I was just reading the Sports Business Journal and a section on Major League Baseball attendance. There were some mind-blowing stats.
After 70 games, the Washington Nationals had drawn 2,070,439 fans, a huge increase over last season. The Baltimore Orioles had drawn 1,725,238, which was about flat from the year before. In all, fans in our region went through the turnstiles about 3.7 million times for both teams combined. The Nationals are now out drawing the Orioles in terms of attendance.
The NY Yankees on the other hand had drawn 3,761,696 on their own while the NY Mets had drawn 3,301,501. Hence, in NYC, 7,000,000 million fans had gone thru the turnstiles to attend baseball games.
In a league where there is no salary cap, how can smaller market teams compete with bigger market teams when there is such a disparity in attendance and resultant revenues? The Yankees essentially have outdrawn the Orioles by 2 million fans so far or about what the Nationals have drawn to date. Very sobering.
You also have to take into account that the Yankees and Mets have bigger stadiums than the Orioles and Nationals. Over a full season, the Mets would draw over 1.2 million fans more than the Nats if both teams sold out every game and the Yankees would draw over 700,000 more fans than the Orioles. Those advantages will diminish somewhat next season (especially the Mets-Nats divide) as both New York teams are moving into smaller capacity ballparks.
But like the above commenters pointed out, the inherent problem is that the Mets and Yankees are competitive and more likely to draw casual fans to the ballpark whereas the Nats and Orioles are consistently terrible and the casual fans are going to look elsewhere to spend their entertainment dollars.
Two years ago I bet my friend/roommate/co-worker that the Caps would hoist the cup before the Twins would win a world series. I’m looking forward to winning my free lunch.
Let’s not shed any tears for the Baltimore Orioles. They can whine and whine all that they want, but in the end, good organizations can win. Look at the Rays, who used the same model for building an organization as the Capitals, they are tied for first place and doing better than the Yankees. That is much more respectable than the Oriole way of forcing MLB to make the Nationals to provide a subsidy in the form of TV rights. The Orioles have not been winning because they lack the will to do so. Why D.C. baseball should be punished for this is beyond me.
Small market teams can compete if they are smart about it. Naturally, the Yankees, Mets, etc. can all outspend their opposition, but even then, they aren’t going to win everything.
The book “Moneyball” is a real eyeopener. In it, it shows how you can be successful on a budget. In the case of “Moneyball” the subject is the Oakland A’s, a team that has been rumored to be on the move ever since they got to Oakland in 1968. Despite that, in the last 40 years, the A’s have been to 6 World Series (winning 4) and have won 14 division titles in 39 years (their first year in Oakland there were no divisions. The A’s compete most years despite losing free agents, because they spend a lot of money on their development system (like the Caps have done!) to produce young talent.
There is no doubt that MLB, and its owners, care very little about improving the parity in the league. Tampa Bay, a young team with a majority of the players making the league minimum, is in the hunt in the AL East and Minnesota is taking on Chicago, but other than that it’s the big market teams that will go deep into the playoffs. Big market teams will dominate this season and forever more if changes are not made. The NFL, on the other hand, negotiates the TV contracts, has a firm salary cap, and spreads the money around with its revenue sharing program. Try asking the Yankess or the Red Sox to share the wealth from their lucrative TV stations. As a Red Sox fan I know we will compete becasue we can spend the money and and field competitive team, but I don’t like what it says about Major Leage Baseball. Change the Commissioner, and maybe the attitude will change as well. In the meantime , the “Boys of Summer” will play on…GO SOX.
ted—-attendance at baseball games and competitive advantage or even continued existence of a franchise –very sore subject for me.
however two comments:1–revenues are generated from many sources for baseball teams and while attendance is critical so are tv/radio revenues etc; 2– be careful of the term through the turnstiles as mlb now uses tix sold as opposed to people actually showing up. if mlb used the latter, the attendance for the marlins would literally be only 500 for some games. now while i realize tix sold is what generates the total ticket revenues, actual real attandance is more critical in determining the overall health of a franchise and gaging long term success (such as future revenues from tv contract,season tix renewals,etc;)
one last thing…the nats actual turnstile attendance for this year given the new stadium is probably not impressive at all. it would be very interesting if mlb provided turnstile numbers for all teams.
The Yankees and Mets are always competitive. If you put a competitor or a marquee player or two on the field here in DC or Baltimore more people will be in the seats. The Nats should do something bold like offer Zimmerman and a prospect for Arod and go after Texierra. If your boy Mr Lerner wants more people in the seats and the miserable tv ratings to go up he needs a product that he can sell. You finally have it with the Caps but it did not come easy and well in my opinion baseball in this area is the 4th sport. The Skins, Caps and Wizards are all ahead of it.
Doesn’t seem to be bothering Tampa Bay, Milwaukee, and Minnesota right now, nor did it bother Arizona in 2001 and Florida in 1997 and 2003.
Also, the Nationals and Orioles also have a combined 175 losses. Your attendance ain’t gonna rival the Yankees’ and Mets’ attendance with that much suckage. Its certainly kept ME away.
Here in north Jersey one of my favorite questions to ask smug Yankees fans is: “Do the Yankees have an unfair economic advantage?”. It’s so fun to watch them squirm as they try to spin their answer to deny that the Yankees do. It’s for that reason that I’m not much of a baseball fan – only a few teams will really be in contention. As a kid I was a Pittsburgh fan, and later as an adult I cheered for the Orioles. It’s going to be a long time before either of those teams wins the Series.