I was 12-years-old when I visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. My visit was part of a baseball tournament called the “Little Majors,” in which each state sent a baseball team to compete in a round robin tournament for baseball bragging rights. I spent a week in Cooperstown, toured the Hall of Fame with the rest of my team on our day off, was eliminated in the 2nd round of the playoffs, and haven’t been back since.
That last part is a particularly troubling one for baseball’s most famous museum, because I’m not alone in my absence from Cooperstown. Attendance at the National Baseball Hall of Fame has consistently fallen over the past several years. Last year, only 260,000 visitors entered baseball’s hall, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s the lowest attendance since the mid-1980s. This year, as baseball gets ready for a Hall of Fame Weekend this weekend in which no living player will be inducted into the hall, it seems likely that those numbers will continue to suffer.
The WSJ points out that baseball is not alone. NBA, NHL, Nascar, and NFL are all struggling with attendance at their respective Halls of Fame. The problems are easy to identify. The exhibits aren’t interactive enough, it’s too easy to get the information available at a hall of fame online, and most of the halls are located in rural areas hours away from a big city. The solutions aren’t as apparent. When asked about his museum’s attendance problem, National Baseball Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson stated only “the hope is that we’ve bottomed out.”
Attendance can only bottom out though if there is a plan to bring those numbers back up, and since the Baseball Hall of Fame hasn’t’ publicly named any strategies to do so, I’ve come up with a list for them. Here are five ways to modernize the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
1. Plaques are cool. iPads are cooler.
Let’s get one thing straight right away. Nobody wants to ditch the iconic bronze plaques adorning the walls in Cooperstown. The plaques are classic. The plaques are unique. The plaques are also static. Here’s how the hall fixes that: under each player plaque, an iPad or other touch screen offers fans the opportunity to swipe between career statistics, splits, highlights, interviews, etc. This would make the hall more interactive, increase the amount of time each patron spends in the hall, and increase the chance they’ll come back again.
2. Google+ Hangouts
Living hall of famers are arguably the greatest attraction the hall has going for it. So why are they content with having them live through inanimate bronze plaques? Wouldn’t patrons rather get the opportunity to talk with them directly? With Google+ hangouts, the hall could easily create dugout style conference rooms in which groups of people could talk with some of the games’ greatest as if they were sitting next to them. The hall could even schedule athletes to talk on an anniversary of one of their greatest moments. How cool would it be to talk with Nolan Ryan on the anniversary of his first or final no-hitter to reminisce about how he accomplished the feat?
3. Virtual Batting Cages
Any real baseball fan has had the dream. Game 7. Two outs. Bottom of the 9th. Bases loaded. Down three. You step into the batter’s box against a former Cy Young winner and future hall of famer and get ready to take your best shot. Very few of us get that opportunity in real life. The hall should at least give fans the opportunity to experience it virtually. This is possible through virtual batting cages, in which pitches come from a screen that shows a pitcher going through a windup. Visitors could choose whether to face Sandy Koufax, Grover Cleveland, Steve Carlton, or a host of other hall of fame pitchers and take their best swings against some of the greatest to ever throw a baseball.
The cage in action:
4. Recreate History
The National Baseball Hall of Fame has a pretty extensive collection of memorabilia from no-hitters and perfect games of the past. Those items, like baseballs, hats, and uniforms are pretty cool to see, but like many items in the hall, they aren’t interactive. Enter MLB 2K13. Allow fans to pick a perfect game or no-hitter, set up the rosters, and see how deep into the game fans can go with a certain pitcher as they try to recreate the feat. The hall could make it into a competition, where the first patron to recreate a perfect game or no-hitter won a prize, like an autographed baseball from the pitcher.
5. Become the broadcaster
In some of the greatest moments in baseball history, it’s the way the play was called that’s just as memorable as the actual play. Jack Buck’s “we’ll see you tomorrow night,” for example, is just as memorable if not more so than Kirby Puckett rounding the bases after winning game 6 of the World Series against the Braves. The hall should capitalize on this by giving fans the opportunity to try their own hand at handling play-by-play duties during some of the games best moments. Doing so would give fans’ the opportunity to relive some of their favorite moments with a personal touch.
Jack and Joe Buck make the same call:
So there you go. Five ways to modernize the National Baseball Hall of Fame, free of charge. Each item listed above appeals to a range of ages, makes the hall more interactive, and makes the hall a more attractive tourist destination. What do you think about the five items listed above? What else could the hall do to boost attendance? Let us know in the comments below.