True blue fans
The Dodgers are No. 1 in our fan support index, while the Rays wallow at the bottom
Walter O’Malley moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958, enraging the millions of fans he left behind in Brooklyn and Greater New York City. Those abandoned supporters could do little more than console themselves with gallows humor.
A favorite joke involved an astonished Dodgers fan who found himself in the same room with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and O’Malley. He had a gun, but only two bullets. Which of the notorious villains should he shoot?
Every true blue Brooklynite knew the answer.
O’Malley. Twice.
But the last laugh would belong to the Dodgers owner. Attendance had been on the wane in Brooklyn — failing to reach 1.3 million in any season after 1949 — and O’Malley anticipated an upswing on the West Coast. His dreams were fulfilled to the greatest extent possible, with the Dodgers eventually attaining a once-unthinkable milestone. They exceeded 3 million in single-season home attendance in 1978, becoming the first team ever to do so.
The O’Malley family sold the franchise in 1998, yet the success story continues to this day. The Dodgers led the majors in attendance last season with a final count of 3,974,309, nearly half a million ahead of runner-up St. Louis. Los Angeles has now topped 3 million in 32 separate seasons, including every year since 2012.
The latter streak, of course, is coming to an end as Covid-19 leaves the 2020 attendance derby snarled in an improbable 30-way tie at zero.
But 2020’s goose egg can’t detract from the Dodgers’ box-office superiority, as reflected by their fan support index (FSI), which is consistently among the highest in the majors.
FSI tracks the annual relationship between a team’s attendance and its victory total. It is calculated in three steps: (1) A team’s home attendance for a given season is divided by its number of victories, both home and road. (2) The subsequent figure is divided by the average attendance per victory for all big-league teams. (3) The result is multiplied by 100.
The Dodgers, for example, won 106 games last year while amassing their attendance of 3,974,309. That works out to 37,493 fans per win, which is 32.9% better than 2019’s big-league average of 28,204 fans per win. Hence the Dodgers’ FSI of 132.9.
FSI, as you can see, is designed to quantify a franchise’s relative level of fan enthusiasm. A score of 100 indicates support that is commensurate with the team’s quality on the field. A higher number suggests unusual box-office strength, while a two-digit FSI (yes, that’s you, Tampa Bay) is a sign of lethargy.
The largest attendance doesn’t automatically bring the FSI crown for a given season. The Dodgers finished fourth in FSI last year, despite easily outpacing all competitors at the turnstiles. The Rockies (149.5), Angels (148.9), and Cardinals (135.6) all fared better than the Dodgers when attendance was compared to on-field performance.
Let’s take a look at three facets of the fan support index, concentrating on the period from 2005 to 2019, a 15-year span in which all 30 franchises stayed put in their current cities.
Long-term support rankings
The Dodgers are the unmistakable pacesetters in fan support over the long haul. I averaged each team’s FSIs for all 15 seasons, and Los Angeles easily finished first with a mark of 136.1, reflecting consistent support that is 36.1% above the norm. The runner-up Giants are more than four points back.
Sixteen teams are above the benchmark of 100, which means they’re doing better at the gate than a typical team with the same record. The other 14 franchises are underwater in terms of support, with the Rays wallowing at the very bottom:
1. Los Angeles Dodgers, average FSI of 136.1
2. San Francisco Giants, average FSI of 131.7
3. New York Yankees, average FSI of 127.9
4. St. Louis Cardinals, average FSI of 126.3
5. Chicago Cubs, average FSI of 125.1
6. Los Angeles Angels, average FSI of 121.3
7. Colorado Rockies, average FSI of 114.8
8. Philadelphia Phillies, average FSI of 112.1
9. (tie) Boston Red Sox, average FSI of 110.5
9. (tie) New York Mets, average FSI of 110.5
11. Milwaukee Brewers, average FSI of 109.1
12. Detroit Tigers, average FSI of 106.1
13. San Diego Padres, average FSI of 101.8
14. Texas Rangers, average FSI of 101.2
15. Houston Astros, average FSI of 101.0
16. Minnesota Twins, average FSI of 100.7
17. Atlanta Braves, average FSI of 96.8
18. (tie) Seattle Mariners, average FSI of 95.0
18. (tie) Toronto Blue Jays, average FSI of 95.0
20. Washington Nationals, average FSI of 94.6
21. Baltimore Orioles, average FSI of 92.2
22. Arizona Diamondbacks, average FSI of 90.3
23. Cincinnati Reds, average FSI of 89.4
24. Chicago White Sox, average FSI of 86.0
25. Pittsburgh Pirates, average FSI of 83.8
26. Kansas City Royals, average FSI of 82.5
27. Cleveland Indians, average FSI of 69.9
28. Oakland Athletics, average FSI of 67.7
29. Miami Marlins, average FSI of 66.5
30. Tampa Bay Rays, average FSI of 58.1
Single-season leaders
The Dodgers reign as baseball’s long-term champions for fan support, but the year-by-year rankings still demonstrate considerable churn.
Nine different franchises have worn the FSI crown during the past 15 seasons. The teams with multiple titles are the Dodgers (four), the Giants (three), and the Cubs (two).
Here’s a rundown of the annual FSI leaders:
2005: Los Angeles Dodgers, FSI of 164.6
2006: Chicago Cubs, FSI of 151.2
2007: Los Angeles Dodgers, FSI of 143.9
2008: New York Yankees, FSI of 149.2
2009: New York Mets, FSI of 149.8
2010: Los Angeles Dodgers, FSI of 148.1
2011: Minnesota Twins, FSI of 166.4
2012: Chicago Cubs, FSI of 153.4
2013: San Francisco Giants, FSI of 145.6
2014: Boston Red Sox, FSI of 137.2
2015: Los Angeles Dodgers, FSI of 134.8
2016: Los Angeles Angels, FSI of 135.2
2017: San Francisco Giants, FSI of 172.6
2018: San Francisco Giants, FSI of 150.9
2019: Colorado Rockies, FSI of 149.5
Single-season cellar dwellers
It’s a question that has troubled the great minds of baseball for years: What is wrong with Florida?
The Marlins have won a couple of World Series, and the Rays consistently field one of the best squads in the majors. Yet attendance in Miami and Tampa Bay is pathetic. The two Florida franchises were the only teams to draw fewer than 1.3 million fans last year, which explains why they were 2019’s tailenders in FSI.
Tampa Bay, in fact, has finished last in the support rankings in eight of the past 15 seasons, while the Marlins have sunk to the bottom four times.
Here’s a breakdown of the last-place finishers in FSI:
2005: Tampa Bay Devil Rays, FSI of 55.3
2006: Florida Marlins, FSI of 47.7
2007: Florida Marlins, FSI of 59.0
2008: Florida Marlins, FSI of 49.1
2009: Florida Marlins, FSI of 55.7
2010: Oakland Athletics, FSI of 58.2
2011: Tampa Bay Rays, FSI of 55.6
2012: Tampa Bay Rays, FSI of 56.3
2013: Tampa Bay Rays, FSI of 53.9
2014: Cleveland Indians, FSI of 55.7
2015: Tampa Bay Rays, FSI of 53.0
2016: Cleveland Indians, FSI of 56.2
2017: Tampa Bay Rays, FSI of 52.4
2018: Tampa Bay Rays, FSI of 44.8
2019: Tampa Bay Rays, FSI of 43.5