Diamond review - baseball attendance in 1996

American Demographics, April, 1997 by Shannon Dortch

Major league baseball was supposed to have a comeback year in 1996. The owners hoped that the first full season since the players' strike in 1994-95, along with hotter pennant races created by a new division in each league, would rally attendance. For a few teams, 1996 did bring a return to pre-strike attendance levels. But overall attendance for major-league games still hasn't recovered.

Baseball had a 19 percent increase in attendance between 1995 and 1996, to 60.1 million. The lingering strike explains a small part of this increase:there were 2,017 games in the 1995 season, compared with 2,267 in 1996. But 1996 attendance was still 14 percent lower than in 1993, the last full season before the strike.

Only one team managed attendance gains between 1993 and 1995 -- Cleveland -- but almost every club improved attendance between 1995 and 1996. Six teams drew enough fans in 1996 to bring attendance to or above pre-strike levels. San Diego and Cleveland led the way, gaining 59 percent and 52 percent, respectively, since 1993. The other winners were Seattle, Texas, Los Angeles, and Baltimore.

These teams have something else in common, also. They won a lot of ball games. Five of the six made play-off appearances. Yet having a winning ball team did not guarantee a return to the good old days. St. Louis, New York Yankees, and Atlanta won their divisions and improved their attendance, but all still lagged behind 1993.

Baseball's owners have tried a number of things to get strike-angry fans back to the ballpark, Interleague play begins this season, and new rules have been introduced to speed things up. The San Francisco Giants spruced up their ballpark menu with calamari and chardonnay.the Kansas City Royals hosted "Elvis the King" night. But the most important thing that happened to mollify disgusted fans was the settlement in November 1996 of baseball's labor impasse. Players and owners finally have peace. We'll have to wait and see if the fans still care.