Well, yes, but while 1 million is great, 2 million is twice as great. The Dodgers in the post-war era drew very well for the time, and there were a few years when they led the league in attendance. But there were a few years where they were far from it.
After moving to LA, they doubled attendance, and then more. In the 53 seasons they have completed in Los Angeles, the Dodgers have led the NL in attendance 28 times, and many more times have finished 2nd or 3rd, and never lower than the top half.
The move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles was the smartest and must successful franchise shift in the post-war history of major league baseball and arguably in ANY North American pro sport. In Brooklyn, the team’s attendance - during the absolute height of its success, a run of pennants and a World Series title and the presentation of many of the greatest players in the game - was slowly declining, with no realistic hope of it getting any better anytime soon. The move to Los Angeles instantly made the Dodgers the highest-attended team in baseball; since the move, more people have paid to see a Dodgers game than for any other team. Even the Yankees aren’t even close.
I’d say the most successful shifts all involved moving to Los Angeles when it was virgin territory for pro sports in the immediate post-war era.
NFL Rams (the defending NFL champs) from Cleveland to LA in 1946
MLB Dodgers from Brooklyn to LA in 1957
NBA Lakers from Minneapolis to LA in 1960
The Raiders moves from Oakland to LA back to Oakland, the A’s moves from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland, and the Braves’ from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta, don’t really compare.
And yes I know the Rams have further moved on to Anaheim and then St. Louis.
I wouldn’t make that claim based on attendance figures.
If you look at historic records for attendance, crowds seem laughably small at ballparks during the “golden age” of baseball, when it was the unquestioned major professional sport in the U.S. Average attendance in the 4-6,000 range was common during the teens and hardly ever got above 8,000 all the way through WWII. It was only postwar that there was a real attendance spike (to about 14,000), dipping a bit in the '50s, peaking in 1960 at around 16,000 (a figure that wouldn’t be seen again until 1976).
In those “low” attendance years baseball was big-time. Later, with a much expanded population, attendance naturally increased, but arguably should have been a lot higher to reflect popularity (which obviously has suffered due to competition with other sports, pro and amateur).
