According to recently released United States Census Bureau statistics, Milwaukee, with an estimated 2012 population of 1.57 million, remains the smallest \u201cMetropolitan Statistical Area\u201d (MSA) in the United States that is home to a major league baseball team.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee is the only MSA with a major league team and a population of less than 2 million people.\u00a0 Closest in size to Milwaukee among MSA\u2019s with major league teams are Kansas City (2.04m); Cleveland (2.06m); Cincinnati (2.13m); and Pittsburgh (2.36m).\u00a0 These five are the true \u201csmall-market teams,\u201d as every other franchise is located in an MSA of at least 2.7 million people.<\/p>\n
More problematic for the long-term status of the Brewers in Milwaukee is the fact that Milwaukee is now only the 39th<\/sup> largest MSA (and that doesn\u2019t count Puerto Rico or Canada).\u00a0 In other words, 14 MSAs in the United States now have populations greater than Milwaukee, and these are: Riverside, CA. (4.35m); Charlotte, NC (2.30m); Portland, OR (2.29m); San Antonio, TX (2.23m); Orlando, FL (2.22m); Sacramento, CA (2.20m); Las Vegas, NV (2.00m); Columbus, OH (1.94m); Indianapolis, IN (1.93m); San Jose, CA (1.89m); Austin, TX (1.83m); Nashville, TN (1.73m); Norfolk-Virginia Beach, VA (1.70m); and Providence, RI (1.60m).<\/p>\n In regard to NBA cities, Milwaukee\u2019s MSA is slightly higher than that of Memphis, TN (1.34m); Oklahoma City, OK (1.30m); and New Orleans, LA (1.23m).<\/p>\n Milwaukee\u2019s problem is not that the metropolitan area is losing population, but its population is not growing as fast as those of other MSA\u2019s.\u00a0 Comparisons with previous totals for 1990 and 2000 are slightly complicated by the fact that Kenosha County, Wisconsin, was counted as part of the Milwaukee MSA in 1990 and 2000, but as part of the Chicago MSA in 2010.\u00a0 However, even if the Kenosha population for 2012 is added to the Milwaukee MSA, the population is still only 1.73 million.\u00a0 With Kenosha, Milwaukee would still be the smallest MSA with a major league team, and it would rank 36th<\/sup>, rather than 39th<\/sup>, among MSA\u2019s in the fifty states and the District of Columbia.\u00a0 However, with Kenosha, Milwaukee would still be larger than Nashville, Norfolk, and Providence.<\/p>\n In 1990, the Milwaukee MSA (with Kenosha) had a population of 1.61 million, which made it the 24th<\/sup> largest MSA and was slightly larger than Kansas City which was then the smallest metropolitan area with a major league baseball team.\u00a0 In 2000, its population was 1.69 million, but it had dropped to 26th<\/sup> place among MSA\u2019s, now behind Kansas City.\u00a0 However, in 2000, the only larger MSA\u2019s without major league baseball teams were Washington, D. C. (the Nationals were still the Montreal Expos); Portland, and Sacramento.<\/p>\n Fortunately, the Brewers are the best drawing team in Major League baseball, relative to the size of their metropolitan area.\u00a0 In 2012, three major league teams drew more fans than the population of their metropolitan areas.\u00a0 To do that is a major accomplishment in any era.\u00a0 The attendance of two of the three, Cincinnati and St. Louis, exceeded their MSA population by 10% and 16%, respectively.\u00a0 However, in Milwaukee it exceeded the population an extraordinary 80%.<\/p>\n As long as Brewer fans turn out to the ballpark at this phenomenal rate (and watch the games on cable TV with corresponding enthusiasm), the Brewers are probably secure in Milwaukee.\u00a0 But the demographic changes occurring in the United States are providing no reason for long term optimism among baseball fans in Brew City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to recently released United States Census Bureau statistics, Milwaukee, with an estimated 2012 population of 1.57 million, remains the smallest \u201cMetropolitan Statistical Area\u201d (MSA) in the United States that is home to a major league baseball team. Milwaukee is the only MSA with a major league team and a population of less than 2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public","category-sports-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28879,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20266\/revisions\/28879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}