Aluminum bats first rose to popularity in the 1970s, when they were produced as a less expensive and more durable alternative to wooden bats. Since then, the use of aluminum bats has spread throughout lower levels of competitive baseball, where it is now the bat of choice. Aluminum bats are also the bat of choice for collegiate baseball, although in recent years debate has arisen about whether the game should feature wooden bats at the college level.
In-Game Play
Aluminum bats are lighter, making it easier for a player to swing the bat at a high speed. The hollow interior of the bat also causes the ball to travel farther when struck. This increases the distance balls travel and leads to more home runs and higher scores in the college game. The loud "ping" of aluminum bats is also a sound that is strongly associated with college baseball.
Cost
Many athletic departments run tight budgets. Cutting costs is important, particularly for sports like baseball, which can run up large bills. Aluminum bats help with this because they cost much less than wooden bats. Aluminum bats also do not break as often as wooden bats, resulting in fewer purchases of bats.
Sponsorships
Many college baseball teams have sponsorship contracts with bat-makers that require specific bats to be used. These contracts feature different lengths of time that serve as a hurdle to the college game transitioning from wood bats to baseball bats -- making this change could lead to breached contracts that suck more money out of athletic departments. Sponsorship opportunities would also be less lucrative for college baseball if it were to adopt wooden bats because most wooden bat producers have made considerable investments in sponsorships at the professional level. Using aluminum bats capitalizes on a monetary opportunity for those schools.
Preference
Most college baseball coaches prefer that the level of competition stick to using aluminum baseball bats. According to a 2010 Associated Press survey of 24 of college baseball's winningest coaches, 17 of them preferred that aluminum bats remain the standard type of bat used in competition. Part of this is because coaches also have sponsorship deals with aluminum bats and could lose income as a result of the change. Some coaches also cite the fact that aluminum bats can be modified to perform closer to the way wooden bats slow down ball speed and reduce the distance a ball travels, lowering the scoring and risks of the game while also keeping athletic department costs low.
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