Is MLB attendance increasing in 2023? Crowd sizes at games being affected by new rules

MLB attendance continues to trend upward. The just-passed Father's Day Weekend was a boom at the turnstiles for major league teams, as fans came out in full force at ballparks across the country.

MLB attendance averaged 35,299 per game for the 45 contests played over the three-day weekend from Friday to Sunday, with 1,558,440 fans showing up at their nearest ballpark. It was the largest weekend total before the calendar turned to July since 1,603,962 fans turned out for 46 games played on the weekend of June 16-18, 2017.

Sunday, June 18, saw an MLB attendance of 603,303 fans, which was the best-attended Sunday of games since Sept. 28, 2008, when 612,669 fans turned out. The average attendance this past Sunday was 37,706, which was the largest average attendance on a Sunday since 38,174 fans turned out on average on June 15, 2014.

The past two weekends have been particularly good at ballparks, as it was the first consecutive weekend with at least 1.5 million fans turning up since August 2017.

MLB attendance spike is projected to hold for entire season

Fans cheer after the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Toronto Blue Jays at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on June 15, 2023

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred delivered remarks at last week's owners meetings in New York, noting that the league got off to a strong start to the season attendance-wise, and the numbers project to hold for the entirety of the 2023 campaign.

In 2022, before MLB made a number of well-publicized rule changes with an eye towards jazzing up the game, total attendance for major league games was 64.56 million, the lowest figure since 1997, the year before the Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks were added to the league.

The Oakland Athletics, whose fans are staying away in droves as the team plots a move to Las Vegas, are drawing an MLB-low of 9,021 fans per game.