average length of a baseball game
MLB games are shorter than an average NFL game - but it's far more reasonable for fans to spend three hours watching a football game once a week than the same amount of time every day to follow their favorite baseball team. Baseball games are getting longer this season, though. According to ESPN, the length of average MLB game in 2016 has stretched three hours and 26 seconds. That doesn't sound like a huge increase, but when you add four minutes to 2,430 games a year in the regular season, it adds up to an additional 6.83 days worth of baseball.
The changes helped cut the average game length by 12 minutes, from three hours and eight minutes in 2014 to two hours and 56 minutes a year ago - but baseball games were still more than 20 minutes longer than the average NHL game and 40 minutes longer than the average NBA game.