Baseball at both the major league and minor
league levels reached unprecedented heights in 2007, with both entities setting
all-time attendance records for the fourth year in a row. Major League Baseball
attracted 79,502,524 fans while Minor League Baseball drew 42,812,812
customers. It’s clear the game is in a golden era of popularity in its storied
history.
Thirty years ago, things were not this good—or even close to it—at the major or
minor league levels. While the Los Angeles Dodgers set a single-season
attendance mark in 1978 by drawing 3,347,845 to become the first team in major
league history to attract more than 3 million fans, Major League Baseball as a
whole drew just 40,636,886—barely half of 2007’s record total.
At the minor league level, attendance was more bleak as clubs routinely
averaged less than 1,000 fans a game. Most minor league operators back then
sought just to break even financially.
But a first-year club in Nashville, Tenn., of the Double-A Southern League
quietly began to set the wheels in motion of what was to come when it drew a
minor league-best 380,159 in 1978. Led by Nashville and Columbus, which soon
became the Double-A and Triple-A farm clubs of the New York Yankees, a
resurgence of interest in minor league baseball began taking place in the late
70s and early 80s, culminating in 1983 when Louisville of the Triple-A American
Association became the first minor league team to draw 1 million. Soon an
unprecedented wave of stadium construction was underway at the minor league
level that sparked today’s record surge of popularity.
Led by the Nashville Sounds, here’s how the minor league attendance leaders
stacked up in 1978—just as the boon in Minor League Baseball was beginning:
|
| |
| Rank |
Team, League (Class) |
Attendance |
| 1. |
Nashville, Southern (AA) |
380,159 |
| 2. |
Columbus, International (AAA) |
324,510 |
| 3. |
Denver, American Association (AAA) |
261,647 |
| 4. |
El Paso, Texas (AA) |
251,086 |
| 5. |
Albuquerque, Pacific Coast (AAA) |
231,524 |
| 6. |
Rochester, International (AAA) |
219,814 |
| 7. |
Tacoma, Pacific Coast (AAA) |
211,030 |
| 8. |
Salt Lake, Pacific Coast (AAA) |
207,440 |
| 9. |
Richmond, International (AAA) |
202,106 |
| 10. |
Arkansas, Texas (AA) |
175,686 |
|
| -- Allan Simpson |
Top Ten List Archives |
|
|