There was a good article in the NY Times on this subject. Here are a few excerpts:
If the adage in sports that “winning cures all” is true, then teams fighting for a pennant, like the Atlanta Braves, the San Diego Padres and the Cincinnati Reds, ought to be selling more tickets.
With first place on the line, the Tampa Bay Rays averaged 28,400 fans, or 79 percent of capacity, for their three home games against the Yankees last week, and filled just a third of their seats on Monday night.
Nearing their first division title in 15 years, the Reds drew 12,000 fans to a recent night game, their smallest crowd of the year. The Braves have had trouble filling even half their seats this month despite battling for a playoff spot.
The sight of so many empty seats at stadiums where pennant contenders are vying for a chance to play in the postseason is a glaring reminder that baseball is still not back to its prerecession heights, and that professional sports leagues more broadly continue to suffer from the after-effects of the economic downturn after years of record growth.
Attendance, of course, is just one indicator of fans’ support for their team. Merchandise sales, television ratings, traffic on team Web sites and spending on concessions at the ballpark are also key. Indeed, every team in the hunt for a playoff spot this year has had sales of its merchandise grow and, with the exception of the Yankees, has seen its television ratings rise, too.
The Minnesota Twins, who are playing in a new ballpark this season and have clinched their division, have sold 136 percent more merchandise this year. Sales have risen more than 30 percent for the Giants, the Rays, the Rangers, the Reds and the Yankees.
In Tampa Bay, the Rays’ attendance has declined 0.3 percent this year despite having one of the best records in baseball. Team officials have talked about the need for a new stadium to attract fans. The trouble may not be the stadium, but that the Rays are a relatively new team in a city hit hard by the recession that has many alternatives to attending a game.
“We might be a lot better baseball market than people realize, but we don’t have the history,” said Philip Porter, an economics professor at the University of South Florida, who said that the Rays are seventh in attendance when adjusting for the region’s population. “There are so many things to do in Florida. We get outside, go to the beach, so we’re not as easily seduced by baseball as somewhere else.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/sport ... ml?_r=1&hp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
