Despite Weather, Braves Sport League-Leading Average Attendance Figures in 2024

Braves Country has shown up to support the Atlanta Braves so far in the 2024 season

If there’s one thing to know about the Atlanta Braves, it’s that Braves Country is real. 

Despite the Atlanta Braves having played less games (eleven) than all but one MLB team, Atlanta’s still doing well on attendance. 

Per Baseball Reference, Atlanta leads all of Major League Baseball with an average of 92% capacity for their home games in 2024, averaging 37,892 fans for their six home games in 2024. 

This is a figure that’s actually down on a per game basis for the same stretch of the calendar in 2023, where the Braves averaged 38,142 fans per game for home contests played through April 12th, 2023. Atlanta had seven home games during that stretch in 2023, a Thursday through Sunday four game series against the San Diego Padres and a Monday through Wednesday against the Cincinnati Reds as part of a seven-game homestand that was entirely night games. 

The comparable period in 2024 includes six games against the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Mets, with two day games, a rainout, and a rain-delayed start. 

But it’s still great news from a capacity perspective, as the Braves are one of only two teams to average a 90% or greater capacity figure through the season’s first two weeks. The San Diego Padres, with an average attendance of 36,863 versus a capacity of 40,209, are at 91% on the season. 

But the most interesting jumps in the figures come from last year’s World Series participants. 

The Texas Rangers, who won the 2023 championship, saw the 2nd largest year-over-year jump in attendance, increasing their average attendance by 40.6% over the same stretch in 2023. The only team to exceed that size of an increase is the team that Texas beat, the Arizona Diamondbacks, who saw their year-over-year average attendance increase by 47.6%. 

At the other extreme of the sample is, as expected, the Oakland Athletics. With the franchise seemingly trying to turn off the fans as they prepare to decamp for Sacramento on an interim basis until their Las Vegas ballpark is ready, it’s no surprise that the already anemic Oakland attendance has dropped even more in 2024. They’ve dropped 43.4% year-over-year, with only 6,438 fans on average in 2024, only 13% of the Oakland Coliseum’s 46,847 capacity. 

And in NL East news, the other noticeable decline is for the New York Mets, who have the double whammy of a poor finish to 2023 and poor weather in 2024 to blame for a 41.2% YoY drop in average attendance. Citi Field, which holds 41,922, has been only 50% full in 2024, with an average of 21,088 fans in attendance at home games through April 11th.