from Amazon
Monday, October 19, 2009
Attendance Index, since 1969
Mike Lupica has taken a representative poll of the 3 billion adults on Earth and determined:
There aren’t fans better than this anywhere in the world. ... But no fans have ever supported a baseball team, the most famous team in this world, the way Yankee fans support theirs…
Here is the attendance index for each team (taken simply as the fans per home game, divided by the MLB average, for that season), averaged from 1969-2006. Number 1 is the Dodgers, who had 61% more fans than average, on average (while playing .534 ball in that time frame):
Att_Index win_percent years team
1.61 0.534 38 LAN
1.4 0.465 14 COL
1.23 0.52 38 SLN
1.22 0.558 38 NYA
1.18 0.54 38 BOS
1.17 0.499 9 ARI
1.16 0.495 30 TOR
1.14 0.501 38 NYN
1.12 0.523 38 BAL
1.12 0.492 38 PHI
1.11 0.524 38 CIN
1.09 0.495 38 ANA
1.06 0.481 38 CHN
0.97 0.469 2 WAS
0.96 0.515 38 HOU
0.96 0.482 38 DET
0.95 0.516 38 ATL
0.94 0.484 35 TEX
0.94 0.488 38 KCA
0.88 0.47 30 SEA
0.86 0.461 38 SDN
0.86 0.501 38 CHA
0.85 0.509 38 SFN
0.84 0.473 37 MIL
0.82 0.484 38 CLE
0.8 0.484 36 MON
0.79 0.525 38 OAK
0.77 0.498 38 PIT
0.76 0.493 38 MIN
0.74 0.473 14 FLO
0.68 0.453 3 WS2
0.59 0.395 1 SE1
0.59 0.398 9 TBA
Yanks are 4th, even though they’ve had the best team in MLB. And here’s how the attendance ranks when we look only at teams that played under .500 ball. Now that’s some great support for Dodger teams: 48% above league average!
Att_Index win_percent years team
1.48 0.457 8 LAN
1.28 0.444 10 COL
1.19 0.441 15 BAL
1.15 0.459 13 SLN
1.05 0.415 4 ARI
1.02 0.477 6 BOS
0.99 0.449 25 CHN
0.99 0.426 14 TOR
0.99 0.452 21 ANA
0.97 0.466 7 NYA
0.93 0.445 21 PHI
0.89 0.444 20 TEX
0.88 0.453 15 CIN
0.85 0.438 1 WAS
0.84 0.461 11 HOU
0.82 0.427 17 NYN
0.79 0.421 20 DET
0.79 0.434 20 KCA
0.77 0.438 25 MIL
0.77 0.419 24 SDN
0.73 0.429 21 SEA
0.72 0.45 18 CHA
0.72 0.446 10 FLO
0.72 0.439 20 MON
0.7 0.452 17 SFN
0.68 0.442 21 PIT
0.64 0.43 17 ATL
0.64 0.441 19 MIN
0.63 0.445 25 CLE
0.62 0.437 14 OAK
0.61 0.414 2 WS2
0.59 0.395 1 SE1
0.59 0.398 9 TBA
***
And here’s the Index when a team plays at least .500 ball:
Att_Index win_percent years team
1.7 0.516 4 COL
1.64 0.555 30 LAN
1.4 0.558 21 NYN
1.35 0.551 17 PHI
1.3 0.552 16 TOR
1.28 0.58 31 NYA
1.28 0.55 25 SLN
1.27 0.572 23 CIN
1.26 0.567 5 ARI
1.23 0.564 9 SEA
1.21 0.545 17 ANA
1.21 0.551 32 BOS
1.21 0.541 13 CHN
1.19 0.586 21 ATL
1.17 0.562 13 CLE
1.14 0.549 18 DET
1.1 0.547 18 KCA
1.09 0.5 1 WAS
1.08 0.579 23 BAL
1.01 0.538 15 TEX
1.01 0.532 14 SDN
1.01 0.538 27 HOU
1 0.547 12 MIL
0.98 0.548 20 CHA
0.97 0.555 21 SFN
0.9 0.54 16 MON
0.9 0.565 17 PIT
0.88 0.576 24 OAK
0.88 0.544 19 MIN
0.81 0.531 1 WS2
0.77 0.539 4 FLO
By the way, the Expos fan base by this measure was somewhere between the Pirates fan base, Giants, Whitesox and the Brewers.