Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus has an interesting item today in which he suggests that cities that attract a large number of tourists generally have better, more consistent attendance than cities that don't.

He argues that a city like Detroit, which does not have a large tourism industry, will see a larger dropoff in attendance when the Tigers aren't playing well, while cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles are immune to big fluctuations based on team performance. His theory is that business travelers and other tourists will attend a game simply because they are in town and aren't influenced by how well the team is playing.

Silver performed some mathematical calculations and determined that the amount of money spent on hotels and restaurants (aka dollars from tourists) is actually a better indicator of attendance than the size of the market.

So what does this mean for the Nationals?

Washington ranks fifth among Major League cities in "accommodation and food sales," so the Nationals should, according to Silver, draw reasonably well year after year even if the team isn't winning.