One Half Billion Major League Fans
Since 1995, That's How Many People Have Attended Ball Games
Since 1995, baseball attendance has soared thanks to Arena Baseball, the game fans love to go to see because it's so offensive.
In both 1999 and 2000, National League teams averaged 5.00 runs a game. American League teams, with the designated hitter, averaged 5.18 runs in 1999 and 5.30 runs a game in 2000. That's a lot of runs, but it's what fans want. Teams didn't always score so much. A long time ago, in the 1960s, teams scored fewer runs and fewer fans attended games.
Not Much Offense in the 1960s
In 1968, the "Year of the Pitcher," National League teams averaged 3.43 runs a game and American League teams averaged 3.41 runs a game. The Mets, Dodgers, and White Sox all scored less than 3 runs a game. To show how the game we watch today is so different, in 1968, National League pitchers had an overall 2.99 ERA and American League pitchers had an overall 2.98 ERA. Almost unheard of today.
Hit .214 and Have a Winning Record
The Cubs led the 1968 National League with 130 home runs. In 1998, the Cubs' Sammy Sosa and the Cardinals' Mark McGwire hit 136 home runs between them, and the Cardinals led the league with 223 home runs. Just a few more numbers. In 1968, the Mets batted .228, which is pretty bad, but it was better than the Yankees' .214, and what is even more fantastic is that the 1968 Yankees, with their .214 team batting average and .318 slugging average, had a winning record (83-79). Carl Yastrzemski was the American League's ONLY .300 hitter, winning the batting title with .301. Denny McLain won 31 games in the American League and Bob Gibson led the National League with a 1.12 ERA.
Who Cares What Has Been Lost?
Today, there is small but vocal group that decries the era of Arena Baseball. They validly claim that the game has lost a lot, such as bunting runners over to the next base, playing for one run, scoring two early runs that hold up, and in the American League, second guessing the manager for allowing the pitcher to bat (or not bat) in the eighth inning of a one run game, but despite such protestations, attendance figures confirm that fans prefer today's game.
More Than One Half Billion in Attendance
Last season, major league teams drew 75,959,167 fans. The Yankees led with a paid attendance of 4,200,468. Since 2000, the major leagues have attracted more than 1/2 BILLION fans (not all different individuals, of course). Now let's go back to 1968. Major league attendance was 23,102,745, but it must noted that in 1968 there were only 20 teams. Comparing average attendance, teams in 1968 averaged 1,155,387 while teams in 2006 averaged 2,531,972 fans. Keeping things simple, attendance today is much more than double what it was in 1968.
Fans Love Scoring Runs
No team demonstrates the correlation between Arena Baseball and attendance more than the Yankees. In 1972, Yankees' attendance was 966,328. In 2007, the Yankees are on a pace to draw more than 4,300,000 fans. The Yankees spend more money than any other team. They run a coldly efficient business that taps into any and all revenue sources, but of greatest importance, they put stars on the field, which is what fans want. From a business model, it doesn't matter if the Yankees win the World Series. Certainly that would be the best case, but even if they don't, as they haven't since 2000, almost every game is a sellout, thanks in part to corporations that have purchased season ticket plans and in part to an enormously dedicated (not necessarily loyal -- dedicated) fan base. And what does the fan base love? Scoring.
