Originally Posted by
Maxbialystock
You are so full of it.
Total attendance absolutely and irrefutably is down.
Average attendance this year (32,366), last year (32,989), and 2022 (32,408) has been consistent and below what it was before covid.
In the five seasons before covid it was 36,564 in 2015 (when the Sox finished last in the AL East), 36,486 in 2016 (when the Sox won the AL East), 36,020 in 2017 (when the Sox won the AL East), 35,747 in 2018 (when the Sox won the AL East, the WS and more games, 108, in the regular season than in any other season in Sox history), and 36,106 in 2019 (when the Sox did not make the postseason despite the biggest payroll in MLB).
Now, hold onto your seats, sports fans.
In 2012 average attendance was 37,567, which could have been doctored, but not by much. That was Bobby Valentine's monster team, 69-93, and you couldn't keep Sox fans away from Fenway. They had Pedey, Big Papi, AGon, Aviles, Ross, Nava, Saltalamacchia, Lester, Tazawa, Buchholz, Miller, et al. They stunk to high heaven, but the stands were full.
Six years later came the 2018 Sox, the best Sox team in history with 108 wins plus an 11-3 record in the postseason and of course the WS. They were loaded with talent: MVP Mookie, JDM, Beni, Bogey, JBJ, Holt, Pearce, Moreland, Sale, Price, Porcello, ERod, Kimbrel, Wright, Eovaldi, et al.
But the 2018 best Sox team ever averaged 2000 fewer fans per game than the 2012 Sox, easily the worst Sox team in the JH era.