MLB Attendance Declining

Baseball has seen a large attendance decline this season which Rob Manfred blames on weather and the Wall Street Journal on some really bad teams.

But how are local television ratings holding up? Local radio is another industry battered by digital competition. Are MLB radio contracts declining in value?

Major League Baseball Sees a Sharp Drop in Attendance

 

Must be the anthem protests.

 

I blame Dick Whitman.

 

Why? He’s probably spending all his newly free time going to games.

 

It's not because of the Pirates -- they had a tremendous off-season.

 

Wow. You got YankeeCoward to come out of hiding with that one, Songbird. Not bad for a tired bit of trolling.

Actually, the Pirates are a perfect example of one reason for the decline. Ownership can only tell so many lies about building for something only to continue to cut payroll even when the team is decent before some of the fans come to their senses and get fed up.

I know the baseball apologists here like to point to McCutchen's modest production this season and say the team was right, but they are forgetting the way the Pirates sold him as the face of the franchise and the proof of ownership's commitment to winning. He was the superstar they kept, the MVP they locked up rather than dumping him. He was they guy they weren't going to have to watch in another uniform. That they got so little value in return after claiming last year they were holding out for something big just made it worse. That's before you even get to trading away Cole around the same time, making it absolutely clear it was just another purge.

Were those moves smarter than they looked at the time? Maybe. They were able to replace McCutchen with Dickerson and Cole has come down to Earth a bit of late, but it's a matter of perception. The Pirates have been doing this shit for decades. They lost every year for over 20 years. They built a contender, but started selling off pieces before the three-year playoff run was even over. You can argue whether those moves made sense on the field all they want, but if you don't understand how bad they look, you are beyond help in this issue.

 

Didn’t the latest tax bill eliminate the deductibility of sporting tickets? I wonder if that’s contributes to it.

 

I love baseball,, but if I were to find myself in Miami (or KC, or Tampa, or even Baltimore) I'm sure I'd find something better to do than heading out to the 'ol ballpark.

 

Considering how much more competitive the Phillies have been this year compared to the previous five I’m kinda shocked at the attendance. That said, in the past six months the city had the Eagles run through the playoffs and Super Bowl as well as the Sixers and Flyers make the playofffs. The fanbase might just be tapped from all that and the Phils are being taken for granted.

 

Attendance in Toronto has cratered. Weather isn't an issue but a lousy team and larcenous ticket prices left over from the playoff years are huge factors.