Major League Baseball games are starting earlier, ending earlier and are shorter in duration. And it’s making for an ever more fan-friendly experience, particularly for families and kids.
For decades, most weekday games began around 7 p.m. local time and ended sometime around 10 p.m. or later. But that has been changing dramatically in recent years. In 2021, 41.7% of weekday games began before 7 p.m. On the 2025 schedule, that figure is all the way up to 62.8%.
The average time of a nine-inning game decreased by 34 minutes over the same period, going from 3 hours and 10 minutes in 2021, to 2 hours and 36 minutes in ’24.
As for when games have been ending, the percentage of weekday games concluding before 10 p.m. nearly doubled from 2021-24, going from 44.7% to 87.8%. And if you look at weekday games that ended before 9:30 p.m., the jump is even bigger -- in ’21, fewer than a quarter of weekday games ended prior to 9:30, whereas that has more than doubled since, going from 24% to 59.1%.
It all adds up to a better experience for fans, as evidenced by attendance across MLB hitting its highest level in seven years in 2024.