MLB Attendance Headed For Biggest Increase Since 1998 Expansion

Major League Baseball is seeing a sizable increase in attendance that hasn’t been this high since 1998 when the league added teams to get to 30 total.

Through August 14, attendance is up +9.2%. When removing 2020 and 2021 when there were capacity restrictions due to COVID, it’s the largest increase dating back to the last expansion when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays were added to the league (+11.4% increase from 1997 to 1998).

Based on projections, league attendance will come in at approximately 70.5 million, the highest it’s been since 2017.

Of the 30 clubs in MLB, 23 of them are seeing gains year-over-year. Based on data from Baseball Reference, the largest gain is being enjoyed by the Philadelphia Phillies. To date, they’re seeing over 10,000 more per game than at this point last season. Others with big gains include the Cleveland Guardians, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds, and Baltimore Orioles.

Even when looking at the seven clubs with attendance declines, two are nearly flat. The Dodgers are seeing just -10 per game YOY, followed by the Brewers -32 per game. The two clubs with a significant drag on attendance come by way of the White Sox who are down nearly 3,000 per game, and Nationals who are down nearly 2,000 per game on average.

Along the way, the league has seen some attendance records. Saturday, August 5th averaged 38,284 across all games played. All 15 games were over the 30,000 mark, making it just the third time in 20 years that mark had been reached. And out of those 15, the vast majority (13 clubs) pulled in at least 35,000 in paid attendance which is the most games above that threshold since 2004. Other highlights include July 24th-30^th which pulled in the league’s highest week of average attendance in more than a decade. The 88 games averaged 34,432 per game, the most from a Monday-Sunday since June 11-17, 2012.

Maybe the most telling stat is the number of weekends MLB has topped 1.5 million in total attendance. To date, the 2023 season has seen nine such occurrences. That is vastly more than the total over the last five seasons (once in 2022, zero in 2021, two each in 2018 and 2019).

As to why the increase, there appear to be several factors.

For the first time, the league is playing a balanced schedule in which every team plays every other team at least once, regardless of being an American League or National League team. The league adjusted start times so most all are ending between 9pm-9:30pm on weeknights. Clubs that are seeing a return to the playoffs last season after an extended period of missing them are enjoying a slingshot effect. The Phillies, who made it to the World Series last season, the Mariners who broke a playoff drought dating back to 2001, the Orioles and Blue Jays fit this category. And maybe the biggest factor is some clubs have dialed back on pricing. The Cleveland Guardians fall into this category.

And we’d be remiss to not mention the rule changes that have altered game pace and offense to make games more lively. The offense is up. Stolen base attempts and steal success rate are up. Game times are down.

The biggest question will be, can this trend be sustained? Will the new car smell of the balanced schedule wane? Will fans continue to be attracted to the quickened pace of the game? With the season in the home stretch, eyes will be on the 2024 regular season to be the judge.