A Saber-Slanted Baseball Community

Maury Brown, President of Business of Sports Network is predicting attendance for MLB will increase 5%-8% and includes a Cubs increase as one of the reasons. If you're not already following him on twitter (@BizballMaury), I definitely recommend doing so as he is a great source of information.

From Darren Rovell of CNBC: "Last week, when the Associated Press wrote that Major League Baseball's average attendance for the first two weeks was off 6.9 percent from last year, many news outlets just reported the number. Well, I just did the math and it's not even half as bad. While the focus is on the empty seats behind the plate at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, the truth of the matter is that Major League Baseball is currently on pace to average about a three percent decline in attendance as compared to last year." He backs up his statement with some analysis, and charts of the most up and most down teams. The Rays are up 60% (even with a defending AL title, that's astounding to me), the Marlins are up 56%, and no one else is up even 16%. And the Nationals are off to a bad start, not sure if they're going to outdraw their television audience again this year.