Image credit:
Burlington Sock Puppets mascots Bingo (left) and Socksquatch (right) prior to the USA Collegiate National team game between Team Stars and Team Stripes at Burlington Athletic Park on July 3, 2021, in Burlington, North Carolina. The Stripes beat the Stars 7-4. (Brian Westerholt/Four Seam Images)
Four years ago, the Rookie-level Appalachian League was on the chopping block.
From the moment that news broke about Major League Baseball’s plan to reduce the number of minor league teams to the day when MLB officially took over the affiliated minor leagues, the Appy League was always on the outside looking in.
At the time, many believed that this was the death knell for baseball in Appalachia.
Without MLB ties, fans wouldn’t come to games. Revenues would drop. Teams and then the league would die. And baseball would disappear from the region entirely.
Or so the thinking went.
Four years later, the Appalachian League keeps plugging along. In 2023, eight of the league’s 10 teams averaged more fans per game than they did in 2019, their final year as an affiliated Rookie-level league. Average attendance improvements could be explained by the fact that as a summer college league, the Appy League now has 24 home dates a summer, compared to 34 in affiliated ball.
But there’s this: six of the 10 teams drew more total fans in 2023 than they did in 2019, even though the league had 135 fewer dates.
Drawing more fans in significantly fewer dates is a pretty clear sign that the world did not come crashing down the day those affiliations were taken away.
The Burlington Royals drew 40,143 fans—or 1,216 per game—in 2019. The Burlington Sock Puppets drew 46,730—or 2,033 per game—last year. The Danville Braves drew 30,008 (909) in 2019. The Danville Otterbots drew 35,539 (1,536) in 2023.
Ryan Keur, who was the Burlington Royals’ general manager in the mid 2010s, now owns both teams. As he sees it, life in the Appy League is pretty good these days.
“One of the unique things that happened was clearly the ability of each of the teams to create their own identities. That had really good implications for the surrounding communities. That created additional buy-in,” Keur said.
“We leveraged 2020’s lost season to re-energize both communities. It coincided with the new ownership group to think about baseball—not what it had been for the past 35 years, but what it looks like for the next 35…