2009 can be known as the year that the Dodgers toppled the Yankees… at least in attendance figures.
For the first time in six years, the Yankees didn’t lead the majors in total yearly attendance. They came in second. The top honor goes to the Los Angeles Dodgers who had 3,761,661 go through the turnstiles at Dodger Stadium.
Number 3 shouldn’t be a big surprise. Given their World Championship status and relatively large market, the Philadelphia Phillies grabbed that spot.
As for Chicago teams. the Cubs ranked sixth and the White Sox came in sixteenth in 2009.
Overall, Major League Baseball had a slight downturn in attendance from 2008 (6.6% less according to MLB.com) but with an attendance of 73,418,479, MLB is spinning it that this year is the fifth most attended year all time. Yay, Baseball.
For those attendance stat geeks, The Biz of Baseball does a good job of breaking it all down for us. Their pdf looking back at this past decade of MLB attendance team-by-team is quite detailed.