The Braves will break Truist Park’s single-season attendance record with a month to spare.
After reaching 2.6 million in home attendance for the season Wednesday, the Braves are on the cusp of surpassing their 2019 total of 2,655,100, the highest in Truist Park’s first five seasons.
Based on advance ticket sales and barring a rainout, the record will be broken at Friday night’s game against the Miami Marlins, Braves President and CEO Derek Schiller said.
And with a month of this season remaining, the team is on pace to top 3 million in attendance for the first time since the 2000 season at Turner Field.
“We’ve seen fantastic support all year long,” Schiller said, “and all the indicators are that it’s going to be a great end to the season.”
This season’s crowds can be attributed to several factors: momentum from last year’s World Series championship, excitement generated by the team’s 57-24 record since June 1, a compelling National League East race with the New York Mets and the pregame and postgame attraction of The Battery Atlanta adjacent to the ballpark.
“I think part of it also is the likeability of this team,” Schiller said. “It’s a fun team to follow. We’ve signed a lot of young players (to long-term contracts). I think there’s a lot of excitement around that alone, and there’s an expectation, anticipation and hopefulness that this (success) is going to continue for a long time to come. So it’ll be a good team for years, we hope. And I think it’s really about the overall experience.”
The Braves plan to celebrate the breaking of Truist Park’s attendance record by giving fans in the stadium Friday a free Chick-fil-A sandwich (redeemable through the Chick-fil-A app at participating locations starting Saturday) and a commemorative ticket digital collectible (in the form of a non-fungible token, or NFT, through the MLB Ballpark app and Candy Digital).
Credit: Atlanta Braves
Credit: Atlanta Braves
After this weekend’s three-game series against the Marlins, the Braves will have three regular-season home series remaining: a three-game set against the Philadelphia Phillies on Sept. 16-18, three games against the Washington Nationals on Sept. 19-21 and three games against the Mets on Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Through Wednesday, the first-place Mets (83-48) led the second-place Braves (80-51) by three games in the NL East.
“It’s fitting we’ll end with the Mets,” Schiller said, “because we probably should have sellouts for all three of those games and surpass 3.1 million tickets.”
MLB defines attendance as tickets sold.
The Braves have reached 3 million in home attendance six times in franchise history: 1992 and 1993 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 at Turner Field. Those stadiums had 10,800 and 8,400 more seats, respectively, than 41,184-seat Truist Park.
The Braves’ all-time single-season attendance record is 3,884,720 in 1993. That record can’t be challenged at Truist Park, given the difference in seating capacities.
Through Wednesday, the Braves were averaging 38,325 fans per home game this season, ranking fourth among the 30 MLB teams behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees.
TRUIST PARK ATTENDANCE
The Braves’ attendance year-by-year since moving to Truist Park (originally named SunTrust Park):
2017: 2,505,252
2018: 2,555,781
2019: 2,655,100
2020: No fans in attendance because of COVID-19
2021: 2,300,247 (capacity limited for first month of season)
2022: 2,606,084 (through Wednesday, after which 13 home games remained)
About the Author
