Baseball has been a staple of American culture for more than a century. There was a time where the World Series was no the most watched event in the country. Not the Super Bowl, not the NBA finals or the Stanley Cup finals but baseballs championship. Unfortunately for all of the baseball purists out there, those times are long gone. The MLB has been struggling with television viewership and attendance for the past decade. If one was to tune into a Wednesday night baseball on ESPN you could see the stadium riddled with empty seats. Or the game could be blacked out due to the lack of attendance. But how has it gotten to this point? Well, there are a few reasons.

1. Pace of Play

It's the easiest criticism when it comes to the game. Forbes recorded that the average length of a game is about 2 hours and 52 minutes, and that's actually a 10-minute improvement. There are so many nuances to the game which factor into its length. Whether it's the pitcher taking the signs from the catcher, the hitter taking years to step back into the box, or when a new pitcher enters the game and gets to throw 500 warm-up pitches. Yet a lot of this stuff is unavoidable. But what is avoidable is the new replay system. The replay system was popularized by the NFL to help slow down plays and make sure that the call was correct. Naturally, every sports league is now trying to copy it and the system just doesn't translate. The problem isn't how many times plays are looked at, it's how long each replay takes. Whenever a manager challenges a play, the play gets sent to New York so an outside official can review it and make the correct call. Even some of the simplest and most obvious calls can add an extra 15 minutes to an already long affair.