April MLB Attendance Figures Surprisingly Strong

One of the major offseason, spring training, and early season story lines for the MLB season was how the downturn in the economy would impact baseball.  The worry was that high unemployment and tightening budgets would lead to a significant drop in ticket sales, with some projecting a 20%+ drop in attendance numbers.  I discussed much of this in my ‘Early Season Storylines’ post in early April.

Well, the April numbers are in, and the large drop has not been realized.  Jayson Stark discussed in extremely thoroughly in his Rumblings.  However, I can spare you the 4,500 words and summarize.  Essentially, he excluded both NY teams from his analysis as they changed stadiums (to smaller ones, while simultaneously raising ticket prices).  He found that the average difference in attendance between last April and April ‘09 is 287 people.  Additionally, there was an extra set of weekend games (which draw larger crowds) in ‘08, making the ‘09 April results even more encouraging.

One of the biggest consequences of a drop in attendance would be teams unloading players in an effort to lower their payrolls.  If attendance figures continue to follow April’s numbers, that will not be any greater an issue in 2009 than it has been in recent years.  However, what is yet to be seen is if fans will jump off their bandwagons earlier than they have in previous seasons.  In other words, if some teams fall 10+ games out of first place, will that cause the large attendance decrease in August and September?

One final point to consider is that while league average attendance in April was very close to April ‘08 attendance figures, that has not been the case for all teams this season.  The Nationals, who opened their new stadiums last April, have seen a decrease of more than 9,000 fans per game. The rest of the top 5 include the Tigers (likely impacted by the very high unemployment in Detroit), Blue Jays, Braves, and Astros – raging from a decrease of 8,700 to 3,900.  Those teams are most likely be looking to unload contracts, which I will dig deeper into in my next post.