Heading into the Major League Baseball season, many seers thought the Mets, Yankees, Braves, Indians and Tigers would be in the thick of the battle for their respective divisions. Few, on the other hand, believed the Marlins, Orioles, Rays, Pirates or Royals could compete for third place, much less a division crown. In the case of the Pirates and Royals, that has proven to be the case. However, it seems almost implausible that the five bottom-feeders have a better combined-record than the five contenders through June 10.

That’s right, the Mets, Yankees, Braves, Indians and Tigers have a collective won-loss record of 152-170 and a winning percentage of .472. The payroll-challenged Marlins, Orioles, Rays, Pirates and Royals are playing .500 ball collectively with a 161-161 record as the teams just entered the second one-third of the schedule. If you delete the always-struggling Kansas City ball club from the equation, the combined record of the remaining four soars to 136-121, a winning mark of .529.

Lets shed a little more clarity into the haves and have-nots. The five big market teams play in front of an average crowd of 38,785, with the Yankees blazing the trail in their final season at the “old” Yankee Stadium with an average of nearly 52,000 fans spinning the turnstiles each night. In each of the past two seasons through June 10 (for both seasons), the Yanks have rewarded their sheep by playing .500 baseball.

On the other hand, of the bottom five, only the Orioles attract more than 19,000 fans per home game with an average attendance of 26,825 for the team’s first 28 home games. The Marlins, Rays, Pirates and Royals aren’t nearly as fortunate. Collectively, the payroll-strapped four have an average attendance of 17,088, 21,697 fans per game fewer than the big market teams mentioned above. If the average fan spends $40 for a ticket and refreshments, the four lowest clubs lose an average of $867,880 per game over their big-city rivals. Of course, the reality is much worse than that, because fans of the five big market teams are forced to spend much more than $40.

Unfortunately, on-field performance doesn’t appear to positively affect the number of fans that show up in St. Pete or Miami Gardens. Despite marked improvement on the field, the Rays average attendance from 2007 to 2008 has increased little more than 1,300 per game. The Marlins’ attendance has dropped by more than 2,100 per game, despite a four-win improvement in the standings from year-to-year (through June 10). In Pittsburgh, the Pirates’ record has improved by four full games over last year but their attendance is off by more than 5,300 fans per game from a year ago.

The frightening part about this reality for the Marlins and Rays is that both franchises are seeking a new ballpark to be built during the next few years, hoping their new digs will excite and entice fans. If your team’s on-field performance doesn’t result in increased attendance now, once the excitement of a new ballpark wears off, the result may be nothing more than debt, regardless of who is responsible for it.

These days local and national TV rights, stadium signage and concession revenues make up a much larger percentage of the overall team revenues than ever before.  But the fact still remains that winning is the driving force for all things revenue. Without those components, particularly sponsorships and television revenues, the chance of survival is bleak.

Any way you slice it, the ability to compete on the field and at the box office isn’t as easy as building a stadium and signing high-priced stars, particularly in non-traditional or small markets. Teams have to find a way to create demand for their seats, and with nearly every game broadcast on television, creating demand is an industry-wide dilemma, not only in baseball, but in hockey and basketball, too.

Pro football has been able to maintain demand, despite television, because of the few number of home games available for fans to see in person each year, and paying for eight regular season games and two exhibition games is something fans are willing to do. However, when you ask fans to pay for 41, 42 or 81 home games, respectively, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a couch, a big screen HDTV and refreshments at one-third of the price at home makes more sense to the majority of fans these days.

If some professional teams continue on their current path, the most sensible approach for them is to build stadiums or arenas with 15,000 seats and charge fans a premium for watching their team’s games on television. Of course, the risk in non-traditional markets is total alienation of the fan base. In the case of some teams like Pittsburgh, Florida and Tampa Bay, the risk isn’t quite so risky.