In Winning Year, White Sox Attendance Dropping

Maury Brown's Biz of Baseball just released its findings on 2008 Major League Baseball attendance trends. And guess what? If your team wins, attendance goes up. If your team loses, it goes down. That's pretty elementary stuff, but it'd be nice if those owners who like to merely pocket their revenue sharing money (cough *Jeffrey Loria* cough) got the message.

Then again, it's not that simple. Major League Baseball attendance as a whole is down, as the fortunes of the losing teams have slightly outweighed attendance boosts from teams like Rays. But what's most complicated is the White Sox -- even in a winning year with an MVP candidate, U.S. Cellular Field attendance is slipping:

The White Sox, who have been sitting atop the AL Central, are seeing a decline from an average of 33,141 at this point last season to 30,831 in 2008, a drop of 7.49 percent.

What gives? The few times I've been to U.S. Cellular, it's always been an enjoyable experience, and though it doesn't have the tourist-y cachet of Wrigley Field, it's comfortable, clean, the food is great, and the product on the field is even better. So, um, why aren't people going?

Maybe the White Sox are still feeling the effects of their post-World Series attendance boost level out. Maybe the economy is factoring in. Both are unfortunate for the front office, which has kept the current team competitive at the cost of its future solely to keep the fans interested. If 2008 isn't good enough, what is?