Manfred pointed to a record number of rescheduled games in '18 as reason for lower overall attendanceGETTY IMAGES
MLB attendance this season fell to its lowest level since '03, and Commissioner Rob Manfred said he does not think a team's wins and losses are a "huge driving factor" to that decline, according to a Q&A with Bill Shaikin of the L.A. TIMES. Below are excerpts from the Q&A, some of which have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Do you believe teams playing not to win in a given year -- even if it is a competitive strategy -- plays into the attendance decline?
Manfred: There are going to be teams that are in the hunt and teams that are not in the hunt every single year. I think the net effect on attendance depends on whether it’s big markets that are in the hunt or smaller markets.
Q: How do you explain the 4% drop in attendance this season?
Manfred: What happened to us this year is pretty straightforward. We know that a point, a point and a half, of that is related to the fact that Miami is reporting its attendance more accurately, which I applaud. ... Secondly, we were down almost 10% in April. We had record cancellations. You never get the same attendance for a rescheduled game. But, even worse, we played 35 games in April where it was less than 40 degrees at game time. We played two last year. I think these factors explain a lot of the downturn. Having said that, it’s important to remember we’re still drawing nearly 70 million people a year.
Q: When you became commissioner, I asked if the best available markets for expansion might be outside the United States and you said, “I think that is probably right.” Now that you have played additional exhibition games in Montreal and regular-season games in Mexico, what have you learned that might make you more or less confident in that assessment?
Manfred: The results of our play in Montreal during the exhibitions, and in Mexico for exhibitions and the regular season games, confirm the fact that, outside the United States and close enough to the United States are markets that are very interested in having major league baseball. That level of interest, I think, is a huge positive for the sport. That remains a viable alternative for us to explore once we get past the stadium issues in Tampa and Oakland.
Q: What does it mean for the league that Billie Jean King now is part of the Dodgers’ ownership group?
Manfred: From day one, Mark Walter, Todd (Boehly) and Peter (Guber) -- the principal owners -- have been intent on having diversity in their ownership group. I think this is another step along that road. In terms of the institution of major league baseball, it is a huge positive. To have someone who is a legend in another sport as part of an ownership group in baseball, there is nothing but positive about that (L.A. TIMES, 10/4).
