Two days before Christmas, Baker Mayfield treated fans at the Cleveland Browns' final home game of the season to a three-touchdown performance in which the rookie quarterback stared down Hue Jackson, the team's former coach.

The game, with an announced crowd of 67,431, marked the Browns' sixth sellout of the season. A more significant number, according to Browns chief operating officer David Jenkins, is the actual crowd count of more than 60,000 who were on hand for the team's 26-18 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.

The figure is almost double the number of fans who attended the Browns' 2017 home finale against the Baltimore Ravens. That day, the announced crowd — which represents tickets sold, not fans in seats — of 56,434 was the worst in the history of FirstEnergy Stadium.

"Last year at this time, you're coming off 1-31 (over a two-year stretch), and there are a whole lot of question marks," Jenkins said. "You fast forward 12 months to this year, and you have a football guy in (general manager) John Dorsey that you really believe in and our fans really believe in. You have a lot of building blocks, a whole lot of salary-cap space and a lot of draft capital."

Most importantly, the Browns seem to have finally found a quarterback in the 23-year-old Mayfield, who set a rookie record with 27 touchdown passes.

The No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft was at his best after the Browns fired Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley, promoted Gregg Williams to interim coach and made Freddie Kitchens the offensive coordinator. Mayfield had 17 TDs in his last seven games — a span in which the Browns won five times and reinvigorated a fan base that seemed apathetic during certain points of the winless 2017 season.

The impact was felt at the box office, as the Browns' attendance jump of 5.4% — from 62,403 to 65,765 per game — was the fourth-largest in the league.

Granted, there was a lot of room to grow after a 2017 season in which the average attendance for seven games at FES (a "home" game was played against the Minnesota Vikings in London) was the franchise's lowest since 1984. But something as simple as selling out the final home game was a big development.

Prior to the Cincinnati game on Dec. 23, four of the Browns' last five home contests in December had produced an announced crowd of 60,028 or fewer. The lone exception in that span was a 2017 game against the Green Bay Packers, whose fans packed FirstEnergy Stadium.

"Getting people in the stadium just flows through the rest of your business," said Jenkins, who at 15 seasons is easily the Browns' longest-tenured executive.

The team's COO said game-day sales in the team shop at FES — the net proceeds from which go to the Cleveland Browns Foundation — rose 76% year-over-year.

"Merchandise prices didn't go up 76%," Jenkins said. "It's the volume of people. And when you're excited, you might spend a little more."

That's been reflected in a crucial area of the business — season-ticket sales.

The Browns were selling season tickets throughout the 2018 campaign, which Jenkins called "a great change from past years."

As of Thursday, Jan. 3, the number of new season tickets that had been sold for 2019 had matched the Browns' total in the same category for June 2018 — putting the team five months ahead of schedule in the sales process. Overall, the current new season-ticket sales figure is 67% of the Browns' tally in the category for all of 2018.

Jenkins said the Browns are "talking through ticket pricing" for 2019, and the team likely will have renewal information in February. He said the team's season-ticket base had decreased the last couple years, which is "inevitable when the quality of your product dips."

The 2014 season — when fans were abuzz over the drafting of Johnny Manziel — was a "recent high-water mark" for season-ticket sales, Jenkins said. At the time, a Browns source told Crain's that the team had capped its season-ticket base at 62,000 — a total that included required comp tickets. The rest of the 5,000-plus seats were then reserved for single-game and group sales.

"I feel good that we'll get back to that number in a year or two," Jenkins said of the 2014 sales figures. "That's really important for our product."