20-Year Prospect

20-Year Prospect

America's favorite pastime has been America's favorite pastime since 1846, so we're pretty confident baseball—and baseball managers—will still be around twenty years from now (source). 

After all, there's still serious moolah to be made in this sport. In 2012, nearly seventy-five million tickets to Major League Baseball games were sold, and that's not including all those brats, beers, and collectable bats fans purchased to complete their game-day experience.

But will it stay as popular as it is today? For a century or more, baseball wasn't just a pastime—it was the top sporting choice of the American public. That flipped in the 1980s, when football took the title and the glory (source). 

Why'd that happen? There are many theories on the subject. Maybe it's because baseball really is too slow of a game for a society that wants everything now. Maybe it's because football heightens the drama by having only sixteen-to-nineteen games per team each year instead of almost 200 in the MLB. Whatever the case, baseball has to settle for second-place in America's hearts.

So yes, baseball managers are here to stay—even if they're only the second-most popular coach in town. Boo-hoo.