Former NFL star Cam Newton triggered the entire baseball world when he suggested that it was a dying sport and predicted that it would be less popular than the WNBA within 20 years because of the way athletes such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have crossed over as mainstream celebrities.
There are tons of gatekeepers and fans and ballplayers that wanted to crucify Cam for disrespecting a sport that was once cemented as “America’s” pastime and had a player sign for $765M recently in Juan Soto.
While basketball and football have grown in popularity, most people who are baseball aware don’t think Newton’s comments have any validity, especially considering the record ratings MLB experienced this past season in the playoffs and the fact that it raked in 71.3 million total viewers last year, compared to just over 2 million for the WNBA.
Former NFL linebacker Stevie Baggs doesn’t think Newton is crazy and expressed his feelings about the sport of baseball to The Shadow League “Locker Room” host Osei The Dark Secret. Baggs feels that most casual baseball observers agree with the former NFL QB.
Ex-NFL Player Stevie Baggs Agrees With Cam Newton’s Take On MLB & WNBA
“I think it has some validity, ” said Baggs, who played almost a decade in the NFL. “If you look at how back in the days, ’20, ’30s, ’40, ’50s [’60s and ’70s], baseball was America’s sport. And then football took over, and then you see the popularity of the NBA and now when you have Caitl-n and Angel Reese, who are social influencers outside of their sport — listen, it’s easier to see a person shoot a three-pointer or possibly see a woman potentially get a dunk then sitting down and waiting a whole game to probably see a home run.”
”I think it’s just the excitement of the game and fast pace of the game compared to baseball being a more methodical sport,” Baggs added.
Many sports enthusiasts would still beg to differ. You couldn’t make them believe that there’s a planet on earth where Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark will make generations of baseball fans become WNBA fans.
The MLB season is also 122 games longer than the 40-game season WNBA season and has teams in markets that can be described as distressed, but it still averages 29,300 fans per game, while the WNBA averages just 9,800 fans per game with many teams benefitting from the arrival of Clark and Reese.
WNBA Takeover Won’t Begin Until Salaries Skyrocket For League’s Women
Baggs’ opinion is coming from a guy who played pro football, but he’s a sports fan nonetheless who actually buys into Newton’s theory. Baggs says the WNBA takeover won’t happen, however, until the salaries which are laughable in comparison to the major sports, improve.
And we know the salaries can’t improve until the league starts producing a profit, as it was losing a reported average of $40M per season in the past. So how do they surpass a sport worth billions?
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“Well, when you increase the check you increase the respect,” Baggs reasoned. “So the bigger the check the more they have to grow it. Once they start paying these young ladies more money then it’s really going to be a serious situation.”
“When they start paying them money, WNBA women will have to be wary of jersey chasers at that point,” Baggs joked, referring to the groupies that some players such as Reese and Clarke and LA Sparks star Cameron Brink already have.
MLB Is Very Healthy But Stevie Baggs Says PED Witch Hunt Turned Off Fans
The Yankees vs. Dodgers World Series was baseball’s most watched Fall Classic in years and the overall attendance was higher than it’s been since 2017, according to reports. Some would say the sport is actually back on the rise.
Others like Baggs think the sport did itself a disservice by tarnishing its greatest players as steroid users, which turned off many fans. He also cites the glaring absence of Black players, which is at a pitiful low of 6 percent right now, despite dominating the all-time record books and statistically more kids playing organized versions of the sport (and softball) than ever.
Stevie Baggs Thinks Baseball Has Peaked, Needs More Black Players
“I don’t think baseball reclaims its spot over football and baseball,” Baggs said. “I just don’t see it. Even when it got popular when you had Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds battling it out for home run titles. But then they got shot in the foot because of the whole drug scandal. … They tainted it, right? So I just don’t see it growing that much in popularity even though the players make a lot of money and have guaranteed contracts.”
”Maybe more melananted young men should pick up a glove and a bat. Maybe it will grow in popularity when more melanated people start picking it up,” Baggs reasoned.
“The amount of Puerto Rican, Dominican Republic, Cuban and then Asian players that are a part of the sport … now, so I think that’s taken a lot of the luster away from it being an American sport,” Baggs concluded.
