Marauders 7th in opening day attendance

The Bradenton Marauders ranked seventh among the 12 Florida State League teams in opening day attendance with 2,396 fans.

The biggest surprise was the Fort Myers Miracle, which drew an astonishing 8,157 fans for its opener last Friday against the Marauders.

Charlotte, which led the FSL in total regular season attendance last year (171,314), had the second highest opening day crowd with 6,532 fans.

Following the Tampa Rays farm team in opening day crowds were Daytona (4,945), Brevard (3,532), Port St. Lucie (2,514) and then the Marauders. The bottom five was Lakeland (2,514), Dunedin (1,155), Tampa (1,055), Palm Beach (892) and Jupiter (818).

We are not sure how this projects for the entire regular season, but here are how these teams fared last year.

Clearwater was second with 169,559 total attendance followed by Daytona Beach (147,921), Fort Myers (115,361), St. Lucie (95,598), Tampa (92,671), Jupiter (68,741), Brevard (68,596), Palm Beach (68,562), Lakeland (49,569) and Dunedin (35,683).

Sarasota, which left the league and was replaced by the Marauders, drew 33,788 last year.