With Major League Baseball starting the second half of the season, the league is seeing rosy numbers in television viewership, digital streaming, attendance, and a shift to a younger age demographic. While there are multiple factors that affect all these categories, rule changes designed to quicken pace and increase action seem to be a large part of it.

It was impossible to ignore Rob Manfred’s positivity at the halfway point in the 2023 season. In Seattle for the All-Star Game, he said that the 2023 season might be one of the best since he took over as commissioner. By nearly every metric, the league is seeing gains. After nine years of attendance declines, 2023 is well on the way to breaking that trend. While everything from weather to how certain bellwether teams are performing in the standings, when coupled with other metrics, it is starting to look like the addition of a pitch clock, ban on radical shifts, limited throws to first base by pitchers when a runner is on it, and bigger bases is driving more action and removing lulls.

Through July 9th, a 9-inning game has been 26 minutes shorter than 2022 and 32 minutes shorter than when game length peaked in 2021. And while there have been concerns about pitch clock violations affecting game outcomes, 60% of the games thus far this season have had no violations while just 12% have seen multiple offenses. Games are now down to the overall game length for 9 innings seen in 1984.

On top of pace quickening, action has increased. Stolen base attempts have increased to 1.8 per game thus far in 2023, and successful steals are the highest in MLB history. In addition Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is currently up 7 points compared to 2022. And when it comes to left-handed hitters, they’re feasting. Pulled ground balls and line drives by BABIP is up by 40 points and 33 points respectively.

Arguably the biggest reason for the rule changes was designed to retain viewers watching via television and streaming, as well as bring new fans in. Manfred said on Tuesday that in a challenging media landscape, the league is seeing viewership trending upward.

“Our national ratings are up and also importantly, our local ratings despite the fact that the local cable audience — the universe of available homes — are down,” Manfred said. “We continue to dominate summer programming in our local markets which is really important.”

Based on data from Playfly Sports, the full-service marketing company MLB works closely wirh, ratings for the 29 U.S.-based regional sports networks (RSNs) is up +3% over 2022 despite the fact that all RSNs have lost between 7-13% in subscribers year-over-year. In a sign that MLB continues to dominate with advertisers, MLB game viewing on RSNs in the 25 MLB markets accounts for +125% more viewing than the top 10 prime entertainment shows combined in those markets. As but one example, in the Cleveland market, Guardians games combine to deliver more viewing than the top 30 prime entertainment shows combined in the same area.

Big gainers are led by the Baltimore Orioles who have seen viewership up +86% over the same point last season (avg of 42.5K vs. 22.9K HHs). Not far behind are the Texas Rangers who are up +82% year-over-year (avg 39.2K vs. 21.5K HHs).

Other gainers include:

What’s interesting is that while games seem to be peppered across national broadcasts, local RSNs, and now national streaming deals with Apple TV+ and Peacock, fans seem to find the resources to find the teams they love.

“When they get to discretionary income, I think people might be punitive in some forms and fashions,” said Craig Sloan, COO of PlayFly Sports. “Maybe you're not going to as many events. Maybe you're not going to buy as much on the merchandise side of the equation. But your engagement level — the number one engagement level that a fan has — is through their local media. They watch and consume more than they will at a venue — more than any way that they're going to do through digital highlights or anywhere else. Watching the game. It's still the largest vehicle that teams have to communicate with their friends.”

Maybe the most interesting team to watch from a RSN perspective has been the San Diego Padres, with the Bally Sports branded regional sports networks in bankruptcy, Diamond Sports Group that controlled the rights to the Padres, suddenly dropped them on May 31 giving MLB the media rights back. In less than 24 hours, the league had a direct-to-consumer streaming offering, as well as TV distribution on DirecTV), AT&T U-Verse, Cox, and Spectrum.

All-in-all the league increased distribution +189% from approximately 1.130 million homes under DSG to approximately 3.264 million homes under MLB’s new model in the Padres home television territory.

But how has that translated since the move?

According to the league, Padres games have reached 578,000 unique people since MLB took over production and distribution. That is +14% over last year’s same time period (507,000 unique people) and +9.5% (528,000) over the month period in ’23 before MLB took over.

Under MLB taking over the media rights, Padres games are averaging a reach of 161,300 unique people per game, a +5.8% increase (152,400 unique people) over the month period in the ’23 season before MLB took over and +2.2% (157,900) over last season’s same time period.

If traditional television is losing subscribers, MLB is seeing its biggest gains through streaming. At the halfway point through the 2023 season MLB.TV, the league’s out-of-market streaming package. has recorded more than 7.3 billion minutes watched this year, up +9% ahead of last year’s record pace. Total logged-in users across MLB’s various digital platforms is up +26%.

When throwing out 2020 (no fans) and 2021 (season opened with limited capacity in many markets) due to the pandemic, 2022 was the first time one could truly gauge how fan interest by attending games played out since 2019. When the final numbers were released, the league saw a nearly 6% decline since before the pandemic. Based on year-over-year attendance data, the league appears set to rebound, erasing the declines in 2022 and going beyond.

As of the All-Star break MLB attendance is up 3,096,934 overall and up over 8% by game average (28,236 vs. 25,954). Just seven clubs are seeing declines (White Sox, Rockies, Tigers, Red Sox, Giants, Nationals, and Brewers who are nearly flat, down 61 per game). Twelve of the 30 clubs are seeing attendance up over +10% vs. last season at this time. The Phillies, who pushed the Astros to a Game 6 in last year’s World Series, are the biggest gainers seeing an average of 11,457 more per game than this point last season. They are followed by the Guardians (+6,428 per game YOY), Blue Jays (+5,308 per game YOY), and Rangers (+4,920 per game YOY).

In addition:

No one can see the future, and while rosy, the metrics showing real progress on growing the popularity of MLB is just half-a-season at this stage. Still, maybe the most important metric is that more younger people are watching baseball. As sports go, you’re only going to struggle to remain nationally relevant if your core demographic is age 50 and up. Early on, there appears to be movement in reaching a younger demo. Part of this is due to streaming games through the likes of Apple TV+ and Peacock. But the rule changes appear to be having an impact.

“My personal favorite on the metrics is the median age of our ticket buyers,” said Manfred. “It's down almost 3 years compared to last season. You know we've talked a lot about younger audiences and how significant they are to the game. I think that's really important.”