Will New Baseball Season Increase Online Sales?

9 Major League Baseball season saw a dip in attendance from their 2007 high, primarly due to the downturn in the economy and people not having as much disposable income to spend on fun things. People were struggling to keep their homes and find jobs after being laid off. Luckily the economy is slowly recovering, which should hopefully translate into more people buying baseball tickets online and at the stadium. This will be a big boost to the local economies where the various MLB teams are based, as fans spend more money at the stadiums on food, drinks, and merchandise. If online ticket sales pick back up, it is likely that online sales of MLB merchandise will increase in 2010.

The MLB season kicked off this week, the Internet has been buzzing with people searching for their baseball teams to find out how they will perform for the 2010 Major League Baseball season. Google Trends is full of baseball related keywords as President Obama threw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals' home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies. Obama was wearing the MLB gear from one of his favorite teams, The Chicago White Sox. The Obama first pitch is a big deal in the U.S., as baseball is our national past-time and it is important for people to continue to support the sport as it helps contribute to the local economies. People are also searching for their favorite teams as indicated by Google Trends, some of the more popular searches are for the Cincinnati Reds, Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Texas Rangers. Hopefully this means that these teams will see an increase in ticket sales online and at the stadiums, in addition to in increase in online sales of MLB merchandise. Some of the most popular teams in the league, like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox havenot been hurt as bad by the recession, but it is likely that all teams will benefit in 2010 as more people have the extra money to enjoy a game.