Is there a decline in interest in baseball among African American?

Question

I go to about 3 to 4 Dodger games a year and last night was the second game I went to this year and there was over 54,000 in attendance and I do not know what made me notice this because I usually do not pay attention to stuff like this but I felt like I was the only African American fan there. I am sure there were other there but this made me think is the game losing interest among blacks. I am a causal fan and been one for awhile and will continue to be one but this made me wonder if this is true and possibly why this has happened.

Answer 1

I think its true, there was some stat that showed that there are less african american players in the game today than ever.

Answer 2

im not being racist or anythin g but if you look at the truth football and basket ball they are preaty much the blaks mans sport and baseball is mostly a whitemans sport

Answer 3

For most african americans, they are starting to move on to basketball and football.

Answer 4

Yes most of the focus is on Football for African Americans where if you look in College in the past years there were a number of African american atheletes that played baseball and Football and chose Football

Baseball is a Southern American sport

Answer 5

Interest among black fans has fallen, no doubt. But in cities to the East where baseball teams are doing well (New York, Philly, Chicago), there are still black fans. I've seen plenty of black fans at Yankees and Mets games.

The falloff happened because of the pull of football and basketball, which are considered more exciting games because of the faster pace. That and more black kids started playing those sports in larger numbers in the early '90s.

I do think baseball will get black fans back. There are marketable black stars (Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Prince Fielder, CC Sabathia, Derrek Lee among others) and there's room for growth in the sport. The RBI program will help, too.

The important thing is to give kids an opportunity to play.  

Answer 6

The game is losing interest among blacks. If you read sports magazines, you will see that many black athletes are turning to football where black fans focus upon

Answer 7

Eddie, I do think more black kids are being attracted to football and basketball these days. I'm not even sure how prevelant youth baseball is in inner cities anymore but I'm guessing over the past 10 to 15 years has really declined in major cities thus offering more blacks chances at basketball and football. Where as youth baseball is strong in more rural communities around the nation where more whites live. Therefore you see a baseball fanbase made up of a smaller percentage of blacks.  

Answer 8

It's losing interest because unlike in the past the NBA and NFL offers a greater chance of getting your name out their and also at a young age (for the NBA at least) not to mention the big buck$ that come with signing a NBA or NFL contract. This is in reference to the players...

As for fans, I feel that more African-Americans support the NFL because the NFL has made radical changes such as having black QBs, black coaches, etc. It also gets more coverage then the MB does so naturally more black fans would go to an NFL or NBAS game then an MLB game.