From Forbes:

But they're no Texas Rangers fans who flock to the Arlington ballpark through last place finishes and playoff runs alike. The Ranger faithful don't care if the team trades away its best players or spends $252 million to sign an MVP-caliber batter like Alex Rodriguez. No team's attendance is less tied to its on the field performance than the Rangers', and nowhere else in the country do fans peel off at a slower rate when the club has thin years.

(Of course, had owner Tom Hicks studied the attendance numbers a little closer back in 2001, he might not have offered what has come to be known as the worst contract in baseball history.)

Two things going on here. First, the primary focus of the article is measuring fan sensitivity to winning and proclaiming the franchise whose attendance is least sensitive to winning to have the most loyal fans. (BTW, the Tigers and the Angels are rated as having the least loyal fans.) Neat idea, though one might raise questions about methodology. (The authors give some but not complete detail.) For example, I wonder if the sample period of 1991 to present isn't problematic b/c some franchises have been good throughout (Atlanta) and others have been crummy throughout (KC). That is, there may not be sufficient variation in team winning percentages over time to get a strong estimate of the relationship between winning and attendance.

Second is the aside about the ARod contract. The authors might be on ok ground if they mean that it was a bad contract because with very loyal fans the Rangers didn't need to sign more talent in order to win more games to draw more fans. On the other hand, the authors are off base if they are merely commenting on the size of the contract or trying to say something about ARod's performance. Yes, ARod got a large contract but he has also performed at a very high level over the past decade. Comparing pay and performance, his contract nowhere near as bad as those signed by, say, Carl Pavano, Mike Hampton, or (it appears) Barry Zito. I'll leave comments open for a day or so if readers want to offer other candidates for the worst contract in baseball history.