One MLB team increased attendance by almost 80%. But there's a catch.

The biggest turnaround story in MLB attendance this season belongs to one of the clubs with the biggest on-field flip — but the better record doesn’t tell the full story.

The Tampa Bay Rays have increased their per-game attendance 77.3% year-over-year, but last season, they played in the 11,026-seat spring training stadium George M. Steinbrenner Field after Tropicana Field was damaged by Hurricane Milton.

Now, the Rays are back home at 25,025-seat Tropicana Field, which is 127% larger than Steinbrenner Field. However, they are still pulling higher numbers than their last season at Tropicana.

In 2024, Tampa Bay averaged 16,515 fans per game. This year, the ballclub is up 4.3% to 17,225. That would still be the sixth-biggest increase across MLB in 2026.

The Rays finished fourth in the American League East in both 2024 and 2025. This season, they are leading the division with just a few weeks left to play.

Biggest MLB attendance gains, 2025-26

The next biggest jump in attendance is more natural.

The Chicago White Sox are up 36.4% from 2025, vaulting from 17,849 per game to 24,353. However, a new venue can’t explain the sharp rise.

Instead, the club has pulled a full-on rebound, going from last in the AL Central to leading the division this year. Plus, Japanese sensation Munetaka Murakami has given the city’s south side team a star power boost.

The team has also tapped into promotional nights to get fans into the ballpark — for instance, a Pope Hat giveaway drew a sellout crowd of 38,113.

On the other end of the spectrum sit the New York Mets, who turned MLB’s largest payroll into cellar dwellers in the National League East.

It’s worth noting that last season was a Citi Field record with a 36.7% increase from 2024. However, early on-field woes turned into season-long struggles and New York has averaged 33,819 fans per game in 2026, down from 39,316 last season.

And despite the dip, the Mets are performing better at the gate than they did in a 101-win 2022 season, when they averaged 31,663 fans per game.

The other double-digit drops belong to the Kansas City Royals and the Houston Astros, who are down 11.1% and 10.4%, respectively.

Houston is on pace for its lowest winning percentage since 2020, although they are managing to lead the AL West.

The Royals, meanwhile, reached the postseason in 2024 and averaged 21,590 fans per game the following season, their highest since 2017.

This year, Kansas City tied for the worst record in baseball at the All-Star break and has failed to do much since.

League-wide, MLB is averaging 29,524 fans per game, per a pull of Baseball-Reference.com data on Sept. 1.

That’s just about steady with 2024 and 2025 figures and is up 11.1% compared to 2022.

It’s also an improvement of 4.7% from the last pre-pandemic season of 2019.

However, the league still hasn’t reached its all-time high of 32,696 fans per game set in 2007. MLB is also on trend to miss the 30,000 mark, something it has not hit since 2016.

There is a chance, though, for the league to break that barrier as we have over three weeks left in the season. And the Wild Card race is still up for grabs, with nine teams vying for the AL’s three spots and seven duking it out on the NL side.

Here’s the full list of attendance changes from 2025 to 2026 as recorded via Baseball-Reference.com on Sept. 1:

Can’t see the table? View here.

Methodology: Team by team attendance data comes from Baseball-Reference.com. The figures for 2026 are partial seasons through data obtained vis Baseball-Reference.com on Sept. 1. League attendance data since 2000 is also from Baseball-Reference.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: One MLB team increased attendance by almost 80%. But there’s a catch.

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