In a blog post this morning, ESPN’s Peter Gammons wrote:
Major League Baseball has warned club business people that attendance is expected to be down 17-20 percent in 2009, and it could be worse, especially with franchises like the Padres, Blue Jays, Tigers, Indians, Astros, Rockies and others that could be seriously impacted by the recession.
MLB’s attendance stayed remarkably steady from 2007 to 2008 – 32,785 per game in ’07 vs. 32,543 per game in ’08. With the average ticket price at $25.40 in ’08, that game could see a total dropoff of around $400MM in ticket revenue.
I am very curious to see how the 2009-10 free agent market shapes up once this lower attendance has been realized.
