May 3, 2005 [LINK]

Attendance at RFK: solid

An average of 30,951 fans attended the twelve Nationals home games at RFK Stadium during their first month, ranking 13th among the 30 major league teams. This was slightly less than the Baltimore Orioles, who have an established fan base and a fancy new(ish) stadium. Perhaps more significant is how attendance for Baltimore and Washington combined (63,256) compares to other multi-team metropolitan areas, behind Los Angeles (89,836) and New York (82,226), but ahead of Chicago (60,232) and San Francisco Bay (60,035). See Washington Post. (But how many of those are just "phantom fans"?) The 40,000+ attendance at Saturday's game is all the more remarkable because there was also a basketball game at the MCI Center; the Washington Wizards are in the playoffs for the first time since they changed their name from the "Bullets." On my way into Washington I saw more folks on the Metro wearing Wizards logos than Nationals logos, but that was because I went early. Some sports fanatics, such as Rudi Riet, made it to both games!