Sports Business
Major League Baseball Strikes Out With Fan Attendance, Again
Teams lost nearly $94 million in ticket revenue in 2018. And that’s not even counting unsold hot dogs and beer.
This article is for subscribers only.
Major League Baseball attendance dropped 4 percent this year, continuing a steady decline for “America’s Pastime.” It’s the lowest league-wide attendance since 2003 and the largest single-season drop in a decade.
What does that mean for a team’s bottom line? Bloomberg News crunched some numbers to get a better understanding. While some clubs saw a jump in attendance, 17 of the 30 franchises sold fewer tickets than they did last year. Using average ticket prices from Team Marketing Report, that comes to about $93.7 million in lost ticket revenue in 2018.