2011 Minor League Baseball Attendance Map
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Side-note:
At Reddit.com, there are some interesting, informative, and pretty funny comments on this map. Here is the comment thread for this 2011 Minor League Baseball Attendance map at reddit.com, http://en.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/13o9fu/attendance_in_minor_league_baseball_map_of_the/.
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In 2011, in North America, there were 350 minor league teams in 34 leagues which measured attendance. This map shows all the minor league baseball teams that drew over 3,000 per game in 2011 (figures from home regular season average attendance). 103 of these teams are pro teams from Organized Baseball. 18 of these teams are pro teams from Independent minor league baseball leagues. 1 team is amateur, the highest-drawing team of the 19 Independent teams on the map, the Madison Mallards of Madison, Wisconsin, who play in the College summer league called the Northwoods League.
108 of these teams are based in the United States. 11 of these teams are based in Mexico. 3 of these teams are based in Canada.
Minor League Baseball (aka MiLB), which is part of Organized Baseball, has teams who are affiliated, as farm teams, with one of the 30 Major League Baseball clubs (with the exception of the Mexican League, which is part of Organized Baseball, but whose 14 teams have no affiliation with an MLB club). Minor League Baseball has 19 leagues spread across 4 levels (AAA, AA, A, Rookie). 15 of these 19 leagues in MiLB post attendance figures (the leagues in MiLB that do not record attendances are the Arizona League, the Gulf Coast League, the Dominican Summer League, and the Venezuela Summer League – all Rookie Leagues).
Note: average attendance by league can be found three paragraphs down.
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The map is an attendance-map for the 122 teams. The logos and circles on the map are sized to reflect average attendance…the larger the team’s cap logo and accompanying circular segment is, the higher the team’s attendance is. At the far right on the map page is a two-column-list of all the 122 teams, in order of 2011 attendance rank. Alongside each team in the list is their home cap logo; and either their MLB parent club’s home cap logo, or the logo of their league (for the 30 teams from either the Mexican League [there are 11 Mexican League teams on the map] or for the teams from one of the 5 Independent Leagues represented here [there are 19 Independent teams on the map, 8 teams from the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball]; 7 teams from the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball; 2 teams from the Frontier League; 1 team from the Northwoods League (which is a College summer league), and 1 team from the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball (aka the Can-Am League).]
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Below: the 19 Independent minor league baseball teams that drew over 3,000 per game in 2011…
Note: to enlarge image below, click on image below, then hit the Ctrl key and the + key at the same time, twice…
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Breakdown of the 103 teams from Organized Baseball on the map. Included is the 2011 average attendance of each league.
Triple-A / AAA:
6,956 per game – International League – all 14 teams on the map.
6,156 per game – Pacific Coast League – all 16 teams on the map.
4,693 per game – Mexican League – 11 of the 14 teams on the map.
Double-A / AA:
4,868 per game – Eastern League – all 12 teams on the map.
3,242 per game – Southern League – 7 of the 10 teams on the map.
5,247 per game – Texas League – all 8 teams on the map.
Class-A / A:
Class A-Advanced:
2,303 per game – California League – 2 of 10 teams on the map.
3,448 per game – Carolina League – 5 of 8 teams on the map.
1,642 per game – Florida State League – none of the 12 teams on the map.
Class-A:
3,754 per game – Midwest League – 10 of 16 teams on the map.
3,358 per game – South Atlantic League – 6 of the 14 teams on the map.
Class A-Short Season:
3,507 per game – New York-Penn League – 8 of the 14 teams on the map.
3,007 per game – Northwest League – 3 of the 8 teams on the map.
Advanced Rookie:
862 per game – Appalachian League – none of the 10 teams on the map.
2,229 per game – Pioneer League – 1 of the 8 teams on the map.
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Photo credits above – Rochester Area Ballparks site. noisenation.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/who-are-the-lehigh-valley-ironpigs.
The top drawing minor league baseball team in 2011 was Allentown, Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley IronPigs, who drew 9,428 per game to their Coca-Cola Park (Allentown), which opened in 2008 and has considerably less seats than their average crowd last season…the ballpark has 8,100 seats, and has a capacity of 10,000 (overflow can sit on the grass areas as seen in the photo at sunset above; and, in picnic areas as seen in the foreground in the top photo above). The Lehigh Valley IronPigs are the Philadelphia Phillies’ top minor league affiliate, and play in the International League. Allentown, Pennsylvania is 48 miles north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Allentown, PA has a city population of around 118,000 and a metropolitan area of around 816,000 {2010 figures}, making it the 62nd largest metro area in the USA. The Lehigh Valley IronPigs, originally called the Ottawa Lynx, moved to eastern Pennsylvania from Ottawa, Canada after the 2007 season, following years of low attendance in the Canadian capital.
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Photo and Image credits above – unclebobsballparks84.tripod.com/fifththirdfield. bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view.
The highest-drawing team outside of Triple-A baseball is once again the Dayton Dragons, who are the third-highest-level farm team in the Cincinnati Reds’ organization, and who play in the Class-A level Midwest League. In 2011, the Dayton Dragons drew 8th-best in all of minor league baseball despite the fact that there are 104 teams in MiLB that are in leagues (5 leagues) higher-placed than the Class-A level. The Dragons drew 8,288 per game last season to their 7,230-seating-capacity ballpark called Fifth Third Field (Dayton). So, in other words, last season Dayton filled all their seats each game plus they had over 1,000 fans per game who watched the Dragons from the lawn areas of their ballpark (as seen in the foreground of the top photo above). Dayton, Ohio is 49 miles north of Cincinnati, Ohio. Dayton, OH has a city population of 174,000 and a metropolitan area population of 841,000, making it the 61st biggest metro area in the USA.
The Dayton Dragons have a sold-out streak that is an active record [circa end of 2011 season], and is above 800-straight-sellouts. From nytimes.com, from July 2 2011, by George Vecsey, ‘For One Minor League Baseball Team, Never an Empty Seat,’
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I used this list, from Ballparkdigest.com, ‘2011 Baseball Attendance by Average [350 minor league baseball teams' 2011 average attendances]‘. Thanks very much to the Ballparksdigest.com site for the comprehensive attendance data.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Minor league baseball‘; ‘Independent minor leagues (not affiliated with Major League Baseball)‘.
