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Baseball’s Increasing Popularity.

More Supporters, Including Women and Children, Showing Up at the Gate.

The enormous growth of the popularity of baseball continues unabated and has been drawing support from unusual places, including that from the distaff and the juvenile. For in 1924 well over thirty three millions of “fans” showed up to the gate for the 88 clubs of the League, on average about 380,000 per club, and in the first division the average rises to some 560,000, a 36 per cent. rise from the 1922 average of 417,000. Walsall drew over 900,000 supporters to the gate, a truly astounding number that works out to almost 14,000 supporters per match. No one could have foreseen this development as the League resumed Championship play in 1919 after the war had ended.

This increased support has manifested the phenomenal growth of the League from 40 clubs going into the war to the 88 clubs of today, and another dozen or so are clamouring for even more extension of the top league throughout the kingdom. Whether or not such extension occurs, there can be no denying that the British public are still hungry for paid entertainment, acting as would a man found starving and near death in the street led to a banquet and bade all he can eat. That is the lingering effect the war has had on the minds of the people in this country.

The clubs have been prospering tremendously from this windfall at the gate. It is estimated that clubs at the top of the table of the First Division are registering gross takings in excess of £60,000, and even mid-table clubs are taking in better than £40,000. Second Division clubs range from £10,000 to £35,000; and even Third Division teams are taking in as much as £20,000 in gate receipts for the season. Clearly times are good during the summer for the clubs, to the degree that for many clubs their baseball turnover exceeds even their football turnover.

There are a few reasons for this fortunate circumstance. For one, although wages paid are quite handsome for the players, to be sure, they have not been rising as steeply as admission fees have. A typical admission fee of 6d. before the war has risen to as high as 1/6 for the more prosperous clubs in the top tier, and even some Third Division clubs are successfully charging 1/- for admission. It has been shown, however, that supporters gladly pay this price to see the best baseballers in the land, practising a sport that is seen as more exciting and packed with more action than cricket. This circumstance does not suit all, but it does suit a great many with the means to support it at the gate.

The ability of baseball supporters to absorb admission rises contrasts sharply with that of football supporters, where average admission rises from 6d. to 1/- last season for matches featuring top clubs has hurt attendance in a visible way. The reason given for this pertains to the perceived class differences of the supporters of each sport—whereas baseball supporters more closely resemble those of cricket and come mainly from the respectable hat-and-collar middle classes, the old cap-filing, collar-lacking working classes make up the base of those who regularly attend football matches, and as such are less able to maintaining ongoing attendance in the face of rises for admissions.

But the most surprising development has been the changing composition of spectators at the grounds. The appearance of the peaked flat cap, the virtual uniform of the British worker at leisure, is still predominant at matches. But the increased mobility of the citizen of the realm is a factor as more motor vehicles are being observed parking in the neighbourhoods surrounding the grounds just before matches, and disappearing immediately after. This is a harbinger of the growth of baseball popularity among the middle classes, traditionally the sort of people who also attend cricket matches. There has also been observed the increased admission of women accompanying their husbands and sweethearts to the grounds, which has surprised some but not others. Distaff representation to a similar degree has yet to be observed at football matches, but there are stark differences between the atmospheres of the two events. Whereas football is a much rowdier affair where the spectators can behave in the boysy manner no matter their age, baseball is a more relaxed affair on balance, one that lends itself to an environment considered safer for both women and children. Not as though a baseball match is never exciting, but the ongoing and everyday nature of the sport inhibits the constancy of chanting, singing, shouting and general boisterousness that characterises a once-a-week football match.