It appears attendance at MLB stadia is way up this season and the game is on track to attract 74.1 million to the games, up 6.5 million from last season & up 1.4 million from the record set in 2000. My local teams--Dodgers and Angels--are on pace to have the second and third largest attendance, with the New York Yankess being first in attendance. No wonder Bud (Mr. Burns) Selig considers this to be a "golden era" for the game.

~Adam

It must be due to all the Gay Days queering up the numbers. :cool:

The Gay Days are bumping up the numbers. Two new ballparks (Citizens Bank and Petco) are also probably a large reason for the bump. I think the Phillies are anticipating a 1 - 1.5 million increase in attendance over last year (including 1500 at Gay Day and 40 or so of us at the Outsports conference in May wink )

The Phils are already up over a million from last year, and since last year there were still small crowds for various games that will go up.

At this site you can find a comparison of 2003 vs. 2004 for each team (scroll down a bit), along with a breakdown of each team's attendance against other teams.

Interestingly, the Phils' highest average per game so far is 44,364 for 3 games with the Cubs, not for any NL East rival. Their lowest average is 35,927 when the Dodgers were here for 3 in May. The largest crowd: 44,710 on June 28th when Jim Thome hit his 400th career homer and Ken Griffey Jr. sat out rather than going for his 500th (the karma from that has since ruined his season -- take that, Junior!). The smallest crowd: 33,294 on May 4th against the Cardinals and Scott Rolen. Hmmmm. wink

The totals are in.... MLB draws 73 million for the first time ever.

From 2003 to 2004, an increase of 5,454,572 fans. But 1,976,818 of that total -- 36 percent -- came solely from the Phils and Padres, the two teams which opened new parks in 2004. That means the rest of the teams had an average increase of 124,206. Divide that by 80 home games (since the article mentions games lost due to weather, we'll say 80 instead of 81) gives you an average increase per game of 1,553. That's not very impressive if you ask me.

Don't forget Safeco field and the Mariners - ended the season with a whopping 2,940,731 draw at the end of this season. Not bad for a team that lost 99 games!