Quote:
Originally Posted by Amazin69
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.
<snip...lots of great stuff, but you can see it in his post>
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. |
First of all,
great job putting that together. I was even too lazy to check to see if there was a spike for the DH in the AL, which there actually wasn't.
Back in 2009 (which I know the year because I had to look that up to prove I hadn't just made up the 26 man roster in return for ending the DH in the AL proposal), one of the reasons MLB wanted to eliminate the DH was that more fans disliked it than liked it. No, I never found a poll online, but I remember that as a reason. I can't be sure it's still the same today, but very something very noteworthy from your chart:
The NL is doing significantly better than the AL in attendance recently, if I read it right. Given the AL, with the Yankees as both the most loved by some and hated by some team, has a built in advantage in attendance due to their presence. Yet the NL is outdrawing them, and has for a while. That seems to suggest the DH does not help attendance, and probably hinders it.
I will admit that while I'd love to see the DH entirely out of baseball including, of course, the AL, from a profit standpoint it probably is best for baseball to have one league with and one without. I'd bet that any poll conducted today would still show more fans oppose the DH than support it, but it does have its staunch supporters, and it probably grows overall MLB popularity to offer both in different leagues. But if the leagues had to be aligned, everything I can see, and your chart adds to this, suggests that they'd be much better off dumping it in the AL than adding it in the NL.
Of course, if I were "baseball czar" and could do anything I thought was best for the game (as opposed to profits), I'd eradicate the whole damn thing, to have the best baseball possible.
By the way, interleague play is similar, although I feel less strongly about it. I'd prefer not to have it (though it's a much weaker preference than my opposition to the DH) but interleague play
is popular, and while it may not have been needed, I think overall it makes MLB money.