The Decline of Baseball – The Most Empty MLB Stadiums in April

It’s already tough enough to sell tickets to spring games for fans to watch the baseball scoreboards show their favorite teams score. Attendance is pretty much flat across all baseball teams at the moment. Yet, this April things have been even worse than usual. About half a dozen teams have generated the worst crowds their stadiums have ever seen. This trend may pass, but it’s becoming evident that several teams are consistently not generating the crowds they need, no matter what their results on the baseball scoreboards may show.

The worst crowds this April in the history of their stadiums were generated by these six teams (numbers taken from one random game):

1) The Yankees – 40,267. This is only their third season playing where they are, but it is still unjustifiable. For such a massive team, you would expect more people than this.

2) The Braves – 13,865. Playing at Turner field, they saw the worst turnout in this ballpark’s history, which is 15 years!

3) The Mariners – 12,407. This game against Toronto gave Safeco Field a new record low turnout.

4) The Twins – 36,286. Playing at Target Field, this may not be surprising, since it’s only its second season. The timing of the game wasn’t the best either – an afternoon midweek, against Kansas City.

5) The Cardinals – 32,007. The Busch Stadium’s lowest in six seasons; the total for its three game series was a record low as well (100,638).

6) The Indians – 8,726. The Indians have already drawn crowds of less than 10,000 for all of their six home dates, which is extremely low.

There are five other teams that have not seen their worst ever attendances, but which have come close to it:

1) The Cubs – they generated the worst attendance for Wrigley field since September 2002 (only 26,292 against Arizona). People said it was strange to see so many empty seats.

2) The Mets – normally generating good results and fan turnouts, they managed to only attract 24,865 to a game that happened earlier this month.

3) The Pirates – generated the seventh smallest crowd in the history of the PNC Park last week.

4) The Diamondbacks – generated 15,746 to a game against St. Louis, but it is only a notch higher than the record low in August of 2010.

5) The Astros – generated the second-smallest crowd Minute Maid Park had ever seen, even on a popular day (Monday – 20,175). The game was against the Cubs.

Of course, the conditions are partly to blame. The season began a week earlier than last year, and there has been some very cold weather, especially in the Northeast. The cold spell is due to end soon in most areas, but some are looking at a much colder spring than anticipated. The ever-declining economy has played a role in the low turnouts as well.

Source:
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