Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 17, 2003
Attendance Report
Attendance, through same period 20032002
Games18221820
Attendance2800028577

Attendance is coming back. When I started tracking this (here's the first one I can find) attendance was trailing last year by about 1300 a game. That's been cut in half, and average attendance for this year finally has hit the 28,000 mark (right on the nose). This August is averaging 30,623, while last year averaged 29,161. That's, of course, when all the strike talk was going on.

The other difference is that you have pennant races this year. And you have small market teams like KC and Florida involved. The fans in KC have gotten it; they are averaging 33,838 fans a game this month. The fans in Florida haven't quite caught on yet. They are up to 18,612 in July-August after averaging 12,977 through June (a huge percentage rise), but they can do so much more. Twenty of the Marlins next 26 games are against teams with worse records than they have, most not very good. (They have three games with the Giants in their). But then they have a stretch of 13 games vs. Atlanta and Philladelphia. They should still be in contention when those two teams come to town in September, and the Pro Player should be rocking.

And it's just a short plane ride to Atlanta from Miami. Yesterday, it seemed that Yankee fans outnumbered Oriole fans in Baltimore. Braves fans are known for being very quiet. If a couple of thousand Marlins fans made the trek north, they could turn Turner Field into a home park for the Fish. Get behind your team, south Florida!


Posted by David Pinto at 09:31 AM | Attendance | TrackBack (0)