Are Baseball Games Getting Any Shorter?

Abstract

During the 2020 season, Major League Baseball implemented several rule changes to speed up games.  In this paper, the authors examine the length of all nine-inning home games for each of baseball’s thirty teams in 2021 and 2019 to determine the effectiveness of these rule changes.  The 2020 season was omitted because it was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic.  Nine-inning home games became longer for twenty-three teams.  For eleven of these teams, many of which are located in the largest Nielsen TV markets, the increase was statistically significant.  For only one team was the average length of a nine-inning game discernibly shorter in 2021 than it was in 2019.