*By Conor White*
With Major League Baseball's postseason just one week away, fans are gearing up for an October full of exciting moments and unforgettable finishes. But the league is scrambling to attract more viewers ー and younger ones, at that.
"We've got to do a better job of having some games in the afternoon in the postseason," Ron Darling, MLB analyst for TBS, said Tuesday in an interview on Cheddar, "so our younger viewers who come home from school can watch games like I did when I was a young kid."
According to the Sports Business Journal, Major League Baseball has the second-oldest fan in pro sports with an average age of 57. Only the PGA Tour can claim an older demographic.
Darling is very familiar with the rigors of the postseason ー he helped the New York Mets win the World Series back in 1986. But the game has changed quite a bit since then, and so has the broader landscape.
In addition to football, basketball, hockey, and soccer, baseball now has another sport vying for fans' attention.
"Esports has just become so popular, so quickly," the former pitcher said. "The way they do things are things that baseball and other sports should've thought of years and years ago."
But the rise of esports may not be all bad, Darling said.
"I think what esports is going to do for the major sports, it's going to make them ー and demand of themー that they change all of the old thinking," he said.
MLB certainly isn't shunning advancements in technology, though. In fact, the league was one of the first to stream games to consumers via MLB.TV, and MLB Advanced Media is considered the gold-standard for sports streaming. The league has also struck deals to stream games via Twitter ($TWTR) and Facebook ($FB), and Darling expects to see more of those partnerships in the future.
"I think at some point, instead of one of the major networks, you might have one of the \[social\] media outlets doing more and more games," he said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/prelude-to-a-fall-classic).
Naz Aletaha, head of esports partnerships for Riot Games, said that the "priceless" experiences with new global sponsor Mastercard will start with the world championships in October, offering premium content and behind the scenes access to the biggest event for esports lovers.
Mastercard, seeing a market opening in the skyrocketing popularity of esports, signed a deal to become first global sponsor for Riot Games' "League of Legends." Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer for Mastercard, said the company will become exclusive payment service provider for the game. The deal represents the largest mainstream sponsorship thus far in the esports world.
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As the online gaming world continues to boom, professional sports organizations are working to marry the online and physical sports world. Hugh Weber, president of the New Jersey Devils, said that there is a way for live esports events to be compelling enough to translate to ticket sales.
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Chris Raybon, senior editor at The Action Network, breaks down the best bets for sports fans heading into Week 2 of the NFL Season.
The company's recent growth on the back of a newly invigorated gaming segment is only the beginning, according to president and CEO Bracken Darrell. He said in an interview on Cheddar that esports could become "the biggest sport in the world," and Logitech will be there as its top hardware provider.
If you had any lingering doubts that eSports had gone mainstream, they would have been erased when the North American League of Legends Summer Split took over the Oracle Arena ー home to the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors. Cheddar was there for the last stop before the World Championships in South Korea next month.
Bettis, known as "The Bus" when he was an unstoppable running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, voiced support for the NFL player protests but also said he thought the league was "doing the right thing" in a tense situation.
Serena Williams's altercation with a chair umpire during the U.S. Open final was just the latest example of women being treated differently than their male counterparts in the sport. But whether things change by the Australian Open in January, said the Washington Post's Cindy Boren, is hard to say.
