After a slow start to the season, it looks like fans from across the country returned to ballparks and tuned into the sport on various streaming services.
Major League Baseball estimates that league revenue will surpass $10 billion for the first time since 2019, the league’s chief revenue officer Noah Garden tells Forbes. “I think it’s safe to say we’re going to be higher,” he says. “The final numbers, when they come in, we’ll see. But it will certainly be over ($10 billion).”
Noah Garden told Forbes in a wide-ranging interview that the exclusive streaming deals with technology giant Apple and NBCUniversal’s Peacock Network helped the league “adapt” and also get some added revenue. Forbes reported those deals would pay MLB roughly $115 million annually.
However, Garden adds, MLB is now “peaking” as historic home run chases bring fans to the ballpark.
Garden added that MLB is now “peaking” as historic home run chases brought fans to the ballpark in the final weeks of the summer right before the playoffs. lMLB projects that attendance figures will finish the 2022 season at 95% of 2019’s figures. Back in 2019, Major League Baseball teams drew a total of 68.5 million spectators. As reported earlier this month, Major League Baseball set an attendance record during the last weekend of the 2022 regular season.
On Friday, September 30, 2022, the total attendance across Baseball was the best Friday for Major League Baseball since June 21, 2019 (528,179). The total attendance on Friday night was 526,517.
It was the highest September Friday since the final weekend of 2014 (9/26). Additionally, at 35,101, it was the highest average attendance on a September Friday since 2008 (9/26).
Will the changes in rules next year, such as the implementation of the pitch clock and the ban on the shift, have another positive effect on the revenue of Major League Baseball? We will see…
