Quote:
Originally posted by elibangkok
That's a really interesting question. Is baseball more important to Americans now than it was 50-80 years ago?
Obviously we have to think in percentage terms, as there is more of everything now than then.
I think there are more fans who follow the game very closely. Watch as many games on TV as possible. Check baseball related websites. Post on message boards, etc.
Are there more casual fans now than there were then?
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There are other factors that play in to it as well. For one thing, it is simply easier for most people to attend baseball games now than ever before. Mass-transit, the automobile, air travel, and etc are one factor. Possibly larger is that people now have far more disposable income than they did in, for instance, the 1930's. Also consider that while the majority of the population was centered in the east, ALL of the baseball was and didn't start to move west until the 1950's, long after the population growth trend had shifted.
That just covers attendence however. I do agree that there are more fans who follow the game closely through things like the internet and television but those things didn't exist back then. The evidence is purely anecdotal, but I have read countless accounts of people reading the newspaper every day to see how the ball club did the day before and it is pretty much inarguable that for a kid growing up in, say, the 1940's baseball was pretty much the only game in town.
I guess it's really impossible to answer definitively and maybe someone with more historical knowledge *cough* Professor* could shed more light than I.