Brewers attendance drop is among the steepest in MLB, and the chief cause might not be what you think

Even as the smallest market in Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers have routinely drawn crowds like a big-timer.

They’ve been 10th or higher in MLB attendance in each of their competitive seasons: 2017, 2018, 2019 and even 2021, when COVID-19 meddled with ballpark capacities for the first half of the year.

But a gaze across the seating bowl during games this year will catch a lot more forest green than usual.

The Brewers entered Wednesday 14th in MLB, drawing 30,359 fans per game — a drop of 15.9% compared to 2019 (the last season of “normal” attendance regulations throughout the year) and 14% compared to 2018. The former number is the seventh-biggest drop in MLB and the latter is ninth, outpacing most teams that have maintained a similar plane of competitiveness in that window.

Major League Baseball, still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and already seeing a decline in attendance each year from 2015 to 2019, has pushed about 5.2% fewer fans through its turnstiles this year than in 2019 and 6.7% fewer than 2018.

So why is Milwaukee worse off than most MLB teams?