Historical Perspective: Attendance Is Still Strong for Major League Baseball

There’s a pervasive myth that Major League Baseball is struggling with attendance.

Indeed, there was a drop-off in attendance from 2018 to 2019 of 1,176,520 fans, which works out to 39,217 per team, if it was a simple matter of an across-the-board problem. But the bulk of that loss came from a handful of teams. In fact, 16 of the 30 teams had an attendance gain from 2018 to 2019, including the hapless Miami Marlins who managed to draw 198 more fans than the previous year.

Things weren’t very good in Toronto and Seattle, which both lost more than half-million fans. San Francisco was nearly as bad with 448,000 fewer fans than in 2018. Detroit, Washington, and Baltimore all had drop-offs of more than a quarter of a million fans. So things did look bleak there.

But the opposite was true in Philadelphia where the signing of Bryce Harper helped them draw 569,000 more fans. Minnesota, San Diego, and the Mets all increased attendance by more than 200,000.

The fact is that baseball attendance remained at near historic highs in 2019. The average attendance per team was more than double what it had been 50 years earlier. The differences in attendance numbers from 1969 to 2019 are startling.

In 2019, the Miami Marlins finished dead last in attendance with 811,302, the only team to not reach 1 million. As pathetic as that number sounds these days, in 1969 that attendance would have been better than eight other teams. Tampa Bay finished last in the AL in attendance in 2019 with 1,178,735; in 1969 that would have been fourth-best in the AL, a little ahead of the Yankees. In 1969, only 12 of the 24 teams topped 1 million in attendance and only the Mets topped 2 million fans.

Even in 1979, the Marlins’ and Rays’ totals would not have been the worst in their respective leagues. In 2019 every team that was in existence in 1969 had better attendance than 50 years ago except Detroit, which had 76,000 more fans following their ’68 World Series championship than last year.

Baltimore is a perfect example of how things have changed in the past 50 years.

Baltimore won 109 games in 1969 and dominated the league but barely managed to draw more than a million fans (1,062,069). During that season, the Orioles drew more than 30,000 fans seven times – including opening day and three doubleheaders – and seven other times topped 20,000 (one doubleheader). But 33 times, more than a third of their home games, they failed to bring even 10,000 fans through the gates. In their final five games on the way to their winningest season in history, they failed draw 10,000 to any game and didn’t even combine for 10,000 in their final two home games. (The next season they won 108 games and drew 5,000 fewer fans than in ‘69.)

So let’s contrast that to the 2019 Orioles who won less than half the total of games than their 1969 counterparts—their 54 wins were second-to-last in the American League—but they drew nearly a quarter-million more fans (1,307,807). They drew 40,000 on opening day and drew 30,000 three other times. But they topped 20,000 17 times and had less than 10,000 in attendance only 13 times. They had nearly 40,000 in combined attendance for their final two home games.

Another case in point: In 2019, I attended a game in Cincinnati on a Monday night. The attendance that night was 21,895. It ranked 38th in the Reds' home game attendance numbers. In 1969 they played only 10 game with an attendance higher than that, which included opening day, the final home game of the season and three doubleheaders. Their highest attendance for a Monday night game that season was 16,687.

This mirrors the continued increase in fan attendance throughout the past 50 years. In 1969, the average attendance per game was a hair over 14,000; in 2019, it was 28,187. The 2019 attendance is just slightly less than it was 20 years ago, in 1999, when 28, 876 was the average attendance. In 1989, it was 26,198.

The reason people are concerned about the supposed declining attendance is because it is coming down from a spike that started roughly 20 years, reaching a peak in 2007 of 32,704 fans per game. From 2004 through 2016, average crowd size was 30,000 or more.

What explains this spike in attendance? New ballparks, for one. From 1994 to 2017, we’ve seen 20 new stadiums (actually 21, since the Braves are on their second new one in that span). These stadiums, thanks to the popularity of Camden Yard in Baltimore, are built with fan interest in mind, with great sight lines and now, of course, with a plethora of modern amenities and activities that even people who don’t care for baseball can enjoy.

Another reason is the increase in home runs. While many traditionalists decry the amount of homers, it turns out chicks (and fans in general) really do dig the long ball. Ask almost any fan about their on-field memories of a game they attended and they’re likely to tell you who they saw hit a home run.

Surprisingly, I also think the length of games has added to the attendance. Sure, that’s the opposite of what everyone will tell you, but when you consider that many fans drive an hour or more to get to a game and shell out hundreds of dollars for tickets, parking and food, they don’t want an experience that lasts less than two hours. Sports writers will tell you that the length of games is a major deterrent to fans but I have never once heard a fan complain that their entertainment dollar went farther. Sports writers want short games because they’re at work—a shorter game means they get off the clock sooner.

One more thing about the new stadiums: They all have plenty of corporate boxes and other special seating options, making it more attractive for companies to buy tickets and make them available to employees and clients. All of that adds to the attendance numbers. Most teams have also now added partial season ticket options to give fans more opportunities to attend.

So why has it been in a downturn the past couple of seasons? I think part of it is simply a correction—the anomaly had been the 13 seasons prior to 2017. Some of the teams that had drawn well during that time, like Toronto, haven’t been near a World Series for several decades and are falling off the pace.

Plus, a lot of the stadiums are already nearly full on a nightly basis. Thirteen teams averaged more than 30,000 fans per game last year; three of them topped 40,000. The Dodgers averaged 49,000 per game in 2019 in a stadium with a capacity of 56,000. The Red Sox averaged 36,100 in a park that hold less than 38,000. The Cardinals averaged just 2,000 below their seating capacity. Those teams couldn’t add much more toward an increase.

So while it’s true that the attendance has gone down the past couple of years, if you asked any executive in 1969—or 1979 or 1989—if they would accept today’s numbers they would have enthusiastically said yes.