A weekly update on the business of the Braves:
Attendance: A month into the season, the Braves rank 25th among Major League Baseball's 30 teams in attendance per home game, according to figures compiled by baseball-reference.com.
Through 16 games at Turner Field, the Braves have drawn an average of 22,321 fans per game.
One National League team — the Miami Marlins — and four American League teams have averaged fewer fans per home game than the Braves this season.
The Braves have averaged 33,378 for Friday through Sunday games and 15,687 for Monday through Thursday games.
Their largest crowd was 46,279 for the April 10 home opener against the Mets, a Friday night game. The smallest was 12,595 on April 29 against the Nationals, a Wednesday night game.
The Braves’ smallest crowd at this point last season was 16,055.
Braves attendance is down an average of 6,137 per game compared with the first 16 home games of last season, the largest drop in MLB. However, about half of that year-to-year decline can be attributed to having played two weekend series at home so far this season, compared to three at this point last season.
The Dodgers lead MLB in attendance at 47,618 per game. Three other teams — the Cardinals, Giants and Yankees — also are averaging more than 40,000.
(MLB’s announced attendance figures are tickets sold, not the number of people actually in the stadium.)
The Braves’ next home game is May 19 against the Tampa Bay Rays.
TV ratings: The Braves faced some formidable competition in the local TV ratings Sunday afternoon and Tuesday night — Hawks second-round playoff games.
On Sunday, the Braves-Reds game posted a 1.0 rating in the Atlanta TV market, while the Hawks-Wizards game drew a 5.9 rating here. On Tuesday, the Braves-Phillies game drew a 1.5 rating locally, compared with 7.1 for the Hawks-Wizards game. The rating is the percentage of the market’s TV households tuned in on average.
