Orioles end season with best attendance since 2015, but only 19th in MLB

More fans flocked to Camden Yards this year than in any season since 2015. But the Orioles still rank in the bottom half of Major League Baseball teams in attendance.

Baltimore capped its home regular season schedule Sunday with a sold-out crowd of more than 44,000 fans. It was the eighth sellout of a campaign that saw a significant boost in attendance after the Orioles’ breakout 2023 season in which they won 101 games.

In total, more than 2.28 million fans came to the yard to watch the Orioles — up about 340,000 from last season. It marks the first time the Orioles have gone over 2 million since 2015 when that team also drew 2.28 million fans. The attendance in 2015 was only 73 fans higher than 2024.

More than 28,100 fans attended the average Orioles contest this season, an increase of more than 4,200 per game. That uptick is drastically higher than the average in MLB; however, the average MLB contest in 2024 has drawn about 29,200 fans — more than 1,000 above the Orioles’ per-game attendance.

The Orioles’ 17.8% increase in attendance is the third-highest in MLB, behind only the Kansas City Royals (26.9%) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (20.1%). The Royals are in the American League wild-card hunt amid one of the biggest turnarounds in MLB history, while the Diamondbacks are coming off a season in which they went to the World Series.

However, despite the impressive uptick in Orioles attendance, it’s still below average. Baltimore ranks 19th in MLB in per-game attendance despite having a better record than 11 of the teams ahead of them. Of course, market size plays a significant role in attendance, although it’s far from the only factor.

The San Diego Padres are in a similar market size as Baltimore yet have a per-game attendance of about 41,000, which ranks fourth in MLB. St. Louis isn’t a major market, yet the Cardinals rank seventh in MLB with just under 36,000 fans per game. The Milwaukee Brewers, an organization that former Orioles Chairman and CEO John Angelos once used as a comparison, is averaging more than 31,000 fans per game despite being in a smaller market than Baltimore.

More fans are flocking to Camden Yards this year. So why is Orioles attendance still below MLB average?

“I don’t think it’s a question of us getting caught up in where we rank with the rest of the league. It’s more about getting back to levels that this ballpark has seen in the past,” T.J. Brightman, the Orioles’ senior vice president and chief revenue officer, said in July. “I do believe the club, as we continue to play well, will see attendance approaching levels that push us well over 2.5 million fans per season.”

The last time Camden Yards welcomed more than 2.5 million fans was 2005. That was the Washington Nationals’ inaugural season, as the Orioles’ neighbor has at least partially contributed to their lower attendance figures.

Orioles attendance was abysmally low from 2019 through 2022 — the four seasons of Baltimore’s rebuild after general manager Mike Elias took over the front office — because of the poor on-field product and the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, though, as Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and the Orioles began to emerge as one of baseball’s best teams, attendance started to rise. The club’s increase of about 7,000 fans per game resulted in a staggering 41% year-over-year increase.

Even so, despite hosting the AL’s best team, Camden Yards didn’t draw 2 million fans in 2023. That’s because MLB attendance tends to lag, meaning fans respond more the year after a club’s first season of success than during it. In July, Brightman said reserved season-ticket packages had increased 35% year over year.

The last time attendance increased in three consecutive years was 2011 to 2013 during the beginning of the Buck Showalter era. Attendance jumped again in 2014 to 2.46 million when the Orioles won the AL East and made it to the AL Championship Series — the last time Baltimore has won a playoff game.

Two factors correlated with attendance are winning and spending. The Orioles have achieved the first — and could sweeten the deal in October with a postseason run — but have yet to do the second. Under new owner David Rubenstein, though, there’s a greater potential for spending than under Angelos, although Rubenstein has made no assurances about boosting payroll.

In April, when attendance was also up 27%, Rubenstein remarked during an event in Washington about how attendance hadn’t jumped as much as he hoped.

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“Even though we’ve got a great new owner of the team,” Rubenstein joked, “and Cal Ripken back, we haven’t been able to dramatically increase attendance.”

After several Orioles games this year with raucous crowds, players remarked about how the atmosphere felt like it was the postseason. And playoff baseball will almost certainly return to Baltimore this year as the Orioles are in position to be the AL’s top wild-card team and host a best-of-three series in the first round.

Infielder Jordan Westburg, playing in his first MLB game Sunday since he fractured his hand July 31, said it’s “super important” to play those wild-card games in Baltimore rather than on the road.

“You saw the turnout today for the fans on a Sunday day game. They love baseball here. They love the Orioles,” he said. “As a club, we just want to put together a good product for those fans. We want to play good baseball. We want to win ballgames, and we do want to get back here because I do think there’s a home-field advantage aspect when we’re here in Camden.”