The Thrill of Museums
If you add up the attendance for every major-league baseball, basketball, football and hockey game this year, the combined total will come to about 140 million people. That's a big number, but it's barely a fraction of the number of people who will visit American museums this year.
Museums are big business, attracting billions of tourist dollars, advancing science, and educating and amusing more than 850 million people annually.
[Bob Mondello, "A History Of Museums, 'The Memory Of Mankind'", All Things Considered, 24 November 2008.]
I admit to my snobbish preconceptions and say that I was quite surprised to learn that more people go to museums of one kind or another; I was even more surprised that it's six times as many!
I should know better, but it must be deep-seated snobbery. Rarely do we we visit, say, a big Cezanne exhibition at the National Gallery than I find myself surprised at 1) the large numbers of people there to see it; 2) the diversity of colors, ages, and hair and clothing styles in attendance; and 3) the way so many people stand and look and talk about what they're looking at! It encourages me to think that culture may yet survive.