Team’s poor home draw sets mark
Marlins had fewest fans since 2002
The 25th anniversary of the Marlins franchise was seen by the fewest fans at home in team history.
The Marlins became the first major league team to draw fewer than 1 million fans at home since the 2004 Montreal Expos. They beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0, on Sunday before 13,595 to complete the Miami portion of their schedule in Derek Jeter’s first season as chief executive officer.
After trading star slugger Giancarlo Stanton to Jeter’s former team, the New York Yankees, during an offseason payroll purge, the Marlins went 38-43 at home and drew 811,104 for an average of 10,014.
Miami’s previous low was 813,118 in 2002.
The figure is low, in part, because the team changed the way it reported attendance figures this season. Instead of counting all tickets distributed (including giveaways and heavily discounted ones), the Marlins are announcing actual tickets sold.
“Obviously we would like to fill it up every day, but I know it’s the first year of what we’re doing and a lot of new people and a lot of new things we’re doing at the ballpark, so it’s hard for me to assess,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said.
The Marlins are last in the NL East at 62-93 overall, their eighth consecutive losing season. The Marlins have not reached the playoffs since beating the Yankees in the 2003
World Series.
Miami’s attendance is the lowest for a big league team since the Expos drew 749,550 in 2004, their last season before moving to Washington and becoming the Nationals. Miami is finishing its seventh season at Marlins Park, built with a retractable roof to encourage attendance in Miami’s summer heat and humidity.
“I think you’re going to have low numbers just about anywhere at certain points in the season with the weather and atmosphere, it’s going to happen,” Marlins rookie Brian Anderson said. “It can be tough sometimes, but that’s just how a big league season is. It’s a grind, but we made it through it this year.”
The only other team under 1.4 million at home this year is cross-state rival Tampa Bay, which has drawn 1,091,863 with a week of home games remaining.
“Hopefully we’re playing good enough to where fans want to see it and they want to support us,” Anderson said. “We do have a good fan base down here in Miami and I think we’ve seen that especially this weekend.”
Despite the low season turnout, the Marlins turned in the second-largest weekend draw of the season at 37,625, including 13,595 on Sunday.
“The fans showed up today,” said Trevor Richards, who pitched seven innings and struck out nine in Sunday’s win. “You could hear them. It was a pretty good crowd. It [was] fun today.”
Added Anderson, “In the big moments and we’re putting runs across, the fans are getting into it, it’s a good time and you see what it can be like [in] here and how much fun it can be. We look forward to more of that next year and hopefully getting more fans and getting a little bit better of an atmosphere.”