What Youth Problem? MLB Enters The TikTok Era

For years, Major League Baseball has fought off accusations that it’s an “older” sport.

After all, it wasn’t too long ago that the average baseball fan was 57 years old, TV ratings were plummeting and attendance was sputtering. Even as faster games became a highlight for fans, it didn’t stop ESPN from thinking better of the $550 million it was set to be on the hook for in annual MLB media rights fees from 2026-28.

With the final year of the ESPN contract — still not replaced, though NBC has made a bid — in the backdrop, though, MLB has managed to do something pretty interesting: Make itself younger, even as TV viewers and sports fans in general are appearing to get older.

Data from Tubular Labs shows the stark year-over-year difference on TikTok.

MLB and its 30 clubs earned a combined 795 million TikTok views and another 45 million engagements on the platform from Opening Day (March 27) through June 3, via 3.2K video uploads. Last year, from March 28 through June 4, MLB and its teams uploaded 2.3K videos to the tune of 486 million views and 31.9 million engagements.

That’s a 64% increase in views and 41% increase in engagements for MLB TikTok activity, while uploads increased by 39%.

While some of that increase could certainly come from audiences over 35, the norm for TikTok user ages is still one of the youngest rates among U.S. social media platforms (according to Pew Research). So you could posit that a good portion of these MLB views and engagements are coming from younger audiences that were previously seen as hard-to-reach with MLB content.

Of course, some clubs are obviously better at posting engaging (for their specific fans) content on TikTok than others. And the league itself is actually accounting for far a good deal — nearly 44% — of both the views and engagement since Opening Day this year. As Tubular data points out further:

(via Tubular Labs)

Beyond MLB’s own dominance here, the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees account for another 19.6% of the league’s TikTok views, and combined with the next four teams (Cardinals, Red Sox, Giants and Pirates) that’s six clubs and the league accounting for close to 73% of TikTok views. Engagement isn’t much different either. MLB has 43% of engagement, followed by the Dodgers (14.4%), Yankees (8.7%), Giants (3.8%), Red Sox (3.6%) and Cardinals (3.1%). That’s 76.5% of the engagement coming from the league and five teams, and no other squad has more than 1.94% of the total.

So for as much as we’re detailing a league that’s resurgent with younger audiences via an emerging platform here, the more accurate description is that the league and certain teams have seemingly excelled on TikTok in the early part of the season. The important part, though, is that whether a team is able to succeed on TikTok isn’t always directly tied to winning or financial prominence.

The Dodgers and Yankees are the league’s biggest and richest clubs, sure. But the other big-spending club, the Mets, are middle-of-the-pack. The Pirates are a “small-market” operation by nearly all MLB measures, and currently sit in last place, yet compete here.

For the rest of the league, though, the Pirates’ social video success can be instructive, in a similar way to the video triumphs of the Savannah Bananas.

Tubular recently showcased what sort of lessons sports franchises can learn from the intrepid Savannah Bananas, who on their own amounted to 60% of the total YouTube views of the 30 — much richer — MLB clubs from Feb. 9-May 11, 2025.

On TikTok, the Bananas views since Opening Day would amount to 29% of MLB’s total; or almost 150 million more than the Dodgers, who had the most of any MLB team.

Where major league teams may be able to take a pointer or two is around event-izing content and finding a variety of ways to engage with fans on TikTok.

The Bananas have uploaded just 77 TikTok videos since Mar. 27, yet manage to connect with fans via direct comment replies, made-for-social moments and highlights that read as entertainment first and baseball second.

MLB’s most-seen TikTok video (28.4 million) of this early stretch of the season is a video of a daughter covering her dad’s eyes as he catches a ball in the stands. While there are some highlight-focused videos among its other most-seen videos, many of its top performers are focused on something out of the ordinary, or the human interest side of things — the sorts of videos that create connection with audiences.

MLB has clearly improved on TikTok, but the Bananas’ success shows there’s still a lot of room left to increase their presence on the platform while connecting with younger fans. And luckily, MLB clubs have the budgets to invest in that continued growth, and the playbook for how to make it as effective as possible, quickly.