Florida Marlins, soon to be renamed the Miami Marlins and get new uniforms, President David Samson is being quoted by the Miami Herald (albeit via twitter) that the Marlins will average between 30k and 35k fan at the Marlins new stadium in 2012. Since this is the smallest ballpark (in actual seating) in Major League Baseball and sits just 37k that seems like a pipe dream. Not to mention the Marlins have averaged this many fans just twice in their history (1993 and 1994 their first two years of existence).
There is a promise that the Marlins will go out and spend money to attract free agents to get more interest in their team. However when we look at the history of bad teams playing in new stadiums is seems ridiculous that the Marlins could increase their attendance this much over the 1.5 million (total) or 19k fans (on average) that attended Marlins games in 2011.
When we look at the numbers of bad baseball teams playing in a new stadium we see that average and total attendance does go up. The Detroit Tigers played their last season in Tiger Stadium in 1999 and averaged 25k fans per home game and drew two million fans. In 2000 they played their first season in Comerica Park, and drew 2.5 million fans or 31,280 fans on average. The 1999 Tigers were 79-83 and in 2000 they were 69-92.
In comparison the Pittsburgh Pirates got a new stadium in 2001. That year they went 62-100 and drew 2.4 million total fans and averaged 30,839 fans. That was up from 2000 their last year at Three Rivers Stadium were they went 69-83 and drew 1.7 million fans and averaged 21,591 fans per game.
In almost every instance, despite how good the team actually is, attendance goes up the first year in a new building. However, the New York Mets saw their attendance go down the first year in Citi Field. In 2008, the last year of Shea Stadium, the Mets drew four million fans, averaging over 51k per game. They went 70-92 that year. The first year in the new park they drew 3.1 million fans and averaged 38,941 on an 89-73record.
For the record the Marlins have averaged 1.4 million fans in the last four seasons. That works out to around 18k fans on average over that time span. To do the numbers that Samson is talking about they would have to nearly double their attendance.
In fact even increasing the attendance at a new ball park would be bucking the current MLB trend. Of the last three new parks opened (Target Field in Minnesota, Yankees Stadium in New York, and Citi Field in New York) only one has managed to increase the attendance. The Twins drew 1.8 million more fans or around 10k more fans their first year in their new stadium. Granted the allure of seeing one last game in two nostalgic ballparks can explain that away.
Based on these facts we can safely assume that the Marlins attendance will go up, despite how good or bad this team is on the field, but there does not seem to be anyway that the Marlins could double their attendance based on a new ballpark alone. On top of the fact they play in a fairly fickle sports town that often does not show up to watch good teams play.
Comments