Economy Keeps Fans Home, So MLB.com Numbers On The Rise

April 28, 2009: There have been plenty of photos and TV shots showing empty seats at such venues as Yankee Stadium, where expensive seats are unoccupied; Nationals Park, where the Washington Nationals report an average page attendance of just over 20,000, down 9,000 from last season; and Comerica Park, where the Detroit Tigers are playing before 11,000 fewer fans per game than 2008 (although 28,784 saw the Tigers beat the Yankees on April 27). The economy is a key reason. And that also may be driving many fans to sit at their computer screens to catch the action. After three weeks of the 2009 baseball season, MLB.com, the official Web site of Major League Baseball, is reporting record numbers. According to the league, MLB.com has delivered 127.2 million video streams, an increase of 136% over the first three weeks in 2008. More than 400,000 subscribers have signed up for MLB.com's premier live game products, MLB.TV and Gameday Audio, through April 26, a 45.7% increase of sales over the comparable time period in 2008. MLB.com has totaled 2.2 billion page views, an increase of 73% over the 1.3 billion page views accumulated over the first three weeks of the 2008 season. And MLB.com has averaged 9.4 million visitors per day, representing an increase of 30% from the comparable daily average over last year's first three weeks. To be fair, 14 of the league's 30 teams have increased attendance to date and five have seen declines of less than 2%, according to figures released by MLB. The defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies have upped average attendance by some 5,000 a game to more than 42,000, and the defending American League champion Tampa Bay Rays are seeing an average increase of 11,000 a game to 29,000. Even the Florida Marlins are averaging more than 23,000 a game versus 15,000 at this point last season, although that still leaves about 15,000 seats without bodies.

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