By Alfred Branch, Jr.

While it may sting to be a New York Mets fan these days following the team’s epic collapse down the stretch this season, it sure doesn’t hurt to be the Wilpon family, owners of the underachieving franchise. The team, and all of Major League Baseball, saw its overall attendance grow significantly from 2006 to 2007, and the Mets were one of eight teams that broke its own team record for attendance.

Overall, the Mets were third in league attendance in 2007, drawing 3.85 million fans to Shea Stadium, up nearly 14 percent over 2006, according to MLB. Leading the way, and drawing more than 4 million fans for the third straight year, were the New York Yankees with 4.27 million fans, up 1.6 percent over 2006. In second place were the Los Angeles Dodgers, which drew 3.86 million fans in 2007, up 2.6 percent from the previous year.

For all 30 MLB teams combined, total attendance reached 79.5 million in 2007, up 4.5 percent from 76 million in 2006. The Yankees, Dodgers and Mets all set new franchise attendance records, and the other five were the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals . . .

2007 MLB Attendance Report

2007 – Attendance Home Road Overall
RNK TEAM GMS TOTAL AVG PCT GMS AVG PCT GMS AVG PCT
1 NY Yankees 81 4,271,867 52,739 91.8 80 37,227 83.4 161 45,031 88.1
2 LA Dodgers 81 3,856,753 47,614 85.0 81 33,252 74.0 162 40,433 80.1
3 NY Mets 81 3,853,955 47,579 82.9 81 35,885 79.5 162 41,732 81.4
4 St. Louis 81 3,552,166 43,853 93.6 81 33,019 75.5 162 38,436 84.9
5 LA Angels 81 3,365,632 41,551 92.2 81 31,208 68.0 162 36,379 80.0
6 Chicago Cubs 81 3,252,462 40,153 97.7 81 36,053 80.3 162 38,103 88.6
7 San Francisco 81 3,223,202 39,792 95.8 80 35,579 77.3 161 37,699 86.1
8 Philadelphia 81 3,108,331 38,374 88.2 81 32,837 72.0 162 35,605 79.9
9 Detroit 81 3,047,124 37,618 93.8 81 30,849 68.3 162 34,234 80.3
10 Houston 81 3,020,405 37,288 91.1 81 32,683 73.3 162 34,986 81.8
11 Boston 81 2,970,755 36,675 101.4 81 38,641 81.5 162 37,658 90.1
12 Milwaukee 81 2,869,144 35,421 83.5 81 32,337 73.0 162 33,879 78.1
13 San Diego 81 2,790,074 34,445 81.0 81 34,013 73.2 162 34,229 77.0
14 Atlanta 81 2,745,203 33,891 67.7 81 33,821 75.3 162 33,856 71.3
15 Chicago Sox 81 2,684,395 33,140 81.6 81 29,138 65.6 162 31,139 73.3
16 Seattle 81 2,672,409 32,992 69.1 79 32,938 72.6 160 32,965 70.8
17 Texas 79 2,353,862 29,795 60.7 80 28,787 66.9 159 29,288 63.6
18 Toronto 81 2,360,648 29,143 57.7 81 31,228 68.3 162 30,186 62.7
19 Colorado 81 2,327,846 28,738 57.0 81 33,750 74.1 162 31,244 65.1
20 Arizona 81 2,316,507 28,598 58.3 81 34,387 74.6 162 31,493 66.2
21 Cleveland 80 2,275,911 28,448 65.6 81 29,453 66.7 161 28,954 66.2
22 Minnesota 81 2,296,383 28,350 58.2 81 30,877 69.9 162 29,614 63.8
23 Baltimore 80 2,164,822 27,060 56.2 81 30,547 66.4 161 28,814 61.2
24 Cincinnati 81 2,056,453 25,388 60.4 80 33,799 76.1 161 29,567 68.4
25 Washington 81 1,961,579 24,217 53.5 81 31,417 68.3 162 27,817 61.0
26 Oakland 81 1,921,844 23,726 54.3 81 32,709 71.4 162 28,217 63.1
27 Pittsburgh 79 1,749,142 22,141 57.7 81 34,880 76.9 160 28,590 68.2
28 Kansas City 81 1,616,867 19,961 48.9 81 29,057 64.4 162 24,509 57.1
29 Tampa Bay 81 1,389,031 17,148 40.7 81 31,591 68.2 162 24,370 55.1
30 Florida 81 1,370,511 16,919
 46.6 81 31,313 67.7 162 24,116 58.4

Source ESPN.com