Major League Baseball faces both strengths and weaknesses. While it has massively popular global brands and teams, varied champions, and growing revenue, it also struggles with losing fans, lengthy game times, and lack of star player promotion. However, MLB can capitalize on opportunities to attract new fans by speeding up games with technology, promoting stars more effectively on social media, and embracing platforms that engage younger audiences. Threats include declining attendance, the rising NBA's social media dominance, and increased scrutiny of umpiring errors.

1. SWOT Analysis of Major League Baseball
Submitted by Robby Hughes
Major League Baseball finds itself made up by some of the most
popular, and more recognizable sports teams and brands the world has
today. It continues to grow in revenue, but over the last five year continues
to lose fans. It is still one of the most popular leagues in North America, but
must make adjustments to remain there. By implementing technology
advancement and promoting their star players, MLB will continue to
succeed.
For years, Major League Baseball has been one of our country’s most popular
sports played. So much so, that the game is affectionately known as “America’s
Pastime.” This SWOT Analysis will outline current items that Major League Baseball can
focus on to improve upon its popularity. Below, I will elaborate on each item and explain
my position.
Strengths
If you look above, you will see the four items that have been listed as strengths
for Major League Baseball. One of the major strength Major League Baseball has is the
popularity off their teams and the brands those individual teams have created. In 2011,
Bleacher Report released an article of the most popular teams in the world and New
York Yankees finished second behind Manchester United. On top of that, there were 9
other MLB teams on that list. The more you look the more you’ll see the Yankees in the
Top 3 of any sports team ranking in the world. This sports league has massively popular
teams.
Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats
Popular Teams/Brands 162 Game Season Create New Fans Losing Fans
Variety of Champions Speed of the Games Implement Technology NBA Popularity Rise
Worldwide Appeal Social Media
Restriction
Faster Games Fans Lack of Interest
Advertising Revenue Player Recognizability Promote Star Players Human Error

2. Another item is the variety of teams who win the World Series. Dynasties have
their place in sports, but if the same team wins every year it can make the product feel
stagnate. It’s been 20 year since a team won back-to-back World Series
Championships, and in that time 13 different teams have won. As a fan it allows you to
do into a season saying to yourself that your team has an opportunity to win the World
Series. That hope helps increase fan support and interaction.
As we know, baseball is a popular sport that is played around the world. For
years, it was an Olympic sport and countries would vie for the opportunity to win gold.
Today, that passion continues at the World Baseball Classic. The sport of baseball is still
played all across this planet and allows for the sport to continue to grow.
One items that continues to increase is advertising revenue. This is a positive
marker and the numbers for advertising revenue have been increasing over the last
decade. According to statista.com (2020), Major League Baseball generated $938
Million from sponsorship in the 2018 season. This growth is attractive for companies
interested in sponsorship and advertising in the future.
Weaknesses
When we begin to look at the weaknesses that MLB faces, one that stands out to
me is the length of the season. Currently each team plays a 162 game regular season.
That’s a lot of games. Over the past few years there has been some negativity from
player and fans over the length of the season. This could become an issue moving
forward, especially after shortening the 2020 MLB Regular Season to 60 games. This
could become very popular with players and fans and could lead to a shorter season in
the future. That could effect revenue in a very negative way.
Ask most fans that watch baseball on television and they will tell you that the
games take forever to get through. According to ESPN (2019), the average time of a
nine-inning game is 3 hours and 5 minutes. That’s an increase of 20 minutes since
2005. There has been a lot of negativity about the games taking so long to finish from
fans. If a solution isn’t found it could lead to a decline in television viewership.
The next two weaknesses go together even thought they’re separate items.
Those two are Player Social Media Restrictions and Player Recognizability. According
the Eric Fisher (2019), MLB will now allow players to use protected material such as
video highlights and MLB-produced still photos and graphics on their feeds, and it is
taking the additional step of supplying much of that material proactively to players and
their representatives. This is great news because before this, players were struggling to
promote themselves. The one item that stands out to me is what I call the Mike Trout
Effect. Mike Trout is currently the best player in the league, yet if he was in an elevator
with you, would you recognize him? Major League Baseball need to promote its star
player better.

3. Opportunity
I want to pick up where we left for with weaknesses and promoting players. MLB
hasn’t done a very good job promoting their star players and they have and they have
the opportunity to do so still. Major League Baseball is filled with star that fair weather
baseball fans haven’t heard of yet. The NFL and NBA don’t have that problem. They
have effectively promoted their players. MLB should do the same as it will increase fan
support.
The next two items that are opportunities are speeding up games and
implementing new technology. There have been discussion on items such as robot
umpires and time clock for pitches. We will visit the idea of robot umpires in the next
section of threats, but the time clock is an interesting thought. I believe MLB should
implement a time clock in a number of Minor League and Spring Training game. It would
be beneficial to know how much time could be saved with a 10-15 second clock
between pitches. By speeding up games and promoting star player, MLB will have a
great opportunity to attract new fans.
Threats
While there are positives in MLB, there are also negatives. According to Maury
Brown (2019), the attendance at MLB games is down 7% since 2015. It appears that
teams are losing fans and that may be the biggest threat that Major League Baseball
faces today. This could be for multiple reason. A couple that stand out are human error,
the speed of the game, and popularity of other sports.
A big threat is the increased popularity of the NBA. The NBA has been using
social media very effectively to do this. According to Maya Penn (2020), “The NBA is
finding a way to embrace social media, and it has more followers on Twitter than the
NFL. Players are encouraged to use social media and have regularly contacted young
fans over the various platforms. This increased engagement with the stars keeps people
interested and invested in the fortunes of these players.”
Another issue is human error. There has been an increase in error by the umpire
at baseball games and that has led to negativity around the sport. This has led to the
conversation of implementing technology. Items like instant replay and robot umpires.
The threats that surround MLB are fixable but must be taken seriously.

4. Sources
Brown, M. (October 4, 2019) From Terrible Teams To Rising Costs: Why MLB
Attendance Is Down Over 7% Since 2015
Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/10/04/from-terrible-
teams-to-rising-costs-and-more-why-mlb-attendance-has-been-down-over-7-
since-2015/#1dd2399231a8
Statista (April 29, 2020) Teams of Major League Baseball ranked by revenue in 2019
Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/193645/revenue-of-major-league-
baseball-teams-in-2010/
ESPN (2020) World Series Winners
Retrieved from: http://www.espn.com/mlb/worldseries/history/winners
Pumerantz, Z. (December 14, 2011) The 50 Most Popular Teams in Sports
Retrieved from: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/979699-the-50-most-popular-teams-
in-sports
ESPN (September 30, 2019) Average time of 9-inning MLB game a record 3:05:35
Retrieved from: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27733430/average-9-inning-mlb-
game-record-30535
Fisher, E. (February 22, 2019) MLB to let players share highlights on social media
Retrieved from: https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2019/02/22/mlb-allow-
players-share-highlights-on-social-media.html