Marlins Attendance Woes Continue in 2024
The Miami Marlins have let down the fans.
In a city long panned for not supporting their sports teams, Miami fans showed up for Opening Day, with 32,564 fans coming to loanDepot Park to celebrate 2023’s playoff berth and to see what the 2024 squad could do.
But after a twelve-inning loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Opening Day and the team’s 0-7 homestand to start the season, home attendance for Miami has been positively dreadful.
Newly released figures from Baseball Reference show exactly how bad it’s been, with Miami tied for the 2nd-worst percentage of stadium capacity filled so far in 2024.
The Marlins sit at only 40% of stadium capacity filled, on average, even with the Kansas City Royals and 27% ahead of the worst performing team in that metric, the Oakland A’s.
Miami’s had an average of 14,762 fans per game against a capacity of 36,742, and that figure’s heavily influenced by Opening Day’s near-sellout. After the home opener, only one other game exceeded that average figure, the Sunday afternoon finale to the Pirates series, with 15,915 fans in attendance.
The Marlins brought in only 27,017 fans combined for the series against the Los Angeles Angels, which came Monday through Wednesday and saw the team extend their season-opening losing streak to seven games.
And despite being tied with the Royals so far, it’s likely that Kansas City increases that percentage in the coming weeks. The Royals are in the midst of a seven-game winning streak that saw them sweep the Chicago White Sox and then the defending AL West champion Houston Astros, outsourcing the Astros in the final two games by nineteen runs.
Miami’s first chance to fix their attendance woes come this weekend as they welcome the Atlanta Braves to town. Given their distribution across the entire Southeast on the TBS Superstation from 1973 through 2007, the team has a large fan base that travels well to away parks, as well as draws in local fans to each city they go to.
Let’s hope Miami can hold up their end of the bargain on the field this weekend.
Managing Editor for Blackerby Media, covering the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins Also: Senior Baseball Writer for Auburn Daily, member of both the National College Baseball Writers Association and Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (where he won the 2023 Prospects, Minors, & College Writer of the Year award)