April 17, 2026
Experts:
If the Rockies Rocked: What Colorado Would Gain from a Top-Ranked Baseball Franchise
Introduction
On March 25, 2026, the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants opened the 2026 MLB schedule. Baseball—America’s pastime and horizon sport—is now three weeks into its season. The Rockies, 2025’s doormat with just 43 wins and 119 losses, are off to a somewhat stronger start.
Attendance at Rockies’ games has ebbed and flowed through the years based, at least partially, on how well the Rockies are performing at the 50,144-capacity Coors Field (46,897 seating capacity).[i]
Figure 1
How much does an additional win add to home attendance? This depends, of course, on other factors like economic conditions, but there is a strong correlation between the two, with a top place team increasing attendance between 31% and 44%.[1] If the Rockies can improve from 43 wins in 2025 to, say, 95 wins in 2026, reaching the top of the standings would predict an attendance increase from 2.4 million fans over 81 home games to between 3.2 million and 3.5 million, a boost of between 31% and 44%.[2]
Figure 2
Of course, home-game attendance is not the only measure that would see a boost if the Rockies went from bottom-dwellers to top of the league. Increased attendance and better performance mean more visits from out-of-state fans and, because the Rockies would qualify for the MLB playoffs, more home games in Denver.
[4] As the first place team, the Rockies would have a bye from the Wild Card series. Their first playoff series would be a best-of-5 Divisional Round (3 home games possible). This would be followed by the best-of-7 National League Championship Series (4 home games possible). This would then be followed by the best-of-7 World Series (4 home games possible).
[5] The model uses REMI Tax PI+’s Industry Sales for the mentioned industries as direct inputs into the model.
[i] Coors Field Ballpark Information, Major League Baseball, accessed April 15, 2026.
[ii] MLB Attendance Report, 2025 Season, ESPN, accessed April 15, 2026.
[iii] Visitor Impact Data, Visit Denver, accessed April 15, 2026.
[iv] What Can Help Fix the Colorado Rockies? Colorado Public Radio, July 17, 2025.
[v] Coors Field Visiting Fans Boost Attendance, ColoradoBiz, accessed April 15, 2026.
[vi] What Can Help Fix the Colorado Rockies?, Colorado Public Radio, July 17, 2025.
[vii] Colorado Employment Situation, January 2026, Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, accessed April 15, 2026.
[viii] Lahman Baseball Database, R-Universe, accessed April 15, 2026.
[xi] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Rate in Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO (MSA) [DENV708URN], retrieved from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED database, accessed April 16, 2026.