MLB truth: Stop Listening to the People Who Don’t Care
I’m Vince Douglas Gregory of VDG Sports, and I’m putting on my serious spectacles to deliver a simple, hard fact: the MLB truth is that Major League Baseball is chasing the wrong voices. Leadership has been taking cues from people who don’t watch the game, don’t love the game, and frankly don’t care about what made baseball special. If the league wants to fix attendance, engagement, and relevance, it needs to accept that truth now.
Table of Contents
- Why acceptance is the first step
- Weak leadership fuels the problem
- Non-fan influence: a dangerous feedback loop
- What fans actually want
- How to stop the spiral
- Conclusion: a call for honest leadership
Why acceptance is the first step
Too many decisions are being made with the assumption that the way to grow baseball is to placate non-fans. That’s backwards. Instead of asking the people who already cheer, pay, and show up what they want, MLB keeps polling the people who say, “I might watch if you change everything.” The result? A scattershot of ideas that creates chaos rather than clarity.
Weak leadership fuels the problem
When leadership doesn’t care—or is unwilling to stand up for the core of the sport—everything else unravels. Instead of steering the league toward improvements that respect baseball’s identity, weak leadership invites a flood of half-baked suggestions from consultants, pundits, or focus groups with no attachment to the game.
That vacuum gets filled by trends, optics, and short-term gimmicks. Fans notice this. Those who love baseball feel ignored. And the people MLB is trying to lure? They still won’t commit because the proposed changes rarely address why baseball is compelling in the first place.
Non-fan influence: a dangerous feedback loop
Here’s the hard part: non-fans will tell you anything to make the sport more immediately entertaining to them. Their answers are often extremes—radical rule changes, overproduction, or an identity shift that trades long-term loyalty for a short-term spike. The league listens, implements, and wonders why the core fanbase grows colder.
Stop listening to the ones who don’t care.
That line isn’t just rhetoric—it’s sound advice. Non-fans don’t bring an informed point of view. They bring a willingness to replace what baseball is with something that might look more like a different entertainment product. The result is neither here nor there: alienate the faithful and still fail to win over the indifferent.
What fans actually want
Ask real fans—people who know the game, who discuss strategy, who attend games—and you’ll get thoughtful, nuanced answers. They don’t demand radical reinvention; they want clarity, accessibility, and respect for the sport’s traditions. They want better presentation where needed, smarter pacing that keeps attention, and ways to bring younger fans into the culture without erasing what matters.
- Engage current fans in meaningful dialogue before making sweeping changes.
- Prioritize changes that improve the in-stadium and broadcast experience without destroying the game’s integrity.
- Invest in youth development, community leagues, and storytelling around players and history.
- Measure proposals against whether they deepen, not dilute, fan loyalty.
How to stop the spiral
MLB should stop treating every suggestion from non-fans as gospel. Leaders must set a vision rooted in the real culture of the game and solicit input from the people who live it. That doesn’t mean ignoring newcomers, but it does mean rejecting one-size-fits-all tweaks that ask devoted followers to trade their passion for novelty.
The MLB truth is uncomfortable: growth requires listening to the people who already care most. If the league refuses to accept that, it will keep bouncing between flashy experiments and steady decline.
Conclusion: a call for honest leadership
Baseball can be both timeless and adaptable, but only if leadership recognizes the difference between fans who love the sport and non-fans who offer surface-level fixes. I’m standing up for what is right: stop taking cues from people who don’t watch, don’t care, and won’t stick around even if every change is made.
If MLB wants to survive and thrive, accept the MLB truth—start with the fans who built the game, listen to them, and make changes that preserve the heart of baseball while genuinely enhancing the experience for everyone.