It's no mystery that the 2012 season has been a disappointing one for the Philadelphia Phillies. With a record of 54-62 and being back 17.5 games of first place it may come as a surprised to some people that the Phillies are still leading Major League Baseball in home attendance, averaging 44,459 fans per home game.
It's certainly the far and away leader in the National League, with the No. 2 team being the San Francisco Giants who average 41,745 fans per home game. However, the bad season the Phillies have experienced has taken its toll.
With the bad season that the Phillies have had, a little bit of bad news attendance wise has managed its way to expose itself. For instance, according to an article by Dustin Hockensmith of The Patriot-News, the Phillies recently saw their streak of 257 consecutive home sellouts come to an end, the longest in National League history and the third-longest in MLB history. In addition, since the game where the streak was broken, the Phillies have only sold out one of their last six home games.
Despite the team playing better since the all-star break, with a record of 17-12, the slow start as well as trades that sent Phillies' veterans Hunter Pence, Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton out of Philadelphia have undoubtedly contributed to the recent decline in attendance. The Phillies are currently 10 games out of the second wild card spot in the National League, so unless they can pull a rabbit out of their hats in September, the attendance may go down to knock them out of the MLB lead.