Rob Manfred is worried. The commissioner of baseball has a lot on his plate at the moment, as he juggles concerns about pace of play, a lack of in-game action, and the myriad other issues that he feels are affecting MLB. But one of his chief anxieties, apparently, is attendance—specifically, the league-wide decline of fans pushing through turnstiles. Via Sports Business Journal’s Eric Fisher, from the recently concluded MLB Owners Meetings:
As Manfred notes, total attendance is down nearly 10% from last season—from 29,790,956 at this time in 2017 to 27,792,892 in ‘18. Per-game attendance has also dipped, falling by nearly 2,000 fans.