Top 5 Reasons The MLB Should Shorten The Season

The MLB season is just too damn long. Here are a few fan and player complaints about the length of the season.

1. Off Season is Too Short

Spring Training is way too early!! Pitchers and catchers report to camp in early February, which is only 3.5 months after the conclusion of the season. All of these athletes deserve a substantial offseason period to rest their bodies and spend time with their families. Unfortunately, with the regular season schedule being much too long, the players aren’t getting much time to themselves.

2. Fans Want Quicker Results

Times are changing and people want quicker results. In today’s day and age everyone is used to having everything immediately, right when they want it. The internet is a huge reason for this new cultural attitude, and unfortunately a long baseball season doesn’t fit into these changing times. The games in and of themselves are slow moving and on top of that, the season consists of 162 games. Not many fans can stay interested in the sport for that long anymore.

3. Television Ratings are Down

Television ratings are way down. In the end of things, the MLB is a business. They are focused on selling merchandise, tickets, and getting television contracts. With the season as long as it is now, and overall interest in baseball declining it is becoming increasingly difficult to fulfill the television programming requirements. The television channels want to put the best programming on their channel to entice other companies to pay to advertise. With fan interest declining as the season goes on, a shorter season would help the MLB meet the required audiences set by the television channels more easily.

4. Players Don't Like the Long Season

One of the largest advocates for shortening the MLB season is a baseball legend, David Ortiz. David Ortiz, aka Big Papi, is a baseball superstar of this generation who played his entire professional career for the Boston Red Sox. Just this past year he retired. In his retirement speech he said that he had to retire not because he no longer had the physical ability, but because he no longer had the mental capacity and strength to endure another 8 month long season. He wishes the schedule and season would be shortened to eliminate some of the "mid-season drag". If the season was a little shorter legends like Big Papi could crank out a few more years of play for their teams and fans.

5. Fans are Losing Interest

Above is In a picture of the record low attendance in MLB history. In Minnesota this past year, only approximately 4,000 fans attended this late season game. Games like this are perfect examples for why the MLB should shorten the season. If fans are beginning to lose significant interest in the game, it is time to spice things up a bit. Shortening the schedule would put an increased meaning on each and every game played. As it stands now, winning or losing one individual game doesn't seem like a big deal. If the schedule could be shortened to make each game more important to the overall success of the team, fan attendance per game should increase significantly. Give the fans what they want and shorten the schedule.