I kept hearing from everyone that this was the last straw. We had come back to baseball after the 1995 strike only to be befriended and then deceived by a bunch of juiced up home run monsters who sold us on the game of baseball, Sammy Sosa’s High Heat Baseball (“it’s sooo real” see below) and Viagra. Now with the most vilified athlete of the last 25 years this side of Pete Rose about to break the games’ most hallowed record, baseball is about as low as it can get, right? I mean ESPN even called a Town Meeting about Bonds and steroids, that’s how grave this matter has become.
Unfortunately for us peasants, the truth doesn’t always sell in sports media, and angles need to be created so Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti have something to scream about. The fact is this: Despite the negative press baseball has received from the steroids scandal, baseball is more popular today then it’s been in a long time.
In 2000 (when people started to really look into steroids in baseball and Pedro Gomez was hatched in an ESPN Laboratory to cover Barrry Bonds), MLB total attendance was 72,702,420. In 2006, after the grand jury testimony, after Mcgwire and Sosa were vilified, after Bonds was officially found guilty in the court of public opinion, MLB total attendance was 75,959,167. For those of you scoring at home, that’s over 3 million more baseball fans that went to games after the steroids scandal was laid out in front of us.
So far in 2007, 20 out of the 30 Major League teams are on pace to beat their 2006 attendance numbers. Milwaukee (up 12.7 %), Detroit (up 11.2%), Philadelphia (up 8.7 %), and Florida (up 7.7 %) have seen their attendance numbers skyrocket. Out of the 10 teams whose attendance has dropped, only the Chicago White Sox (down 8.7%), Washington (down 7.6%) and Pittsburgh Pirates (down 4.2%) have seen their attendance drop by more then 3.5%. Another fun fact to chew on: 13 teams, nearly half the league, fill, on average, over 80% of their stadium. Considering how many weekday day games are played, I think that’s a remarkable stat.
Why do we need to stop at the Major League level, several minor league players have been caught using banned substances too. If baseball fans won’t turn on their favorite major league players, certainly they’ll turn on some minor league nobody. Take it easy Woody Paige, Minor League baseball is continuing to shatter attendance records as well. Using clever marketing strategies and affordable prices, minor league baseball draws in a whole new audience of baseball fans who want an affordable and fun baseball experience. The Buffalo Bisons drew over 13,000 fans last night, the Louisville Bats average over 9,000 a game and the Sacramento River Cats average just under 10,000, just to name a few of the many popular minor league teams. If you need some more evidence, read this little blurb from the MILB.com, the official site of minor league baseball: (full article on the history of Minor League Baseball)
Minor League Baseball has been a continuing success story with the fans. Total regular season attendance has increased in 20 of the last 24 seasons and has surpassed 35-million for seven consecutive seasons, a level not attained since the late 1940s when NAPBL membership consisted of more than 50 leagues and more than 400 teams. In 2004, there were 15 leagues with 176 teams that charge admission. Total membership was 20 leagues with 242 teams.
So if more people are coming to baseball games today then they did seven years ago, then has the steroid issue had any real effect on the fans? I would say it has had very little effect if people are still willing to shell out their hard earned cash at record levels.
Barry Bonds, Michael Vick, NBA Ref Scandals, the list of negative sports images could go on for days. But frankly, I don’t care. I love playing and watching sports, and so do a lot of people I know. Unfortunately, sport itself no longer makes for interesting enough programming according to ratings hungry executives, and so we’ll be lead into Sportscenter with Vick and the rest of the gang for the next three months. They’ll try to sell us on the fact that these negative things somehow will change people’s love for watching sports, and it’s simply not true, the numbers don’t lie.
-Violent J
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