The Tigers have established their dominance on the field and are now reaping the benefits off it.
Now boasting the best record in baseball at 43–24, the Motown renaissance that began in earnest last year has taken another big step. The club’s attendance gain of more than 7,700 per game to 26,809, a 40% bump compared to this time last season, is MLB’s second-largest boost in 2025 in raw numbers and percentage gain behind only the Juan Soto–led Mets.
The Tigers drew 121,509 last weekend for a series against the Cubs, the team’s second-best total at Comerica Park for a three-game set in the last decade, and each contest topped 40,000. The only Detroit series in that time frame topping that cumulative mark arrived at the end of last year, when the team clinched its first postseason berth since 2014 and drew 128,108 for the season-ending series against the White Sox.
Detroit drew 1.86 million last year, the club’s best mark since 2017, though a sizable chunk of the team’s lift at the gate coincided with a 30–13 surge to finish the season. With the Tigers now pacing so far ahead of last year, and playing winning baseball right from the start, it is now poised to top 2 million, a figure it reached every year from 2005 to 2017 but hasn’t since as it went through a long and often-painful rebuilding process.
Since a furious run to the 2024 postseason began in mid-August last year, the Tigers have been MLB’s best team—a stretch now extending to 10 months.
“I’ve always said, ‘We’re going to have a team that you’re going to be proud of,’ and I trust and respect the fans to come out and support a team that’s maturing and getting more and more confident,” said Tigers manager A.J. Hinch after the club won two of three from the Cubs.
Sales of Tigers merchandise at MLB’s online shop and the Fanatics network, meanwhile, are up 36% so far this season, the league said, while over the past 30 days, consumption of Tigers games at MLB.TV has grown by 98% compared to the same period in 2024.
Different Approach
Also particularly notable in the Tigers’ success is how they’ve built the roster. Many of the team’s core players, most notably reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, were selected by the Tigers over a series of fruitful drafts and are not yet eligible for arbitration or free agency.
Instead of pushing for quick fixes or major free-agent acquisitions, Detroit also showed the patience for draft picks such as pitcher Casey Mize, outfielder Riley Greene, and first baseman Spencer Torkelson, first-round selections in 2018, 2019, and 2020, respectively, to develop fully and become core contributors.
The club’s luxury-tax payroll of $156.2 million ranks 19th in the league. Nearly half of that of outlay, however, is tied up in just four veteran players: infielder/outfielder Javier Báez, pitcher Jack Flaherty, second baseman Gleyber Torres, and injured pitcher Alex Cobb. Detroit, meanwhile, has also utilized an enhanced lineup and defensive flexibility where players such as Báez and Zach McKinstry have played as many as five different positions this season based on day-to-day matchups.
