We just passed the one-third mark of the 2017 season; 850 games have now been played (34.9%). That means it's time to check in on attendance again. If you missed May's update, you can find that here. Since our last update, attendance has dropped a bit. Overall, numbers are down 0.3% from 2016.
2017 MLB Attendance
| Year | Att/Game | Total Att |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 29,221 | 24,837,507 |
| 2017 | 29,129 | 24,759,957 |
Almost 25 million fans have attended games in the first two months. That's insane when you compare it to the NBA, which set an attendance record this year with 21,997,412 fans. MLB's attendance has been higher than that for the last 51 years. Baseball's business model is safe because there are SO MANY games.
Before we look at the biggest increases and decreases this year, I wanted to see how cities with both an MLB and NBA team ranked for overall attendance. For cities with more than one baseball or basketball team (Chicago, LA, etc.), I averaged them.
Cities with MLB & NBA Team
| Rank | City | MLB | NBA | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LA | 44,692 | 19,019 | 63,711 |
| 2 | Toronto | 38,408 | 19,830 | 58,238 |
| 3 | Boston | 35,388 | 18,553 | 53,941 |
| 4 | New York | 32,895 | 19,774 | 52,669 |
| 5 | Dallas | 32,431 | 19,789 | 52,220 |
| 6 | Chicago | 29,635 | 21,680 | 51,315 |
| 7 | Denver | 34,921 | 14,770 | 49,691 |
| 8 | DC | 30,519 | 17,002 | 47,521 |
| 9 | Atlanta | 29,711 | 15,958 | 45,669 |
| 10 | Houston | 28,144 | 16,973 | 45,117 |
| 11 | Milwaukee | 28,791 | 15,828 | 44,619 |
| 12 | Philadelphia | 27,117 | 17,330 | 44,447 |
| 13 | Detroit | 28,055 | 15,979 | 44,034 |
| 14 | Cleveland | 21,154 | 20,562 | 41,716 |
| 15 | Miami | 20,508 | 19,643 | 40,151 |
| 16 | Phoenix | 22,649 | 17,283 | 39,932 |
| 17 | Minneapolis | 22,414 | 14,809 | 37,223 |
| 18 | Oakland | 17,109 | 19,596 | 36,705 |
Biggest Increases
| Team | 2016 | 2017 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland | 14,743 | 21,154 | 43% |
| Braves | 21,768 | 29,711 | 36% |
| Orioles | 23,537 | 28,132 | 20% |
| Rockies | 30,268 | 34,921 | 15% |
| Phillies | 24,289 | 27,117 | 12% |
Biggest Decreases
| Team | 2016 | 2017 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royals | 32,263 | 26,205 | -19% |
| Mets | 35,108 | 30,335 | -14% |
| Diamondbacks | 26,059 | 22,649 | -13% |
| Padres | 28,114 | 25,527 | -9% |
| Yankees | 38,457 | 35,455 | -8% |
Baseball is here! And more importantly, that means the over/under game is back. It seems as though everyone is an expert this time of year. Somehow we convince ourselves that we are better at predicting baseball outcomes than everyone else. Well, AFITB is putting that to the test for the third year in a row. Think you know more about baseball than us? You probably do. But go ahead and prove it anyway.