MLB attendance: The final decline numbers for 2018

MLB Attendance: A Little History

Let’s back up, however. The creation of the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies in 1993 produced the largest jump in MLB attendance in the past 30 years, from roughly 55.8 to 70.2 million. Florida and Colorado alone accounted for about 7.5 million of those new tickets sold, and the eventual World Series opponents, the Blue Jays and Phillies sold another 7.1 million.

Following that, an anticipated increase in attendance related to the creation of Wild Cards was undercut by the MLB strike of 1994, and MLB attendance didn’t reach 70 million again until 1998. Since then, however, that 70 million figure has held for all but three years, 2018 now among them. This has occurred despite games being played in newer parks in several cities that are considerably smaller than the old concrete bowls in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, for example.

These newer parks are much nicer places to be, but an eye test regarding attendance in them tells us something to remember about MLB attendance. Attendance figures represent tickets sold.

A great number of MLB tickets are not being used or at least not used for full games, which is fairly astonishing considering their prices. How many is hard to quantify because people who aren’t in their purchased seats at MLB ballparks may be involved in modern “distraction features” somewhere else in those parks. Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, for example, now features a wiffle ball “park” for kids to play in as well as a climbing wall, to name only two distractions. Of course, some ticket holders may be at home, too.

However, ask yourself how many times you’ve heard remarks in bars, game rooms, and living rooms about baseball attendance like this one recently overheard in a bar with an MLB game on TV: “Look at this, there’s 14 people there.” The reply was: “If that.”

MLB has a growing attendance problem it can’t even count properly.