So what's it gonna take to get folks back to the Yard?

[LookitsPuck]

Today is sold out. Attendance up 4,000 a game. Just keep winning.

[Todd-O]

Today is sold out, yes. But this is Brooks' big day. It's kind of an exception. Yesterday, there were a ton of empty seats. Tomorrow... There are a lot of empty seats...

[BehindTimes]

Constant sell outs don't happen overnight. It takes a few years to rebuild interest. It's starting again, but being football season, many people who would be bandwagon fans are still unaware of the O's. yes, it does take band wagoners to sell out unfortunately.

[backriver111]

Constant sell outs don't happen overnight. It takes a few years to rebuild interest. It's starting again, but being football season, many people who would be bandwagon fans are still unaware of the O's. yes, it does take band wagoners to sell out unfortunately.

I completely understand your point but if we can't sell out now, who's to say a few more years of winning will change anything? It doesn't get any more exciting than this in Baltimore. We have a great bunch of personalities on a winning team in a beautiful stadium against division opponents and the weather's been perfect. Not to mention prices have been discounted on several occasions and its late September. If that's not a perfect storm for a sell out I don't know what is. Hopefully I'm wrong but the days of constant sell outs are over.

On the bright side, it seems like the Oriole fans at the games are more passionate than ever. It?s a beautiful thing.

[DrungoHazewood]

I completely understand your point but if we can't sell out now, who's to say a few more years of winning will change anything?

Multi-year winning builds a season ticket base.

[Todd-O]

I will say this, the crowds... Even at 20,000 are great. Really what you are getting are a ton of hardcore O's fans who really appreciate what is happening. These are crowds that have a history with the team - through the ups and downs.

It's pretty awesome.

[isestrex]

Well... it's been a long time since I started this thread. Tomorrow is the regular season home finale. I know folks are looking ahead to - hopefully - the playoffs... but I was just checking the Orioles.com website and anyone can go on there and fetch tickets for Sunday's game.

Phew.

I just don't get it. This is the MOST exciting team we've had in 15 years. They are going right down to the wire in a division crown race with the Yankees and the Red Sox are in town. And there are still a lot of empty seats sitting there for the last game.

Perhaps I under-estimated the damage the Orioles have done to the fan base during this losing streak... perhaps the damage the arrival and the 2012 success of the Nationals... or maybe it's the hard hitting effects of the economy...

But I am totally disappointed that all 3 games against the Sox this weekend aren't blocked-out, sold-out, black and orange clad.

Maybe if the O's can make some noise in a post-season run... maybe that will rejuvenate the fan base for next year.

Kind of a downer, if you ask me...

(not that I'm not totally fired-up for this team... they have MADE MY YEAR! Go Birds!)

This is a huge step in the right direction. The attendance is over 2 million for the first time since 2007. And B-R ranks the Orioles 6th in biggest change in attendance from 2011 to 2012.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/current_attendance.shtml

It won't happen over night but it is turning around.

[DynamicDuo]

I'm sure many of you are aware of this, but living in DC, I'm particular aware -- I'd say 9 out of 10 Orioles "fans" in DC became Nats fans overnight when they arrived in 2005. These were people who would go to a few or several O's games a year and now go to none. Also, several DC businesses had Orioles season tickets and virtually all of them switched to the Nats (to the extent they hadn't already dropped them). I don't think it'd be an overstatement to estimate that the O's lost around 30% of their paying customers with the Nats' move.

It's too bad that the Nats are good this year. If they were terrible (like they have been since they got to DC), I'd imagine many of these fairweather fans would've switched back (despite the miserable traffic to games).

[Todd-O]

^^^ No doubt about it. You know what, though? Good riddance.

[frankpembleton]

I'm sure many of you are aware of this, but living in DC, I'm particular aware -- I'd say 9 out of 10 Orioles "fans" in DC became Nats fans overnight when they arrived in 2005. These were people who would go to a few or several O's games a year and now go to none. Also, several DC businesses had Orioles season tickets and virtually all of them switched to the Nats (to the extent they hadn't already dropped them). I don't think it'd be an overstatement to estimate that the O's lost around 30% of their paying customers with the Nats' move.

It's too bad that the Nats are good this year. If they were terrible (like they have been since they got to DC), I'd imagine many of these fairweather fans would've switched back (despite the miserable traffic to games).

I've lived in DC for the past 9 years, and while I agree there is certainly segment of Oriole fans that became Nats fans (and rightly so) there is still a pretty large Oriole fan presence in DC. Also, the Nats may be averaging a few thousand more fans every night than the O's, but having been up in Baltimore quite a bit recently, the Nats just do not garner the same attention and love that the Orioles get in Baltimore and even to a certain extent DC. I just don't get the "pennant fever" in DC for the Nats that is palpable in Baltimore.

I think the Nats will consistently outdraw the Orioles, based purely on economics and the size of the two media markets. The Orioles, however, will always be the more "loved" of both teams and will have the more passionate fanbase and likely better local TV ratings.

So I guess what I am saying is that ihat I think your 30% figure is too high. The excitement, history and passion of the Oriole fanbase will likely sway a lot of people stuck in the middle between DC and Baltimore to re-devote themselves to the O's. I mean really, would you rather go to the shopping mall that is Nats Park with their cheerleading fan dude and lame corporate fans, or to the best park in baseball with real baseball fans? I can walk to Nats Park and I have been once this year (to see the O's), but I have been to Camden 5 times....

[DrungoHazewood]

^^^ No doubt about it. You know what, though? Good riddance.

I wouldn't be so flip about it. As much as we'd all love for the entire fanbase to be die hards, they're not. Half the paying customers of all winning teams wouldn't be there if the team lost for five straight years. And a fairly large number would switch teams if there was a choice and there was a stark contrast in quality.

We may dislike the casual fans and the bandwagoners and the kind of people who live in Bethesda and switched to the Nats, but those are the folks who shell out for the expansion from a $80M payroll to a $120M.

[BehindTimes]

I wouldn't be so flip about it. As much as we'd all love for the entire fanbase to be die hards, they're not. Half the paying customers of all winning teams wouldn't be there if the team lost for five straight years. And a fairly large number would switch teams if there was a choice and there was a stark contrast in quality.

We may dislike the casual fans and the bandwagoners and the kind of people who live in Bethesda and switched to the Nats, but those are the folks who shell out for the expansion from a $80M payroll to a $120M.

It's a double edged sword though. The casual fans bring extra money and help turn a franchise from a $80M to a $120M payroll, but at the same time, they also often bring about the very worst elements of fandom that make your base fanbase look ugly towards to fans of other teams.

As an example, take the Red Sox. Pre 2002 (that's when many of the bandwagon fans came on), were they as aweful as post 2004? For those of you who have gone to Fenway as well as OPACY, did you receive the vibe from the fans? Probably not. Even the last series this year when it was majority O's fans, were the Sox fans in the crowd the same as you remembered them?

I've already stated that I've had a few bad experiences with O's fans towards the end of the season that I've never experienced at OPACY. This is really a tricky road though, as first, the O's will need to rebuild a solid fanbase, and it's really hard to judge your own team's fans, as we all tend to typically put blinders on in that situation. Now, I'm not saying they'll be as bad as Sox fans, but the O's are the flavor of the month. It's easy to see how more die hard fans could be for or against additions of bandwagon fans.