Joining Will Cain on Fox and Friends Saturday morning, FOX Sports Radio host and Outkick founder Clay Travis criticized Major League Baseball’s decision to move their All-Star game out of Atlanta in response to recent voter suppression laws passed by the state of Georgia.
Travis was asked by Fox and Friends contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, how people should take a stand against the spread of the “woke virus” in relation to sports.
“Yea, I think a lot of people have to make the decision not to watch as much baseball as they did before to send the message, they’re not gonna stand for it, I think that’s the only thing to do,” Travis said as part of a long-winded answer.
Travis pointed to declining ratings in the NBA, also noting the league’s decision to pull the 2017 All-Star game from Charlotte after North Carolina passed laws banning transgender people from accessing bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities. But after moving the All-Star game from Charlotte, the NBA Finals experienced some of their highest TV ratings in 19 years to close out the 2017 season.
While many conservatives jumped on social media last Friday in an attempt to “cancel baseball,” it’s important to remember MLB is a sport that has had a ratings problem for years.
Declining TV ratings in sports is becoming a common trend and baseball is certainly not immune. As the trend continues, there will be available narratives blaming MLB’s decision to move the All-Star game, while baseball’s ratings problem is more about its inability to promote their stars.
This will probably be the only time Travis and many other national shows give the sport an hour during the season. And it’s not because they’re boycotting, it’s because baseball doesn’t move the national conversation which is a problem for the sport in itself.
