Hooting, hollering, things of that nature. These activities have found fertile ground at T-Mobile Park this spring, whether the tarps have been off, on, or unnecessary thanks to Seattle’s most beloved roof. If it’s seemed particularly packed at the park so far, you’d be correct. The Seattle Mariners have drawn 1,158,012 fans to the stadium thus far through a league-leading 35 home games. That’s nearly half 2025’s total of 2,538,053 attendees with 46 games here to go. But contrasting those numbers
undersells things a bit. As Seattle heads out for an extended East Coast road trip, they leave home averaging 33,086 fans per game at home. It’s expected for a team that just had a deep playoff run and a competitive offseason, to see a bump in attendance the coming season, and that sum exceeds 2025’s overall numbers, when the eventual AL West champions drew 31,334 fans per game. It’s a jump of 1,752 tickets sold per game that’d already be one of the top 10 growths in MLB this year. But that undersells the waves of Salish Sea Supporters who’ve flooded T-Mobile Park. Seattle is up a massive 6,163 fans per game against this point last year, when, helpfully, they’d also hosted 35 home games. That’s over 200,000 more butts in seats so far, the second-largest gain by any club in MLB this year trailing only the Toronto Blue Jays. Understandably, the top three clubs are Toronto and Seattle, whose best seasons in a generation have spurred excitement and trust, along with the Tampa Bay Rays who are both playing brilliantly and, more importantly, back in Tropicana Field where they are physically capable of filling more than 10-12,000 seats. And it’s still June 4th. That 1,752 per game number over 2025’s final attendance total would still represent growth, but it’s likely to be outpaced even faster. Most local public schools conclude in mid-to-late June, representing one of several milestones that conspire with summer weather to swell attendance nationwide as the season progresses. At this stage, uncompetitive clubs see lesser bumps, or even full degradation. But Seattle, even if they maintain their flirtation with mediocrity for a longer period, is likely to remain a first place team or right amidst the race. The Jerry Dipoto era has been all-but-exclusively a variation on #StillInIt in September. For the first time this early, they are in the driver’s seat by roster quality AND playoff odds, in addition to the actual divisional standings at press time. Add that with the hotter than usual spring and it’s a recipe for the highest attended Mariners season in more than 20 years. Every season’s attendance from 1997-2004 except 1998 (2,651,511) exceeded 2,900,000, and three eclipsed three million. My preseason bold prediction was Seattle would set their attendance record, the 3,542,938 welcomed for the 2002 season. That’s not likely to occur, but they are drawing like a team who might actually reach the three million mark for the fifth time in franchise history. To get there, they’d need to be bringing in 37,037 fans a night. A year ago, Seattle saw their per game attendance improve from June 3rd to the season’s end by 4,411 folks. It’s hardly plug and play to expect identical results in 2026, but if Seattle saw that same increase in attendees from now through summertime and the stretch run, they’d be at 37,497 each game. That’s 3,037,257 for the year, which would’ve been 6th-most in MLB a season ago.
The factors involved go beyond just wins and losses, although they are typically most impactful. Seattle had Randy Johnson’s number retirement this May, which drove up attendance for the usually-chillier early games. The weather has been a boon thus far, but the El Niño conditions are likely to bring a heat wave and likely the return of smoke season, which has innumerable more important impacts but would also likely hurt Mariners attendance. The club could completely nosedive, rendering this and much more moot. But as it stands, Seattle is packing out T-Mobile Park, and looks poised to continue doing so all season long.
