadership to make real, lasting changes—before a generation of potential fans tunes out for good.