Baseball is big business in the U.S.. Baseball matched the NFL in 2008 with revenue of $6.5 billion. While the revenue figures are similar, if you ask the public what their favorite sport is, 16% will say baseball and 31% will say football. Baseball’s advantage is the total number of games played. Attendance to major league baseball games was 78.6 million in 2008 and to minor league games, 42.8 million .

Baseball is big among youth. Between Little League, Babe Ruth league, Tee ball and High school teams, over 4 million youth play baseball. The number of kids playing baseball has dropped since the 1980′s. Soccer now has more youth participants than baseball.

Baseball has had a big cultural impact. Poems, novels, movies, plays, songs and musicals have been written and performed around our “National Pastime”. Video games have been built around baseball. Baseball cards have been collected and traded since the late 1800′s. Prize cards have sold for millions of dollars.