Baseball Attendance Continues to Soar

By Alfred Branch, Jr.

While it may sting to be a New York Mets fan these days following the team’s epic collapse down the stretch this season, it sure doesn’t hurt to be the Wilpon family, owners of the underachieving franchise. The team, and all of Major League Baseball, saw its overall attendance grow significantly from 2006 to 2007, and the Mets were one of eight teams that broke its own team record for attendance.

Overall, the Mets were third in league attendance in 2007, drawing 3.85 million fans to Shea Stadium, up nearly 14 percent over 2006, according to MLB. Leading the way, and drawing more than 4 million fans for the third straight year, were the New York Yankees with 4.27 million fans, up 1.6 percent over 2006. In second place were the Los Angeles Dodgers, which drew 3.86 million fans in 2007, up 2.6 percent from the previous year.

For all 30 MLB teams combined, total attendance reached 79.5 million in 2007, up 4.5 percent from 76 million in 2006. The Yankees, Dodgers and Mets all set new franchise attendance records, and the other five were the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals . . .

2007 MLB Attendance Report

2007 – Attendance		Home				Road			Overall
RNK	TEAM	GMS	TOTAL	AVG	PCT	GMS	AVG	PCT	GMS	AVG	PCT
1	NY Yankees	81	4,271,867	52,739	91.8	80	37,227	83.4	161	45,031	88.1
2	LA Dodgers	81	3,856,753	47,614	85.0	81	33,252	74.0	162	40,433	80.1
3	NY Mets	81	3,853,955	47,579	82.9	81	35,885	79.5	162	41,732	81.4
4	St. Louis	81	3,552,166	43,853	93.6	81	33,019	75.5	162	38,436	84.9
5	LA Angels	81	3,365,632	41,551	92.2	81	31,208	68.0	162	36,379	80.0
6	Chicago Cubs	81	3,252,462	40,153	97.7	81	36,053	80.3	162	38,103	88.6
7	San Francisco	81	3,223,202	39,792	95.8	80	35,579	77.3	161	37,699	86.1
8	Philadelphia	81	3,108,331	38,374	88.2	81	32,837	72.0	162	35,605	79.9
9	Detroit	81	3,047,124	37,618	93.8	81	30,849	68.3	162	34,234	80.3
10	Houston	81	3,020,405	37,288	91.1	81	32,683	73.3	162	34,986	81.8
11	Boston	81	2,970,755	36,675	101.4	81	38,641	81.5	162	37,658	90.1
12	Milwaukee	81	2,869,144	35,421	83.5	81	32,337	73.0	162	33,879	78.1
13	San Diego	81	2,790,074	34,445	81.0	81	34,013	73.2	162	34,229	77.0
14	Atlanta	81	2,745,203	33,891	67.7	81	33,821	75.3	162	33,856	71.3
15	Chicago Sox	81	2,684,395	33,140	81.6	81	29,138	65.6	162	31,139	73.3
16	Seattle	81	2,672,409	32,992	69.1	79	32,938	72.6	160	32,965	70.8
17	Texas	79	2,353,862	29,795	60.7	80	28,787	66.9	159	29,288	63.6
18	Toronto	81	2,360,648	29,143	57.7	81	31,228	68.3	162	30,186	62.7
19	Colorado	81	2,327,846	28,738	57.0	81	33,750	74.1	162	31,244	65.1
20	Arizona	81	2,316,507	28,598	58.3	81	34,387	74.6	162	31,493	66.2
21	Cleveland	80	2,275,911	28,448	65.6	81	29,453	66.7	161	28,954	66.2
22	Minnesota	81	2,296,383	28,350	58.2	81	30,877	69.9	162	29,614	63.8
23	Baltimore	80	2,164,822	27,060	56.2	81	30,547	66.4	161	28,814	61.2
24	Cincinnati	81	2,056,453	25,388	60.4	80	33,799	76.1	161	29,567	68.4
25	Washington	81	1,961,579	24,217	53.5	81	31,417	68.3	162	27,817	61.0
26	Oakland	81	1,921,844	23,726	54.3	81	32,709	71.4	162	28,217	63.1
27	Pittsburgh	79	1,749,142	22,141	57.7	81	34,880	76.9	160	28,590	68.2
28	Kansas City	81	1,616,867	19,961	48.9	81	29,057	64.4	162	24,509	57.1
29	Tampa Bay	81	1,389,031	17,148	40.7	81	31,591	68.2	162	24,370	55.1
30	Florida	81	1,370,511	16,919	46.6	81	31,313	67.7	162	24,116	58.4

Source ESPN.com