The hot topic of last season and now a topic heavily discussed in 2019 — why is MLB attendance down and what needs to be done to improve it?
Now that the 2019 season is in full run-mode and most teams across the big leagues have played anywhere from 16 to 24 home games, it’s an appropriate time to check out how the Atlanta Braves and other teams are doing attendance-wise
Overall, MLB attendance was down around 4% in 2018. After 14-straight years of averaging 30,000-plus fans, the league finished at 28,830.
There were several different factors that many believe caused a drop in attendance, including the poor weather last April that resulted in a record number of 25 postponements.
A growing lack of interest in the sport, and simply the high cost of tickets and concessions, could have also caused additional drops in game attendance.
There are several variables that have driven the decline.
The Atlanta Braves are currently in their last series out West, matched up with the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix; but so far in 2019 the Braves have played exactly 20 games at Sun Trust Park.
Those 20 games have brought a total of 594,882 fans to the park (9th in MLB), an average of 29,744 per game (13th in MLB). Those figures are as of Saturday morning.
At this current juncture, the Atlanta Braves are on pace for roughly a 2.4 million fans at Sun Trust this season, which is trailing the pace of last season by about 150,000 fans, or a 5.7% decrease from 2018.
When comparing that decrease to last season, a finish of 2.4 million fans ranked basically right in the middle in 2018, with 811,104 fans being the lowest total … yeah, you guessed right, by the Miami Marlins.
Our buddies at Call to the Pen (another FanSided site) just put out a write-up Saturday regarding fan MLB attendance and team revenues.
They reported a 9% drop league-wide in fan attendance this season, concluding that this may actually be something to worry about.
That overall 9% decline does help make the Atlanta Braves ugly 5.7% figure I listed earlier look better, but the current drop league-wide is still a bit concerning.
I’m almost sure that the drop in attendance will even out quite a bit, as August and September games almost always put more butts in the seats (at least for the contending teams).
This really shouldn’t worry us too much as Braves followers. According to Call to the Pen, only 5 big league teams are currently seeing an increase in attendance:
- LA Dodgers
- NY Mets
- Texas Rangers (excuse me?)
- San Diego Padres
- Philadelphia Phillies
And our FanSided friends noted that some organizations are really seeing a massive drop, struggling to get fans in their ballpark. The Toronto Blue Jays are seeing a 34% drop in their attendance, and several teams are running rates of 25% or more:
- Minnesota Twins
- Kansas City Royals
- Detroit Tigers
- Cleveland Indians
But Call to the Pen makes a very important point after including all of these scary percentages:
"But if the above makes it sound like America’s National Pastime is in its death throes, you haven’t been reading the ballclubs’ revenue documents. Contrary to what the above data might suggest, both team valuations and revenues are at all-time highs virtually across the board…and rising annually."
I’m not going to get into the revenue figures for teams, as Fred and Alan have both reported on such complicated things in the recent past. You can read those pieces here:
- Postseason Bumps Annual Revenue to $404MM – Fred Owens
- Atlanta Braves Payroll Space for 2019? – Alan Carpenter
But I do want to talk just a little about why attendance has been trending down, at least my opinion on what the deal is.
To me, there’s no better experience than attending a big league baseball game, especially a Braves game.
The atmosphere has this romantic consistency about it, a methodical and businesslike process, but yet still entertaining enough to keep you sitting in your seat and watching.
I’m currently a part of a very complex generation, at 28-years-old, and people my age I think have a tough time understanding or appreciating the vintage feel of live baseball. Attention spans, as we know, are at an all-time low.
I agree, games can be long and sometimes rather boring, but for a sport that has no time clock (yet), there are bound to be games that aren’t as exciting.
Excitement varies even in sports like basketball and football — two sports that seem to always have something going on.
I’m not saying interest alone in the sport is what’s creating the downward trend in attendance —there’s more to it.
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But ticket prices and concession prices aren’t changing anytime soon, so we might as well accept that.
However, interest in the game can be improved. I will admit I’m a little scared when thinking of change. When I think of change to the game in terms of improving the sport, I think of more fan experiences and better events during the All-Star Break — things like that.
But it seems that the league sees change as tinkering with rules and guidelines that have been a part of baseball since the sport was created — changing the framework of Major League Baseball. And frankly, that terrifies me.
There’s no perfect solution for baseball’s attendance woes. Sometimes these trends can be exactly that … just a trend. But I’ve got a feeling we maybe should be worrying less about attendance and more about what these low attendance reports are going to create.
With a cause, there’s always an effect. What effect will come from these low MLB attendance rates? And will the game suffer because of it?
Let us know what you think. What’s your solution to improving game attendance? How do you feel about some of the proposals that the league have made in their attempt to improve MLB attendance?