Is Marlins Ballpark An Attendance Boon?

There’s good news about Marlins attendance, and there’s bad news.

As you know, when a baseball team moves into a shiny new baseball park, attendance is supposed to go up. Attendance does go up. The Blue Jays took residence in SkyDome in 1989, inaugurating a wave of stadium construction that finally culminated when the Marlins moved into their new home this spring: 21 brand-new stadiums in 24 years.

Every single time, the team’s attendance increased in its new home.

Except for two single times. The Yankees’ attendance went down. So did the Mets’. Because both teams made conscious decisions to move into smaller stadiums, even though they’d been filling their older, larger stadiums.

In the other 19 new ballparks, though, attendance went up. Usually way up.

I ran all the numbers. I had to make some choices. One of the choices I made was to skip the last year in the old yard. Why? Because in some cases, there was a real attendance bump in the last year, as fans wanted to say goodbye. Another choice I made: When a team moved in the middle of a season, I did use the last full year in the old home, and first full year in the new home, thus skipping the season in the middle (because I don’t have half-season attendance data).

So I’m sort of asking you to trust me, but I think the numbers that I’ve got give us a pretty good read on what’s happened when teams have left an old stadium for a new one.

The results are mixed.

The good news is that the Marlins’ attendance is way up this season.

It’s up 49 percent, per game. That figure ranks ninth among the 19 teams with attendance increases, and right in line with increases seen by the Pirates, Blue Jays, Rangers, and Orioles when they moved.

The bad news is that even with the 49-percent increase, the Marlins attendance still isn’t good. They’re 16th in the majors this season, but the news gets a lot worse than that. Among those 21 teams moving into brand-new homes, the Marlins’ 28,020 tickets sold per game is last. Next worst were the Reds and the Nationals, both just a hair over 29,000 per game in their first seasons.

Now, the halo effect of a new ballpark is well-established. Move in, sell more tickets, bada-bing bada-boom.

What happens next is a little less clean. But the one thing that rarely happens? Higher attendance.

In the Mariners’ second full season in Safeco Field, attendance jumped 20 percent. In every other case, though, attendance in the second full season either held (roughly) steady or dropped significantly. The Phillies, the Nationals, the Tigers, and the Mets all saw attendance declines of roughly 20 percent. The Brewers, Pirates, and Rangers dropped nearly 30 percent.

Of course, things did get better for a lot of these clubs. But the message seems fairly clear: You get the big bump in Year 1, but after that it’s all about winning baseball games.

It’s impossible to predict with any precision what will happen in Miami. But based on what we’ve seen, I suspect that the Marlins will never consistently draw well. Best case is probably that with a good, contending 2012 season, they draw in the low 30,000s next year, and their attendance rises and falls depending on their record. Worst case is that when they win, they draw in the middling 20,000s. And when they lose, they’re right back at the bottom of the list, with a garishly colored stadium peopled largely by empty chairs.

There are no blacks, no whites. Only grays. Oh, and teals and oranges and every other hue that Jeffrey Loria enjoys.