Like their team on the field, the Braves’ attendance and TV ratings showed improvement in the first half of this season. And like the rebuilding team, both of those metrics still have plenty of room to grow.
The Braves’ home attendance is up 33 percent and their local TV viewership up 50 percent compared with this point last season — reflections of the team’s improved play and new stadium — but remain well below the franchise’s peak levels.
The Braves have drawn an average of 30,578 fans per game at SunTrust Park, up from an average of 23,030 through the same number of games (42) at Turner Field last year. The increase of 7,548 per game is by far the largest in the majors this season.
Still, the Braves rank near the middle of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams — 14th — in home attendance, which is defined by MLB as tickets sold. They were 25th at this point last season and 22nd at the end of last season.
Meanwhile, the 84 Braves telecasts on Fox Sports South and Fox Sports Southeast so far this season have averaged a 2.0 Nielsen rating in the Atlanta TV market, according to the networks, up from 1.35 through the same number of telecasts last year.
Those ratings translate to an average local TV audience of about 48,000 homes this season, vs. about 32,000 at this point last season.
The improved ratings follow several years of sharp viewership declines and still have a ways to go to get back to where they were before the team’s teardown/rebuild commenced.
According to SportsBusiness Journal’s annual midseason studies of MLB viewership, Braves games averaged a local TV rating of 4.2 in the first half of the 2013 season, when the team last won the NL East title. The team’s midseason ratings fell to 3.0 in 2014, 2.03 in 2015 and 1.35 in 2016.
This season’s highest-rated Braves game was the April 14 home opener at SunTrust Park, which posted a 5.0 rating (about 120,000 homes) in the Atlanta market. Last season, the highest-rated Braves game on Fox Sports South/Southeast drew a 2.7 rating here (about 65,000 homes). This season, 15 Braves games have drawn a 2.7 rating or higher, according to Fox.
The rises in ratings and attendance parallel the progress in the team’s record on the field. The Braves reached the All-Star break with a 42-45 record, compared with 31-58 last season.
The Braves’ attendance increase of 33 percent compares well with the norm for new stadiums. The other 14 MLB teams that have opened new stadiums since 2000 averaged a 28-percent attendance boost in their first full season in their new homes.
SunTrust Park has a capacity of 41,149, significantly smaller than the Braves’ two previous stadiums. Six games have sold out this season.
The Braves have averaged 36,319 fans for Friday-Saturday-Sunday games at SunTrust Park and 25,837 for Monday-through-Thursday games.
Based on their current averages, the Braves are on pace to draw about 2.5 million fans for the full season, which would be almost 500,000 more than either of the past two seasons and their most since drawing 2.55 million in 2013. With a modest uptick in the second half, they could reach their highest attendance since 2007, when they drew about 2.75 million.
The Braves’ all-time attendance record is 3.88 million in 1993. The team drew more than 3 million in six seasons in the 1990s.
The Braves return from the All-Star break Friday night for the start of a six-game homestand. They play a three-game weekend series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, followed by a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs, the defending World Series champs.
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