Attendance drop in Milwaukee question.

[Steve Jeltz]

I know this has been discussed some in the "Why did the Braves move twice" thread, but I was hoping to discuss this question a little more in depth. Besides 1964 & 1965, when it was known that the Braves were moving to Atlanta, could someone explain why the Braves had such a sudden decline in attendance? The team had a winning record in all their years in Milwaukee. I know the team was beginning to age in the early sixties, but that can't be the reason. I've read reasons ranging from the novelty of baseball wearing off to Milwaukee not being a baseball town.

What is so unusual, IMO, is that after the World Series win in 1957, attendance fell swiftly in the 1958 pennant winning season. It was around this time that the Packers began their rise to prominence. Could that had something to do with the attendance drop off? Was it the economy? Were fans spoiled by the early success? Or are there some other reasons?

1953 1,826,397 1st of 8 teams in NL attendance,
1954 2,131,388 1st
1955 2,005,836 1st
1956 2,046,331 1st
1957 2,215,404 1st
1958 1,971,101 1st
1959 1,749,112 2nd
1960 1,497,799 4th
1961 1,101,441 5th
1962 766,921 9th of 10
1963 773,018 9th
1964 910,911 5th
1965 555,584 10th

[six4three]

You raise a very interesting question - I don't know, but I'd sure like to find out.

I've read reasons ranging from the novelty of baseball wearing off to Milwaukee not being a baseball town.


I can't believe anyone's seriously even floated that last one. Far too much evidence to the contrary.

[PlayJay]

My dad floated the Packer theory to me when I was a kid, but it didn't make sense. The seasons didn't overlap like they do today.

Another one that seemingly makes more sense would be the debut of Major League ball in the Twin Cities, and the rise of the Twins in the AL, but the numbers (a goodly number of Minnesota families made the long trek to see the Braves in the late '50s, after all) really don't account for the big drop.

I personally think that Braves management kind of took the market for granted. They didn't aggressively market the product, and while it's understandable why they'd think they didn't HAVE to, the fact is, they didn't. The fandom also kind of took the Braves for granted, as well.

Bartolomay and the other new partners immediately were captivated by the PROMISE that the Atlanta market and its environs offered. A bigger, more lucrative market. Milwaukee had two other major league clubs seventy miles to the south, as well as a new one directly to the west that ate up what was a part of their fan base. Hence...

I personally think going down there was a big mistake that took three decades to rectify...and frankly, who has three decades?

[chinese home run]

I think there were a number of mitigating factors in the team's drop in attendance after 1959 or 1960.

First of all, the team's last serious year as a pennant contender was in '59. They did finish well in '60, but the team was starting to show its age in some places and '59 was really the last roll of the dice for the team. Bill Bruton and Johnny Logan were traded away in '61, too.

I think that having major league ball in the Twin Cities in '61 eroded their attendance as well. Early on, when the team was drawing two million fans, Northwest Airlines used to have special flights into Milwaukee so people in the Twin Cities area could go see the team play. The Milwaukee Road train line and the Greyhound bus lines did the same thing, too. Don't forget, the success in Milwaukee had the people in the Twin Cities area panting for major league ball in the mid 1950's. Once the Twins came along in '61, a lot of the fans who went to Milwaukee might have rooted for their new hometown team. After all, they did draw over one million fans in '61.

Having a contending team in Green Bay in the NFL after Lombardi went there in '59 proved that pro football was ready to take some of baseball's thunder away as the number one sport. That wasn't very long after people started to embrace pro football after the Colts-Giants title game in 1958.

And, as the team was starting to slip into the bottom of the first division, Lou Perini reluctantly allowed some Braves' games to be televised in '61- the Braves televised none of their games the first eight seasons the team was in Milwaukee. It's possible that as the team failed to remain a pennant contender- even though they were well over .500- some people that went to the games beforehand might have been content to stay home and watch them on television.

Just my two cents on the matter.

[six4three]

Bartolomay and the other new partners immediately were captivated by the PROMISE that the Atlanta market and its environs offered. A bigger, more lucrative market. Milwaukee had two other major league clubs seventy miles to the south, as well as a new one directly to the west that ate up what was a part of their fan base. Hence...


It was mostly television revenue. Once the Braves were sold to the Chicago syndicate, the move was a done deal no matter what the attendance was.

[NineWorldSeries]

Another one that seemingly makes more sense would be the debut of Major League ball in the Twin Cities, and the rise of the Twins in the AL, but the numbers (a goodly number of Minnesota families made the long trek to see the Braves in the late '50s, after all) really don't account for the big drop.

I would be skeptical that the Twins caused a big drop. Perhaps some fans in Western WI or Northern IA adopted the Twins rather than the Braves as their "home team," but Minneapolis is a solid 5 hour drive from Milwaukee now, and I suspect a longer trek back in the 1960's.

Having lived in Milwaukee for 5 years, I must attribute most of the attendance drop to general baseball apathy. The Packers and Badgers are king in Milwaukee, and many baseball "fans" I met there were White Sox and Cubs rooters, not Brewers ones.

Living a 5 to 10-minute walk from County Stadium (near 55th and Wisconsin Ave.) for a year was fantastic, but it wasn't the kind of electric baseball atmosphere I would expect living just up the hill from an MLB team. We had a fabulous place called "The Baseball Bar" on Blue Mound Ave. which was fun, but ended up shutting down for lack of business. There just wasn't a whole lot of support there. Miller Park seems to have driven attendance back up, though.

[six4three]

I don't know that I'd put too much stake in what happened to anything on Bluemound - County Stadium was built for cars, first and foremost. People drove to the park, so bars and other businesses never got the spillover that they did in other cities.

[Milwaukee T]

I don't think that you can really point to any one thing for the decline. Some of the things that did come into play could be:

Almost right after the World Series victory the rumors began about the team moving; the city population had started to drop by 1960 due to population shifts to the which prompted the city to anex as much as they could to try and keep the numbers and dollars up; that was the time that a lot of the race violence started in the city; construction on the freeway began during that decline; many of the church and the city festivals began to really grow; and the economics of the city were changing as such that many people were needing to save the money or they had started having a lot more money which lead them to go out of the area for vacations.

The Brewers have almost always been a destination for those from upstate or just a hang out for a night for those that live in the city. It was never THE place to be like it was early on with the Braves. That change in feeling started after missing the playoffs for two seasons in a row after being so good so fast. Only as of late has that feeling really started to return.

In response to the business at 55th and Blue Mound: 1) Thank you for spelling the street correctly which few do that actually live there. 2) Which building was your business in? 3) Living off of 59th and Blue Mound I can tell you the excitement is there now. Every game has the neighborhood packed with cars and people. Oddly enough it never seemes to be that way on Saturday nights though.

[THE OX]

I've read that the prohibition on carry-in beer also hurt attendance. Apparently this prohibition was instituted in the late 50s/early 60s, and in conjunction with the decline of the team itself probably had a downward effect on attendance.

[Brownieand45sfan]

Great question.

1) Some posters are saying the team was getting old and wasn't that good. Maybe the finishes bear that out. But, still, you had some big name players. I always like to use Leaderboard appearances as sort of a quick estimate of the "water line" between a good player and a mediocre one. Even as late as '61, the Braves entire staring nine, plus three pitchers, contained players who had once appeared, or would soon appear, on the leaderboard at #1 or in the All-Star game. (Compare that to the total scrubs the Browns had to draw fans with!) This makes the attendance drop so much more confounding.

2) I don't have Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints attendance figures but I would have thought that most Minnesota fans would have been content to save their gas money and watch two Triple A teams with proud histories. I mean the Wilie Mays story alone should have taught them that watching minor league ball could pay dividends. In the 50s, the Millers fielded names like Monte Irvin, Cepeda, Alou, Yastrzemski. Don't have the list of Saints, but as a Dodger farm club i am sure they had some future all-stars too.

3) FWIW, in Pietrusza's Major Leagues: The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Clubs there is a brief mention without footnote of Barthelmay's signaling his interest in moving right upon buying the club in November 1962. Maybe the fans got the signal. But it still does not explain the dips in 58, 59, 60, 61 and 62.

4) Maybe someone who lived in Milwaukee can describe the neighborhood factors. I know this hurt Cards and Browns attendance and made it fait accompli that they would tear down Sportsman's Park rather than remodel ... a location that had been the site for pro baseball in St. Louis almost continuously since 1867.

Just gotta share this Braves item I saw on eBay (not mine!). I think this is kool: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140237269882

In fact, a lot of these pennants make my heart flutter with nostalgia:
http://search.ebay.com/braves-pennant-milwaukee_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQfromZR40





I know this has been discussed some in the "Why did the Braves move twice" thread, but I was hoping to discuss this question a little more in depth. Besides 1964 & 1965, when it was known that the Braves were moving to Atlanta, could someone explain why the Braves had such a sudden decline in attendance? The team had a winning record in all their years in Milwaukee. I know the team was beginning to age in the early sixties, but that can't be the reason. I've read reasons ranging from the novelty of baseball wearing off to Milwaukee not being a baseball town.

What is so unusual, IMO, is that after the World Series win in 1957, attendance fell swiftly in the 1958 pennant winning season. It was around this time that the Packers began their rise to prominence. Could that had something to do with the attendance drop off? Was it the economy? Were fans spoiled by the early success? Or are there some other reasons?

1953 1,826,397 1st of 8 teams in NL attendance,
1954 2,131,388 1st
1955 2,005,836 1st
1956 2,046,331 1st
1957 2,215,404 1st
1958 1,971,101 1st
1959 1,749,112 2nd
1960 1,497,799 4th
1961 1,101,441 5th
1962 766,921 9th of 10
1963 773,018 9th
1964 910,911 5th
1965 555,584 10th

[NineWorldSeries]

In response to the business at 55th and Blue Mound: 1) Thank you for spelling the street correctly which few do that actually live there. 2) Which building was your business in? 3) Living off of 59th and Blue Mound I can tell you the excitement is there now. Every game has the neighborhood packed with cars and people. Oddly enough it never seemes to be that way on Saturday nights though.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I actually owned the Baseball Bar. It was just a place about a block away that we always frequented. It turned into some sort of Chinese restaurant.

[Dougman59]

I've heard many old time mention the elimination of bringing in beer as a reason for declining attendence.

One thing that wasn't mentioned in this discussion is I think around 1958/59 is the period that television really started to take over as the primary source of American entertainment. Why go to the ballpark when you could watch TV shows for free. I think many entertainment venues suffered the same fate about the same time.

I will probably add that may offend some but I have lived in Milwaukee for a good portion of my life but am not from here. This is a blue collar, thrifty town. A friend of mine once call the "coupon cutting society" I don't he was far off the mark. I could see the rise of television having a major effect in this town.

[Brownieand45sfan]

(snip)This is a blue collar, thrifty town. A friend of mine once call the "coupon cutting society" I don't he was far off the mark. I could see the rise of television having a major effect in this town.
Then cable TV and the Internet should be killing Brewer baseball. Are they? I don't know b/c I don't follow current baseball.

[Milwaukee T]

Then cable TV and the Internet should be killing Brewer baseball. Are they? I don't know b/c I don't follow current baseball.

Cable and the web cost money. You are talking about Milwaukee. It is a city with one of the largest number of requests for converter boxes.

People that live in the area the whole time don't see it, but those who happen to wander in or even just move away for a little while will just shake thier heads as to how people of the area love to save a penny. Our house is roughly a mile walk from the Park and people will park our neighborhood full and then walk in rather than pay the eight dollars for parking. That has always been an issue for the Brewers to deal with.

I spoke with some family that were in Milwaukee during the Braves and they stated that the costs went up after the Championship seasons. That upset a lot of people and they simply stayed away. Then the rumors started about the team moving and the people really chose not to come through the construction to go see a game.