"One thing I have been wondering about is at what (if any) point is the drop in attendance irreversible?" 

I don't think fan interest is ever theoretically irreversible, assuming that there's a fan base to begin with, but it is, of course, dependent on at least a few scenarios playing out. 

Allow me to use the Chicago White Sox as an example.  

The White Sox have been a firm second banana to the Cubs in Chicago for about 20 years; not longer than that.  When the White Sox opened their new ballpark in 1991 it coincided with the franchise's turnaround to fairly sustained competitiveness after five losing seasons in six years (1984-89); the club has had only four losing seasons in the 15 they've played in what was once called new Comiskey Park...they've never lost more than 86 games in a season in their new digs and have reached the postseason three times.

Beginning with the opening of the new park in 1991 through the 1994 season, the White Sox set a series of Chicago baseball attendance records; tickets were difficult to come by and the team's popularity was more or less equal to that of the Cubs for the first time since the early 1980s.  And then the strike hit.  And a huge percentage of the team's fans--which has always been a notoriously fickle group (in the sense of staying away in droves if they're mad about something, like the team's play or the ownership or the color of the ballpark seats)--blamed Jerry Reinsdorf for the work stoppage, which was doubly painful because the White Sox were in first place, 21 games over .500, when the strike hit.  (This was immediately on the heels of a division championship in 1993.)  This innate suspicion had kerosene poured on it when the White Sox showed up for the belated start of the 1995 season clearly not ready to play.  (Watching the White Sox for the first 30-odd games in '95 was like watching a team in spring training.)  The club finished eight games under .500 in 1996 (the first losing season since 1989) and followed that up with fairly mediocre years in 1997-99, which included the legendary "White Flag" trade at the waiver deadline in 1997.  (With the White Sox 3 1/2 games behind division-leading Cleveland at the end of July, owner Reinsdorf proclaimed that anyone who thought the team could catch the Indians was "crazy" and promptly dealt three key members of his pitching staff--Wilson Alvarez, Roberto Hernandez and Danny Darwin--to the San Francisco Giants for "prospects" (basically Keith Foulke and a load of crap).

Despite a division title in 2000, recovery at the box office and rebounding interest in the White Sox vis-a-vis the Cubs was partial at best.  The fan base remained cynical and extremely annoyed.  Reinsdorf was still pilloried routinely.  The White Flag deal wouldn't be forgotten.  The ballpark was regularly ridiculed (despite the fact that it was apparently just fine during its first four years of operation).

Attendance was up in 2000, but that was as much a function of how poor it was in 1999 (less than 17,000 per game) as anything.  Attendance in 2000 was only about 1,000 per game higher than it had been in 1997, when it had been on a steep three-year decline  In 2001, the expected "bounce" from the previous season never materialized.  Attendance in 2001 was 2200-odd persons lower per game than in 2000.

In short, it was really beginning to appear that the White Sox would never recover to pre-1995 levels of interest.

And yet...

The White Sox, as I'm sure everyone has heard by now, did the impossible (at least from the perspective of a Chicago mentality) and won the World Series last year.  They entered the 2005 season with something like 10,000 season ticket holders.  It may have been even less than that, actually.  And yet, they averaged better than 28,000 a game (that's a LOT of single season advance sale and walk up tickets--about 1.5 million), their highest per game attendance average since...yup, 1994.

This year...well, they've now got something like 23,000 season ticket holders.  There's a waiting list for 2007 season tickets.  Nearly two weeks ago the team announced that it had already sold more tickets for 2006 than it has ever sold for a single season before.  (The team sold almost 3 million tickets in 1991.)  The club has already sold out something like six games this year (I'm talking about games played, not future sellouts), which is unheard of around here in April...and, of course, there are more walk up seats to be sold, at some point.  The team will probably end up drawing 3 million this year, despite the fact that they've eliminated a substantial number of ballpark seats over the past few years (park capacity is now below 40K; it was nearly 45K when it opened) in a much-publicized stadium refurbishing effort.

Now, there are a lot of reasons for this turnaround--the two biggest, of course, are the World Series triumph (incalculable in a city where, despite two teams, you'd have to be roughly 95 years old to remember the previous baseball world championship--the White Sox again, in 1917) and the notion that this wasn't a one-trick pony.  In other words, whether the White Sox will win the WS again soon no one knows...but most people around here believe that they're legitimately and realistically capable of it...that this team should make the postseason again...and has the organizational depth to contend for the playoffs for the foreseeable future.  (No Chicago baseball team has reached the postseason in consecutive years since the Cubs did it in 1906-08.)

So what does this have to do with the Orioles? 

I firmly believe that when (presumably it's not "if") the Orioles' fan base reaches a point where it feels about the Orioles organization the way the White Sox fan base feels about that team's organization right now, you'll see a full-blown fan interest renaissance that will be reflected in myriad ways...certainly including the club's attendance.  As bad as the club has been, as jaundiced as the team's fans have become toward its ownership, this situation has nothing on what was staring the White Sox in the face; the Washington Nationals are not the impediment that the Chicago Cubs are.

However, until such time as Orioles fans have a 2006-White-Sox-like state of affairs to view, I don't think you're going to see anything better than what you're seeing right now and that certainly shouldn't be a surprise. In fact, if anything, it's a testament to the strength of the team's fan base that the decline hasn't been more pronounced.  Eight straight years of losing, non-contending clubs and nothing more than flashes of light that this has any chance of ending any time soon will sap the strength of even the most diehard fan...to say nothing of the casual fan.  And let's face it, no one draws three million diehard fans a year, no matter how well a team plays.

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