Baseball Attendance Projections

Rob Neyer notes that the Sports Business Journal is projecting an increase in attendance at baseball games of between 3-7 percent.  Rob says:

Coming after three straight seasons with small declines in MLB attendance, an increase of three or more percent would represent a huge improvement. But this really shouldn't come as a huge surprise. For all the naysayers and the polls and the ridiculous notion that baseball is somehow dying, the sport is incredibly popular in America. They only way to really hurt the game is to lose a season (or part of a season) to a strike or lockout. And I don't think anyone is that stupid.

The increase should be expected if we assume the economy has sufficiently rebounded.  But if baseball teams systematically overcharge for tickets for whatever reason - a fluky possibility - that would hurt the chances of seeing attendance grow.  I doubt that happens because my sense is that the folks who set ticket prices have a pretty good handle on demand conditions in their local markets.