PITTSBURGH (AP) — Two years ago, it looked as if Major League Baseball was having an existential crisis. To many inside the game, it certainly felt like one as a sport built on its timelessness careened toward a future hellbent on speeding things up.

Pitch clocks. Defensive shift bans. Bigger bases. Fewer throwovers. Ghost runners. Expanded playoffs designed to keep more teams in contention. All with the expressed purpose of getting the fans in the stands to put down their phones and the ones sitting at home from flipping to a channel where something — anything really — was actually happening.

Though the changes were working, there was trepidation. And with good reason.

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts could feel baseball retreating into the mainstream background, and the metrics — from attendance to TV ratings on down — backed it up.

“I think that in the last 10 or 20 years, you know, football and basketball have taken market share,” he said.

The issue wasn’t the players, who are throwing it harder, hitting the ball farther and running faster than any previous generation. It was the game itself.

Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy was in the midst of a three-year sabbatical in the early 2020s and would often find himself engaged in the same conversation over and over.

“‘Man, your game slowed down,’” Bochy would be told before adding that he agreed with the assessment “because I was watching them, too.”

Baseball rule changes having tangible impact

Nearly two seasons into MLB’s great experiment, the tide has turned.

The average game time has dropped to 2 hours, 36 minutes, the lowest since 1984. Attendance is up 11% since 2022. Viewership — particularly among fans 18-34 — has risen 10.5% since the changes were adopted. Youth participation is spiking. Baseball’s social media ecosystem is thriving.

The angst that accompanied MLB’s modernization has been replaced with something far different as the 2024 playoffs loom: legit buzz.

The best player on Roberts’ team, Shohei Ohtani — who also happens to be the best hitter on the planet — offered proof in Miami last week.

Six swings. Three home runs. Two stolen bases. A club-record 10 RBIs. The inaugural member of the 50/50 club. One iconic performance by Ohtani that broke barriers and social media along with it.

Yet maybe the most impressive number on the most remarkable night of Ohtani’s career — so far anyway — was Time of Game: 3 hours, 6 minutes. During that span the Dodgers and the Marlins managed to combine for 24 runs, 25 hits and 54 outs and sparked countless “did you see what Shohei did?” conversations.

“I don’t love all the rule changes, but they seem to be making the game more exciting for fans, which is why we play — for our fans,” Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.

Fans enjoying watching more action, rising baseball stars

A fanbase that is growing younger seemingly in lockstep with the game’s bid to get faster.

According to MLB, the median age of ticket buyers has dropped five years (from 51 to 46) since 2019. The number of tickets sold to fans ages 18-34 has jumped 8.5% over that span. It helps that the games are getting shorter. Attendance at weeknight games is up 12% over 2022 per MLB, in part because fans aren’t as concerned they’re going to be out all night.

“To sit down and watch a game used to be just too much of a time commitment, right?” said Tate Conrad of Des Moines, Iowa, while taking in a game at between the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees in early September.

Now, not so much. And it’s not just that the games are shorter. There’s more happening, most notably on the base paths.

The decision to limit pickoffs has allowed base runners to go wild. There have been nearly 1,000 more stolen bases in 2024 than there were in 2022 heading into the final days of the regular season. Check your phone for a second and that runner on first might be standing on third by the time you look up.

“I just feel like the attention span of people is getting shorter and shorter,” Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy said. “So I just think when you turn on a baseball game, the odds of a play like that happening — (the changes have) increased the chances of it.”

Hardly the picture of a sport that Pittsburgh Pirates rookie ace Paul Skenes allows only tongue-somewhat-in-cheek could seem monotonous to those on the outside looking in.

“You know, especially nights like tonight,” the 22-year-old said after limiting Miami to one run in six innings while racking up nine strikeouts in a 3-2 victory on Sept. 9. “Not very many runs scored, that kind of thing. It is a boring sport in some ways.”

Not when Skenes is on the hill. The former No. 1 overall pick turned All-Star starter has been a sensation in his first year with the Pirates. His starts are simply known as “Skenes Day” in Pittsburgh and fans will show up to PNC Park wearing faux Skenes-inspired mustaches to go with their No. 30 jerseys.

The flame-throwing right-hander is among a wave of young stars, including San Diego Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill, Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and Cincinnati shortstop Elly De La Cruz.

The rising stars could eventually be where Ohtani and teammate Mookie Betts, New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, and Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper are now: the faces of the game.

Nontraditional outlets bringing more eyeballs to baseball

Yet there’s more at play here. It’s not just baseball that’s changing, but the way the game is being consumed. It’s not just that more fans are watching games on their phones than ever — MLB.TV’s 28 highest-rated telecasts have all come over the course of the last two seasons — but that they’re looking toward nontraditional outlets for analysis, perspective and more than a few laughs.

Outlets like Jomboy Media. Co-founded seven years ago by Jimmy O’Brien when he was in his late 20s along with Jake Storiale, Jomboy Media offers sports-related content across various platforms, including a YouTube channel that has nearly 2 million subscribers.

The Jomboy offerings run the gamut, from comically tinged breakdowns to in-depth analysis to trivia contests among the company’s on-air talent, most of whom are in their 20s.

“My brother is 10 years younger than I am, and baseball abandoned him,” O’Brien said. “They didn’t put highlights where people could find them.”

It’s not just young males getting involved either.

Skenes’ girlfriend is LSU gymnast/influencer Livvy Dunne, who has spent a chunk of her summer exposing her 5.3 million Instagram followers to Skenes’ rapid rise from college star to rookie MLB phenom.

While Skenes himself generally shies away from social media, he also gave a tutorial on his “splinker” grip on the “Pitching Ninja” YouTube channel. Those kinds of appearances can create a connection that was simply unavailable a generation ago. Skenes sees the increasingly symbiotic relationship between players and content creators as a driver of interest in the game.

“They are growing the game and I think that’s a byproduct of what we’re doing on the field,” he said.

Loosening swag restrictions in baseball widens the game’s appeal

The aim isn’t just to create fans, but players. There’s evidence that it’s working.

Over 16 million children participated casually in baseball in 2023, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, more than double what it was in 2014, the last year before MLB launched it’s “Play Ball” Initiative. Little League International counts more than 2 million kids playing youth baseball or softball under its umbrella across the world, a slight increase over 2019.

The hope is the changes create a trickle-down effect. Make the games move along faster to appeal to a wider audience. Maybe kids watching — on their TVs, their tablets, their phones or in the stands — will find baseball a more appealing alternative to other sports or video games.

It helps MLB has loosened up its staid rules on uniforms and celebrations, allowing players to express themselves in ways that used to be forbidden. Bat-flips, hand-gestures and highly specific home run celebrations are now an accepted part of the game, along with more freedom for players to use whatever colors they prefer on their cleats or their gloves.

Swag is important. Pirates manager Derek Shelton points to New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor as proof.

“I think it’s been a very concerted effort by Major League Baseball to try to make it a little bit more, I don’t know if ‘cooler’ is the right word but appealing to younger kids because that’s what they gravitate towards,” Shelton said.

Ten years ago, Andrew McCutchen was a perennial MVP candidate who had swag to spare, from his dreadlocks (long since shorn) to the way he’d drop his bat after a walk.

When the Pittsburgh Pirates designated hitter looks out across the MLB landscape, he sees players his 6-year-old son Steel might one day emulate. Players from Atlanta outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. to San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis, all unafraid to draw attention to themselves or their sport.

“People are showing their personalities a little more, especially at a very young age that they are in their careers and that’s good,” McCutchen said. “That’s good for the game.”

The numbers across the board offer proof. The skepticism that greeted the rule changes and all that came with it has morphed into something bordering on optimism.

While things are hardly perfect — not in a season that will end with the historically bad Chicago White Sox crossing the 120-loss barrier, the Athletics bailing on Oakland and a rash of elbow injuries to high-profile pitchers that have left some wondering if the clock is to blame — there is an energy about the game that it lacked in recent years. Yes, it took seismic changes to get here. Yet all sides seem to have bought in as a potentially electric October looms.

Roberts sees it on the field, in the stands, and in the culture.

“The talent’s never been higher,” the Dodgers manager said. “More eyeballs (are on the game). And I think attendance is speaking volumes to that. I think the parity in the game speaks to that. So we’re in a good spot.”

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AP Baseball Writers Ron Blum, Jay Cohen, Stephen Hawkins, Janie McCauley and Mike Fitzpatrick and AP Sports Writers Alanis Thames, Tom Withers, Steve Megargee, Joe Reedy and Dave Skretta contributed to this report.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb