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2008 NPB Attendance Numbers

NPB Tracker Archives

2008 NPB Attendance Numbers

by Patrick Newman (Nov 28, 2008)

The excellent Pro Baseball Attendance Ranking site has posted the NPB's 2008 attendance numbers, and I've translated them into English here. Attendance was up about 2% in 2008, and four teams drew over 2m fans.

Team20082007change% change
Hanshin2,976,7543,144,180-167,426-5.32%
Yomiuri2,876,2742,911,358-35,084-1.21%
Chunichi2,427,8052,390,53237,2731.56%
Softbank2,250,0442,307,160-57,116-2.48%
Nippon Ham1,873,9311,833,05440,8772.23%
Chiba Lotte1,601,6321,558,43043,2022.77%
Seibu1,413,5831,093,471320,11229.27%
Hiroshima1,390,6801,129,061261,61923.17%
Yakult1,281,7141,333,231-51,517-3.86%
Orix1,266,7651,137,186129,57911.39%
Rakuten1,149,0611,117,36931,6922.84%
Yokohama1,129,9541,231,997-102,043-8.28%
Total21,638,19721,187,029451,1682.13% 

Seibu, Orix, and Hiroshima all improved on the field and were rewarded with higher attendance. 2008 was also the last season for Hiroshima Civic Stadium, which probably helped the Carp's attendance as well. Hanshin's attendance took a dip but they still led the league overall. Yokohama's drop is likely attributable to the fact that they spent another year in the Central League's basement.

Here are the per game averages:

TeamAvg. AttendanceCapacity% full
Hanshin41,34446,22989%
Yomiuri39,94846,31486%
Chunichi33,72038,41488%
Softbank31,25135,77387%
Nippon Ham26,02742,12662%
Chiba Lotte22,24530,01174%
Seibu19,63333,22959%
Hiroshima19,31531,98460%
Yakult17,80236,01149%
Orix17,59436,47748%
Rakuten15,95922,18772%
Yokohama15,69430,00052%
averages25,04435,73070%

The capacity figure may be a little misleading as every team except Lotte played home games in 2008 away from it's primary home stadium. Hanshin, for example, played 9 games at Osaka's Kyocera Dome, which is smaller than their primary home stadium Koshien.


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