Paid attendance in sports is not “attendance”. For nearly 20 years, leagues have moved from reporting the gate as turnstile clicks to the number of tickets sold. The reason (from a league perspective) was simple: if we sell a ticket, there is interest, even if it finds its way onto the secondary market, or not used at all. It is still a “sale”

With the 2012 season at hand, many outlets will run predictions on how teams will fare in the standings. It’s a foolish endeavor many times as games are played on paper.

And, as games aren’t played on paper, so too, it’s never easy to predict how attendance will be for an upcoming season. Be that as it may, using last year’s standings, looks at off-season acquisitions, changes in the front office, and trends in how clubs are improving or not, here (by Division), here’s my predictions for attendance trends for the 30 clubs will be this season. Bottom line? MLB will see a modest jump in attendance this year.

Related Content
5 Reasons Why MLB Attendance Will Be Higher in 2012

Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. He writes for Baseball Prospectus and is a contributor to Forbes SportsMoney blog.. He is available as a freelance writer. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network (select his name in the dropdown provided).

Follow Maury Brown on Twitter

Follow The Biz of Baseball on Twitter

Follow the Business of Sports Network on Facebook

Comments (2)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Battle of the Big Names
written by a guest, March 26, 2012

DET and LAA are both projected to have their attendance increase dramatically. But who will get the bigger bump? Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols are 2 of the biggest names in baseball right now, so it should be a good fight.

• 
• +1
• 
• 

miami attentance
written by a guest, April 18, 2012

i lived 20 years in miami - a great place to play sports but a city with virually no interest in caring about or supporting their professional sports teams ... i hardly ever heard anybody talk about or care about the hockey team ..i attended several FL Marlins games and could not believe how empty the stadium was compounded by the fact the few people there were rooting for the other teams ... Growing up within the Philadelphia area a huge difference.

• 
• -1
• 
• 

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment