They say April showers bring May flowers, but Major League Baseball could use more sunshine.

The league is taking an attendance hit, and teams will be playing more double-headers due to the high number if rainouts. As of yesterday, the league has seen 12 rainouts. To place this in perspective, there were just the two rainouts for all of April last season. By the 19th of April of 2010 there were no rainouts.

There have been 3 days where more than one game has been rained out (April 12, 16, and 19) with the 12th seeing three games postponed due to poor weather.

The AL East has been hit the worst with all open-air stadiums seeing at least one postponement. The Yankees have the dubious distinction of being the only club this year to see more than one rainout.

And remember, this doesn’t account for rain delays. MLB is sure to point to some of this as a key reason for the attendance drop early in the 2011 season.

See the table below for each game rained out so far in the 2011 season.

Source: Major League Baseball

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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, as well as a contributor to FanGraphs and Forbes SportsMoney. He is available for hire or freelance. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

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UPDATE: Using ESPN's Team Schedule data for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2010 has uncovered an error. That data (which shows 16,191) as attendance for the 2010 home opener is incorrect. The actual game report on ESPN shows that the game was a sellout of 36,973 (102.6 % of capacity). This article and data has now been updated to refect the correction. (A hat tip to Cork Gaines for addressing the error. -- Maury Brown

Each of Major League Baseball’s 30 clubs have now hosted their Opening Days, and with it paid attendance for the first games totaled for 2011 was 1,310,905, up .3 percent from 1,314,467 on Opening Day in 2010.

Ballparks saw attendance at an average of 101.3 percent capacity on Opening Day, a sign that clubs were able to sell standing room only tickets. Two-thirds of the league saw attendance on Opening Day above 100 percent with the Marlins seeing the largest over normal capacity figure of 41,237 or 113.5 percent of the 32,495 that the Marlins normally allocate in cavernous Sun Life Stadium that also hosts the Miami Dolphins. For a true ballpark where it is not a multi-purpose, such as the Marlins and Athletics play in, the Brewers drew 109.8 of capacity, or 46,017 against the Braves. The “least filled” ballpark on Opening Day was U.S. Cellular Field where the White Sox hosted the Rays. The club drew 38,579 or 95 percent of the ballpark’s 40,615 seating capacity.

In a sign that fans revel in the love a new season, total paid attendance for the game after the season opener was 925,853, a 29.4 drop from Opening Day. Just two clubs (Phillies and Red Sox) saw increases of less than 1 percent (.8% for the Red Sox and .5% for the Phillies). The largest decline from Opening Day to the second game after opener goes to the Cleveland Indians who drew 41,721 on Opening Day against the White Sox, only to free fall to just 9,853 the next day, a decrease of 76.4 percent. The other large decliner was the Baltimore Orioles who saw 46,593 on Opening Day but just 12,451 the next day, a decrease of 73.3 percent against the Tigers. It should be noted that the Orioles lowered seating capacity from 48,290 to 45,971 this year, thus filling Camden Yards to 101.4 percent.

As a matter of comparison, MLB saw an average of 30,138 across 2,424 games last season. Opening Day 2011 drew an average of 43,697, a difference of 13,559 per game.

SELECT READ MORE TO SEE HOME OPENER ATTENDANCE; ATTENDANCE FOR SECOND GAME OF HOME OPENER SERIES; 2010 HOME OPENER ATTENDANCE; BALLPARK CAPACITIES; % OF CAPACITY FOR THE 2011 HOME OPENER, AND; AND % +/- ACROSS THE DATA

Whether it’s the economy beginning to pull back from its chilly ways, increased competitive balance, flexible pricing, or all of the above, according to early season metrics, Major League Baseball is poised to see an attendance rebound this season after seeing declines the last three years.

According to a report in this week’s SportsBusiness Journal, “Commissioner Bud Selig declined to project a specific attendance increase for the season. But after drawing 73.06 million fans in 2010, down 0.4 percent from 2009, this year’s total will likely fall somewhere between 75 million and 78 million, an increase of 3 percent to 7 percent.”

Over the off-season, the league created new panel called the Commissioner’s Ticket Review Committee. That committee has several league departments in play, including, MLBAM and senior executives from six clubs: the Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals, Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians.

As the report notes, there are still question marks, namely around the New York Mets who are fighting off the Trustee working to gain monies back as part of the Bernie Madoff scandal. Ownership was deeply involved with Madoff. On top of the legal battles, attendance has been down considerably since moving into Citi Field – 19 percent. The club has  employed ticket discounts to try and gain fans back.

Early numbers show that the Twins already sold more than 2.9 million tickets for 2011, and as expected, after winning the World Series for the first time since moving to the West Coast, the San Francisco Giants are seeing robust sales. Other increases have been with the Texas Rangers, and Brewers, who in mid-January had reached one million tickets sold for the 2011 season, which tied the 2009 season for the earliest date that the club had achieved the milestone in franchise history.

“I’m really bullish on this season. We’ve got some great empirical data coming in,” Selig said to the SBJ. “I want to see a nice increase this year, and I’m very hopeful, very optimistic and confident that we’re going to do it. It should be a big, big year.”

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, as well as a contributor to FanGraphs and Forbes SportsMoney. He is available for hire or freelance. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

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On Weds. the Milwaukee Brewers announced that since the Sunday afternoon when news of the Zack Greinke trade with the Royals broke, the club had added over 1,500 new season seat account holders. That compares to 400 new account holders who signed on during the first two-plus months of the off-season at the same time last year.

But what about suite sales? Since news of the trade broke, the Brewers say that they have secured renewals on two of their Founders Suites, which are located on the Field Level. They have also renewed five Club Suites (Club Level) and have also had a number of inquiries from potential new customers regarding Club Suite availability.

In many ways, the Greinke trade is likely to generate more revenue than when they worked the trade with the Indians for CC Sabathia in 2008. That was an in-season deal that happened just before the All-Star Game, and therefore couldn’t be leveraged toward season ticket and suite purchases.

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, as well as a contributor to FanGraphs and Forbes SportsMoney. He is available for hire or freelance. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

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Give it to the Philies (and their fans) for packing the house. Last season the Phillies drew a total of 3,647,249 to Citizens Bank Park ranking them second to only the New York Yankees. The total comes to an average of 45,027 or 103.5 percent of capacity and averaged 44,453 of 102.2 percent of capacity in 2009 (filling above 100 percent denotes bringing fans into standing-room only).

With the Phillies bringing Cliff Lee back into the fold (see the contract details here), some have asked how the club will be able to keep from collapsing under player payroll weight. The Phillies ranked second in average player salary last season, according to the MLBPA’s annual report (see details here). Unless the club sheds considerable payroll, the likelihood is the Phillies will be in the same position next year, possibly worse.

Back to the Lee signing and attendance, it isn’t to say that the Phillies aren’t benefiting from his signing in terms of ticket sales. According to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer the Phillies sold 15,000 tickets on the day Lee made his decision to go back to his former team. Through StubHub, secondary ticket sales for the Phillies after the Lee signing ranked behind New York Knicks games - especially one against LeBron James' Miami Heat - and the Auburn-Oregon BCS Championship game as selling hotter.

But, taking full advantage of the Lee signing, as it might have been with the Rangers, is a matter of limited ticket resources. Season tickets for next season are sold out leaving just six-pack ticket packages and single game tickets left for purchase. The latter won’t go on-sale until Feb. 17.

John Weber, the Phillies’ vice president of sales and ticket operations said that on top of season tickets being all gobbled up, before the Lee signing, all suites had been sold for the upcoming 2011 season. “The signing had no impact on long-term leased suites,” Weber said.

So, while there is clearly a benefit in bringing Lee in to a “historic rotation”, as he put it, in terms of ticket sales it might be marginal compared to how key free agents impact sales (a good example was when Manny Ramirez came over to the Dodgers). So, Lee’s signing value in ticket sales might only be seen in the postseason or in following years, and even that is debatable given how the Phillies have been filling the house in recent years.

And while the signing might not be leveraged as completely as other clubs through ticket sales, it will likely be a part of any discussions when renewing television deals at the local and regional level.
In other words, the Phillies have a bit of a problem, but it’s a nice one to have. Most any club would love to say they’re in a position where months before the season starts, they have nearly sold out of all their ticket inventory.

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, as well as a contributor to FanGraphs and Forbes SportsMoney. He is available for hire or freelance. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

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