Baseball Musings: What's Enough Attendance?

February 12, 2006

What's Enough Attendance?

In this article about marketing the Marlins, we learn about the Marlins attendance from last season:

Last season, owner Jeffrey Loria forked out $65 million to field a lineup that included Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca, Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell. But the Marlins drew just 1,823,388 fans, up slightly from the team's total in 2004 (1,723,105) but still 27th among baseball's 30 teams, ahead of Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Tampa Bay.

Since when is drawing nearly two million fans a bad thing? It used to be that two million was the magic number. Draw that many fans in and you're doing okay. Is it the rank of 27th? Well, somebody has to be down near the bottom. And if teams near the bottom are still drawing close to two million, baseball's in pretty good shape.

I suppose baseball would like to see the Red Sox last in attendance because everyone is selling out every game. Of course, at that point we'll probably hear the Red Sox threaten to move unless they get a bigger stadium. :-)

The lack of attendance at Marlins games seems a bit overblown to me.

Posted by David Pinto at 05:50 PM | Attendance | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Sure, but you can get field box tickets for the Marlins cheaper than 90% of the lower level seats for the Red Sox.

Posted by: Josh at February 12, 2006 07:27 PM

Maybe Loria was tired of hearing this tagline after every radio promo: 'Good seats still available...'

Posted by: El Jefe at February 12, 2006 07:42 PM

Almost last is almost last. It's barely 20K a game.

Posted by: Al at February 12, 2006 08:01 PM

as a marlin fan i can say those numbers are not overblown.. no one goes to the games its pathetic.. i remeber a hudson-burnett matchup early on in the year with 2 yound studs that drew 15 k...

Posted by: ryan at February 12, 2006 08:14 PM

It's 22 K a game, Al. At one time, in my lifetime, in fact, that was considered pretty good attendance.

Posted by: David Pinto at February 12, 2006 09:56 PM

A team a year removed from a WS should not be drawing

Posted by: DNL at February 12, 2006 10:23 PM

I too remember when that would have been considered very good attendance. In the 80s, drawing 2 million meant success. Despite many years of seemingly inept managment, baseball as a whole draws much better now than it did twenty years ago. While the sport as a whole has obviously expanded its revenues immensely, any given team is still at a competitive disadvantage if it is drawing less than the other teams. After all, when teams have more revenue they tend to spend that money on player salaries. The Marlins have to compete with their contemporaries, not the NL of 1985 (where they would have been middle of the pack with their 2005 attendance--ahead of a bunch of teams, but way behind league leaders Los Angeles, New York and St Louis). As someone already pointed out, it depends how much those tickets are selling for, as well.

Posted by: Ginger Nut at February 13, 2006 02:15 PM

As someone who frequents Marlin territory often..the fan base is practically non existant. I rarely if ever see anyone wearing a marlin shirt, a cap or even hear anyone conversing about a game they may have went to. It's stricly Dolphins there and everything else just doesn't matter to them, besides going to the gym. The Heat have a more loyal following that the Marlins. Oh, and did I mention that its just too freakin hot there in the summer months, day or night! After dancing and drinking, new car payments, gym memberships and strip clubs, there is just not enough disposable income to go around for baseball games. The folks of SoFla CAN NOT blame not going to games cause thier park is in the middle of nowhere. If you dont drive in Fla. you don't go anywhere, and to get there they drive equal distances to get anywhere else around there anyway. Good Grief!

Posted by: Hugh G. Rection at February 14, 2006 05:39 PM