SB Nation site Beyond the Boxscore did a fairly comprehensive look at the 2009 attendance for the American League and how it related to wins. The interesting thing is that while we all know that the A's are last in the AL in overall attendance in 09, they're also the only team in the AL West averaging more in attendance per win than their actual attendance. Yet that's not exactly anything to brag about because they're also the only team averaging under 20,000 per game.
Here is what they say about the AL West:
AL West - It's a shame that this division has less competition, more money, better GMs, and worse attendance. It's the AFC South of Baseball. I suppose its unfair to say that, as Seattle up until recently had Bill Bavasi which pretty much undoes all positive goodwill in a 15-state region. Of particular note is not only how bad Oakland is this year, but how apathetic OaklandFan is as well.
It makes me wonder if A's fans have completely gone away or if this team is just that dependent on Mr. Casual Fan. I mean the A's have worse attendance than Kansas City and Baltimore, teams that have been bad for a very long time and have only continued that trend. Or is there something to what Lewis Wolff has been saying about the stadium being a big draw? I will say that both Kansas City and Baltimore have much better stadiums than Oakland. And the thing is, the A's are, IMO, a team that is right on the cusp of being good again. I would not doubt if this is the low year for this team.
Maybe someone else can enlighten me on this. Course I know this is going to bring the same old cries that Lewis Wolff has systematically tried to kill attendance. But I'm truly baffled by it. Especially since the team became infinitely more interesting, at least to me, since they dealt Matt Holliday.
Here is the conclusion Beyond the Boxscore comes to:
Overall, the study shows that for the most part, great teams in big cities have incredible attendance. The surprises are that several cities have teams they don't deserve, including Florida with its famously bored audience, and the KC Faithful with its famously horrible team management.
