PHOENIX – Even with the homer heroics sluggers such as Aaron Judge And Albert PujolsMajor League Baseball couldn’t get fans to visit ballparks at prepandemic levels this year, but attendance did increase significantly from the COVID-19-affected campaign in 2021.
Nearly 64.6 million people attended the 30 MLB teams’ regular season, which ended Wednesday. This is an increase from the 45.3 millions who attended the 2021 games. baseball-reference.com. The numbers of people who attended the games this year are still lower than the 68.5 million that attended in 2019, which was the last season without being affected by the pandemic.
The 111 win Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball was dominated by 3.86 million fans who flocked to Dodger Stadium on an average 47,672 per game. The Oakland Athletics The team, who has lost 102 games, plays in an age stadium, and is the constant subject of relocation speculations, finished last with just 787.902 fans. This average draws less than 10,000 people per game.
The St. Louis Cardinals The second place finish was achieved with 3.32 millions of fans. They were followed closely by the Yankees (3.14million), defending World Series champion Braves(3.13 million), and Padres (2.99million).
The Toronto Blue Jays The biggest increase in attendance was at the Cardinals, which saw an increase from 805,901 to 2.65 million fans. They were followed closely by the Cardinals (Yanks), Mariners (Dodgers), Mets (Mets), which all attracted more than a half a million more people than in 2021.
Reds and Rangers were the only two teams that attracted fewer fans in 2021 than they did in 2021.
Only the Rangers opened the 2021 season full-fledged, while all other teams were not at 100% until July. In 2020, regular season games were not open to fans.
The attendance at MLB games had been decreasing slowly over the years, even before the pandemic. It reached its peak of 79.4million in 2007. The 64.6 million fans this year is the lowest in a non COVID-19 season since 1998, when the sport was expanded to 30 teams.
In some ways, the loss of attendance was compensated by a higher viewership on MLB.TV’s streaming service. In 2022, viewers watched 11.5 billion minutes worth of content. This was a record and nearly 10% more than 2021.