2033: BBA Attendance Stays Strong

[RonCo]

PRELIMINARY FINANCIAL REPORT ATTENDANCE FIGURES RELEASED

Buoyed by new ballparks and late season runs for post-season spots, attendance around the league bounced up a tick this year, finishing at 87.6M fans: relatively stable, but up 70,000 from last year. “It was a good year for baseball,” said the league’s initial financial report, which was released in preliminary format earlier this morning. “Our clubs’ individual P&L statements will vary, but the new 0% tax rates will result in our owners having lots-o-cash to line their mattresses with. For that they are all quite thankful and promise to remember every fan kindly as they sip their Port over the next holiday season. Caviar and Ferraris are expensive.”

Among those flush owners is Yellow Springs’ Bo Jordan, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame this season, as well as oversaw a league high 4.37M people ring the turnstiles. Atlantic City was second at 4.14M, and the Long Beach Surfers drew 4.05M, rounding out the three clubs that topped the magical 4M barrier (The Surfers are the only team to have drawn 4 million for two years in a row).All total 18 ball clubs drew more than 3M fans this season.

FRICK LEAGUE SURGES

2032 saw the Johnson League as the hot tickets, as their clubs brought in 44.7M fans against 42.9 for the Frick League. Those numbers were considerably different this time around, as Frick fans rang the bell 45.5M times (almost evenly split between the Pacific and the Heartland), and the Johnson brought in only 42.1M. The Frick surge was led by highly competitive Yellow Springs, Long Beach, and California clubs, who combined for 12M fans among them.

The financial report addressed the swap of dominance as understandable. “We’re not sure exactly why the Johnson was drawing better than the Frick to begin with, seeing as the Frick is clearly the best League from the uniforms on up. It was clearly just a matter of time before the laws of gravity kicked in and all the compasses righted.” It went on to note that the Heartland slightly outdrew the Pacific, a situation that also just makes sense on all the right emotional levels.

The big issue for the Johnson League sat in the Southern division, where interest flagged from 21.1M fans down to 18.9M. Hawaii and Huntsville each pulled only 1.6M fans, the only two clubs in the league to register less than 2M. Rumors of closed door meeting with the leadership of these two clubs have been circling the Commissioner’s office since the report was released. On the other hand, a collection of equally mediocre teams in the Johnson Atlantic made for an entertaining scrum that brought 23.2M fans to their parks, best of all divisions. “We want to be sure no one gets too good,” one Atlantic Division insider said, “that way we all look better.”

NEW PARKS, MIXED RETURNS

Yellow Spring built Utopia Field to much pomp and circumstance, and immediately saw their numbers bump from 3.87M in 2032 to 4.31M this year, and the Omaha Hawks moved from Indy and did 3.37M after attracting 2.27 in 2032. Not all park changes were quite so successful. Mexico City drew only 2M this year compared to 2.24 while in Omaha last year. In addition, Rockville’s move from Carolina results in a drop from 3.7M in 2032 to 3.44M this season.

With the exception of YS, who played to nearly capacity this season, each of these teams do seem poised to capture great market share in the future.

We expect to grow again in 2034, the report concluded. Baseball is America’s sport.

[usnspecialist]

the fact that my team drew that little despite the quality of the product on the field is absolutely embarrassing. The citizens of Havana ought to be ashamed of themselves. If they are not careful, they will find themselves without any team to go support in the near future...

[7teen]

I think you have Madison wrong. We went down in attendance this year due to us raising our ticket prices slightly. I have ya at 3.9 million last year and 3.5 million this season.

[usnspecialist]

I think you have Madison wrong. We went down in attendance this year due to us raising our ticket prices slightly. I have ya at 3.9 million last year and 3.5 million this season.

Now that i look at it, i think he added 1 million to my numbers from 2032 as well.

[Lane]

(The Surfers are the only team to have drawn 4 million for two threeyears in a row)

Nice article!

[Lane]

I think you have Madison wrong. We went down in attendance this year due to us raising our ticket prices slightly. I have ya at 3.9 million last year and 3.5 million this season.

Now that i look at it, i think he added 1 million to my numbers from 2032 as well.

The 2032 numbers aren't associated with the right teams it appears. Montreal is listed as having my 4,402,570 number from 2032.

[RonCo]

Yeah...I had a few odd things there because of team name swapping between the years...updated.

[usnspecialist]

Attendance rankings of teams who made the playoffs this year.

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25

[usnspecialist]

also interesting that all 3 of the teams who moved this past offseason saw a noticeable dip in attendance. 248k for rockville, 740k for nashville and 205k for mexico city.

[RonCo]

Omaha also moved, but say an increase.

[usnspecialist]

Omaha also moved, but say an increase.

Good point, i guess i missed that because i am used to seeing an omaha franchise. Based on a rough look of the numbers, it looks like the net difference for relocated teams is going to be negligible thanks to Omaha seeing the big bump.

[udlb58]

Interesting. We gained 600,000 fans with the move to Jacksonville, despite higher ticket prices and 4 fewer wins than the year before.

Wonder if we should increase the capacity. We were at 98% capacity in 2033.