NEW YORK—As the baseball season enters the dog days of August, this might be a good time to consider how Major League Baseball (MLB) fans feel about the prospect of moving to “robot” umpires in the future. Baseball, known for its long-standing traditions and a core fan base that is older than the hardcore fans of other professional sports leagues, already is testing an automated ball-and-strike system in the minor leagues, which trimmed the average length of games by nine minutes. 

Despite only about one in three MLB fans (32 percent) saying they have seen, read or heard about the use of this automated umpiring, “there’s already a baseline of support among MLB fans” for the automated format, according to a recent Morning Consult analysis.

A recent Morning Consult survey found that MLB fans are “gradually entering the modern era and accepting likely changes to the sport,” the analysis noted.

A plurality of self-identified MLB fans (48 percent) said they support the implementation of an automated ball and strike system, also known as “robo umps,” for MLB’s 2024 season, the research firm noted. Thirty-six percent of fans said they do not support such a system, which baseball commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned as a possibility in an ESPN interview last month, according to Morning Consult.

The survey found that while about half of MLB fans said they “strongly support” or “somewhat support” an automated ball-and-strike system that calls every pitch (and relays the balls and strikes to a human home plate umpire via an earpiece), there’s slightly more support (55 percent) for a replay review system of balls and strikes, which would allow each manager to challenge several calls per game.

Among other findings of the survey, only 44 percent of MLB fans say umpires “almost always” get calls right.

In addition, a majority of both MLB fans (63 percent) and regular sports fans (60 percent) said they trust robot umps to make the right calls “a lot” or “some” of the time. And only 1 in 3 MLB fans said they believe rules are “very consistently” enforced in the sport.