Marlins Attendance On The Rise
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – The Miami Marlins and Miami-Dade County taxpayers put hundreds of millions of dollars into Marlins Park. One-third of the way through the season, attendance at the new park is improving.
After being one of the worst draws in attendance over the past several years, the Marlins are currently ranked 16th in attendance, averaging 28,019 per game, according to ESPN.com. For the season, the Marlins have already drawn 812,578 fans through 29 home games.
For comparison, in 2011 the Marlins drew a total of 1,520,562 fans for the entire season and averaged just 19,007 fans per game through 80 home games which ranked 28th out of 30 major league franchises.
The numbers in 2010 were not better on average as the Marlins averaged 18,953 fans per game, for 28th in the league. In 2009, the Marlins were even worse, ranking 29th in average attendance of just 18,770 fans per game.
If the Marlins continue averaging the current attendance per game, the team will draw a little more than 2.24 million fans on the season. Looking at last year's numbers across baseball that would put the Marlins between 15th and 16th overall for attendance.
Still, if the Marlins remain in contention through the rest of the season, the attendance numbers are likely to rise as the playoffs near through late August and September.
