The Marlins Are Responsible For 40 Percent Of MLB's Attendance Drop

Today's Tom Verducci column in Sports Illustrated contains a very sad bit of information about everyone's favorite laughingstock of a franchise: the Miami Marlins.

Baseball attendance is down 2.9 percent, but the Miami Marlins alone account for 40 percent of the decline in tickets sold, and the weather in many places has been brutal. Much has been made about low attendance at interleague games this week, with the Mets and Yankees, for instance, failing to attract their usual sellouts.

This is what happens when a franchise absolutely guts its roster just one year after managing to successfully coax some of its historically apathetic fanbase through the turnstiles with a new stadium and a few free-agent signings. Last year, the Marlins sold an average of 27,000 tickets per game, but this year that number is down to 17,893. Here's were we remind you that the city of Miami is on the hook for $2.4 billion in public financing because of the new stadium, a sum that it will be paying off until 2048.

[ SI]