Major League Baseball Strikes Out With Fan Attendance, Again

(Bloomberg) -- 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.

Teams with the largest drops include the Miami Marlins (down $24.5 million) and the Toronto Blue Jays (down $22.9 million). (The Marlins recently changed the way they report attendance, which could account for part of the decline.) The defending-champion Houston Astros were a big winner, with a projected $23.2 million boost in sales.

With a few exceptions, gate receipts make up between one-third and one-fifth of teamwide revenue, according to Forbes’ annual valuations. Some teams rely on such sales more than others, depending on their local media rights and status in league-wide revenue sharing. The Blue Jays, for example, had $274 million in overall revenue off $83 million in ticket sales, so a $22.9 million drop is a significant loss.

Poor attendance can also have a ripple effect on team revenue. Assuming each of those missing fans would have purchased two beers and a hot dog during the game, MLB teams lost another $47.2 million in food and beverage sales. That’s a conservative estimate, but MLB teams report attendance as tickets sold, not actual turnstile numbers. Other potential profits, like parking and merchandise sales, were also omitted in these calculations.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Josh Petri at jpetri4@bloomberg.net

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