In short: Atlanta Braves draw lowest attendance since 1990, at barely over 2,000,000 “paying” fans. This is 13th in the National League, and 24th overall in Major League Baseball.
Who would have thunk that publicly giving up on the team, giving up on the city, and giving up on the ballpark would have such adverse effects on attendance? Man, there’s no way anyone could have seen this coming. Totally blindsiding.
Being Atlanta Business Chronicle, this article itself will inevitably end up behind the paywall, but there’s really not much that needs summarizing. The Braves sucked in 2015, and it’s abundantly reflected in the overall attendance at Turner Field. Granted, the Braves in general are always typically middle-of-the-pack when it comes to attendance, placing 8-9 in the National League on average throughout the last decade or so, but to drop to nearly last is still saying something about alienating even the most fickle of bandwagon Atlanta sports fans.
At barely over 2,000,000 fans on the season, it’s the lowest attendance mark since 1990, when the Braves were actually the worst team in the National League. Subsequently, the Braves would pull their worst-to-first act in 1991, with the fans responding dramatically, but given the fact that the Braves will still be in rebuilding mode and still be in the process of twisting the proverbial knife into Turner Field next season, there’s little reason to believe that attendance is going to improve in 2016.
In short, this is about as shocking as the sun rising in the morning, but it’s still amusing to me to see all my claims and predictions in regards to the Braves being validated, statistically.
I think the funniest thing about this whole article is the choice of photo they used, because it’s of Jason Heyward, one of the cornerstones of the team that the Braves traded away prior to the 2015 abyss, and will be playing playoff baseball this week, while his former team prepares to settle into a very long and hopeless offseason. Seems like the guys over at ABC have checked out on the Braves so long ago as well, that they can’t even put forth the effort to use a photo of an active member of the squad.
