There are two items that might be of interest to McHenry County leaders still pursuing a baseball stadium.

First, most Frontier Baseball League teams had fewer fans per game this past summer than previously.

Even though ten of eleven had more home games, six of eleven still saw a decrease in total attendance.

Take a look at the attendance figures below:

Click to enlarge the table.

Of the 3 teams that saw an increase in average attendance,
River City is still down 43% from its all-time attendance high (185,333 in 2004)
Kalamazoo is still down 39% from its all-time attendance high (135,654 in 2004).

The relevance to McHenry County is seen when one sees the attendance projections in ERA’s report of baseball stadium promoter Pete Heitman’s proposal:

+10% year 2
+6.1% year 3
+5.7% year 4
+5.4% year 5

On a more optimistic note for a project that I’ve been told that will be privately financed, Bloomington-Normal’s WJVC radio reported Friday that financing for the one to be built at Heartland Community College was proceeding well.

Eight of fourteen stadium suites have been sold and four major sponsors secured.

The $11.5 million stadium is expected to be completed by March 2010.

McHenry County College made a run at constructing a taxpayer-financed baseball stadium, but ran into too much opposition.

The McHenry County Community Foundation has been actively investigating the privately-financed option.