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Originally Posted by Anyone
I have no idea what happened with the DH adoption in the AL. If I had to guess, in fact, my guess would be that what was then a novelty may even have caused an attendance spike.
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Tough to say. The AL was certainly lagging the NL in average attendance and pulled even by the end of the decade, but other factors could have contributed to this. The NL had opened a lot of new parks (we hate the "toilet bowls" of Three Rivers/Riverfront/Vet Stadium/Busch II in retrospect, but they probably boosted attendance, sadly) and the AL hadn't, but soon the Kingdome and Exhibition Stadium would be pulling up the averages that Cleveland was holding back.
Also, I'd bet the AL average was always heavily dependent on the Yankees' total, and the CBS years saw the Bronx Bumblers pulling down the league instead of pulling it up. Once George got the team out of Shea, into his renovated stadium, and back into the World Series, the historical value of the brand returned to the norm. Just a thought, I'd have to see the team-by-team data to be sure.
Likewise, the overall average showed no significant increase for the first few years of the DH, it was only in '77 that the upward trend started. While the SEA/TOR expansion may have been the initial impetus, I wonder if free agency wasn't what really rejuvenated moribund markets. Instead of Brewers fans being "it's hopeless" they were now like, "Man, can you imagine if we could get Reggie Jackson…" Dreams were easier when you had a chance at buying what you needed.
I also note that some of the other spikes were rather once-offs; the '58-'59 totals are all due to the new West Coast figures, especially the huge crowds the Dodgers drew at the LA Coliseum. I'm not sure the "return to norm" in the 1960s should be blamed on anything, per se. And what was with '66? Odd year for a spike…was Atlanta really such an improvement on Milwaukee?
Likewise, for all the talk about support for baseball "collapsing" after the '94 strike and World Series cancellation (and Bud Selig using this to justify all the crap he pulled
), I have to wonder how much of that is true. The 1995 average looks to be in tune with the 1992 average; there was a big jump in 1993, but that's about the record-setting lookie-loos for the new franchises; Colorado set the all-time attendance record that debut season, and even the Marlins drew 3,000,000+ fans. (They've never come within 700,000 of that, since.) And '94 was a partial season, which also featured the return of the Yankees to top form. Is it terribly surprising that 1995 was a step back, especially since they couldn't sell season tickets until the strike was settled?
But no, it's a disaster, Bud says so! Time for radical change! Bring on interleague play, those Astros-Brewers games are a sure money-maker, I tells you! Sigh.