Are you ready for the MLB WILD CARD Weekend and the BATTLE of 1977 expansion teams? Alek Manoah will get the start for the JAYS today at 4:07pm vs Luis Castillo and the Mariners. Game 2 is Saturday at 4:07pm and if necessary a third game Sunday at 2:07pm. All games in the best of 3 series will be played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Let’s hope every post season game is a sellout and fans in attendance cheer the BLUE JAYS loud and proud inside the Dome! #NextLevel #GoJaysGo #LetsGoBlueJays #OctoberRise
— MLB (@MLB) October 6, 2022
The Iconic CN TOWER will be LIT UP in BLUE tonight for our BLUE JAYS!
Tonight the #CNTower will also be lit blue as the Jays enter the #MLB playoffs! Let’s go @BlueJays! / Ce soir, la #TourCN sera également illuminée en bleu alors que les Jays entrent dans les séries éliminatoires de la #MLB! Allez les @BlueJays! pic.twitter.com/827NVwfdSh
— CN Tower / Tour CN (@TourCNTower) October 7, 2022
Let’s check out some spectator stats from the 2022 Regular Season.
Even with the American League record breaking home run chase of Aaron Judge, Major League Baseball wasn’t able to get fans in the ballpark at pre-pandemic levels this season but attendance did jump from the COVID-19 affected season in 2021 and no attendance in 2020 during the height of the pandemic.
The 30 MLB teams drew nearly 64.6 million fans for the regular season that ended Wednesday, which is up from the 45.3 million who attended games in 2021, according to baseball-reference.com. This year’s numbers are still down from the 68.5 million who attended games in 2019, which was the last season that wasn’t affected by the pandemic.
The 2022 average of 26,843 fans per game throughout the league was down 5.3% from the 2019 average of 28,339.
Los Angeles Dodgers won 111 games and led MLB with 3.86 million fans filing into Dodger Stadium for an average of 47,672 per contest. The Oakland Athletics lost 102 games and play in an aging stadium and are the constant subject of relocation rumors finished last, drawing just 787,902 fans for an average of less than 10,000 per game.
The St. Louis Cardinals finished second, drawing 3.32 million fans followed by the Yankees (3.14 million), defending World Series champion Braves (3.13 million) and Padres (2.99 million).
The Toronto Blue Jays saw the biggest jump in attendance, rising from 805,901 fans to about 2.65 million but Jays didn’t return to Rogers Centre til late July 2021 after playing home games in Florida because the pandemic and border restrictions at the time.
The Rangers and Reds were the only teams to draw fewer fans than in 2021.
MLB attendance had been declining for years even before the pandemic after hitting its high mark of 79.4 million in 2007. This year’s 64.6 million fans is the fewest in a non-COVID-19 season since Major League Baseball expanded to 30 teams in 1998.
On a positive MLB.TV streaming service, Viewers watched 11.5 billion minutes of content in 2022, which was a record high and up nearly 10% from 2021.
Sportsnet released that this was the Top 3 Most Watched Season In Sportsnet History
The numbers are in, Canada! 🍁⚾️
The 2022 @BlueJays regular season on @Sportsnet was one for the record books… and we're not done yet! 🌟
AL Wild Card action gets underway tomorrow at 2:30ET/11:30aPT, exclusively on @Sportsnet & https://t.co/av8g1gFeHC 📺#NextLevel pic.twitter.com/2j5a6yarDd
— Sportsnet PR (@SportsnetPR) October 6, 2022
Story Stats from Sportsnet
