Why are the Orioles games not sold out right now?

[SoBo]

A winning season will lead to increased season and corporate ticket sales. That is how you build attendance, not walk ups. /SG

Absolutely. I'm in sales and have already booked a box for a home game in September. I couldn't give away tickets to an Os game the past five years and I've already got a full house for the box. So ole SG was spot on in the regard.

[allquixotic]

I live a short light rail ride from OPACY, and I've been to two home games and one away game this year with another away game already booked. I'm also looking into tickets for the Cal statue day; I was at Eddie's.

The reason I'm not shuffling in every single night is two fold. First, a $100/night habit (tickets plus gas plus train fare plus food) is unsustainable as someone making less than six figs. Even if I were making six figs it would be pretty unsustainable without sacrificing a lot of things that are important to me.

Second, I just don't have the energy to get home after midnight every weeknight only to get up for work less than six hours later. It would destroy my physical and mental health to regularly deprive myself of that much sleep. I work for a living, and it's not a very good living. I'm currently saving up a small fortune for maintenance that my car desperately needs, and I can't afford to eat into that savings for a ballgame, or I might find myself having to call a taxi to get to work, which is even more expensive.

I'd be there if circumstances were different and I could say money is no object. But I think a lot of area fans agree with my reasons for being unable to attend. It's expensive and time-consuming and takes away sleep. It's easy to criticize the lack of turnout when you exclude yourself from responsibility due to the distance you live from the park.

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[SoBo]

There are numerous variables to attendance being down. 14 yrs of losing, fan apathy, low season ticket base, people on vacation and a recession. But also do not discount the at home experience with HDTV being the best it's ever been. Even the holy grail of sports entertainment the NFL is struggling with attendance in part because of this.

[The Wedge]

I think if we're still punching after the first week of September there'll be a relative climb in attendance (with school starting and all that causing weekday numbers being somewhat low). If they make the playoffs are come pretty close, we should see some residual payoff next season...unless it doesn't last at the beginning of next season.

Short answer: plenty of people are still very jaded.

[RHall31]

The Orioles have also lost some of their former crowd to the Nats.....

[russ snyder]

I live a short light rail ride from OPACY, and I've been to two home games and one away game this year with another away game already booked. I'm also looking into tickets for the Cal statue day; I was at Eddie's.

The reason I'm not shuffling in every single night is two fold. First, a $100/night habit (tickets plus gas plus train fare plus food) is unsustainable as someone making less than six figs. Even if I were making six figs it would be pretty unsustainable without sacrificing a lot of things that are important to me.

Second, I just don't have the energy to get home after midnight every weeknight only to get up for work less than six hours later. It would destroy my physical and mental health to regularly deprive myself of that much sleep. I work for a living, and it's not a very good living. I'm currently saving up a small fortune for maintenance that my car desperately needs, and I can't afford to eat into that savings for a ballgame, or I might find myself having to call a taxi to get to work, which is even more expensive.

I'd be there if circumstances were different and I could say money is no object. But I think a lot of area fans agree with my reasons for being unable to attend. It's expensive and time-consuming and takes away sleep. It's easy to criticize the lack of turnout when you exclude yourself from responsibility due to the distance you live from the park.

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Good points. I think that the economy is having an impact. Even though the seats are reasonably priced, it's a pretty expensive endeavor. I think we'll see a couple of sellouts in September. They'll most likely occur on a weekend.

[Frobby]

I think if we're still punching after the first week of September there'll be a relative climb in attendance (with school starting and all that causing weekday numbers being somewhat low). If they make the playoffs are come pretty close, we should see some residual payoff next season...unless it doesn't last at the beginning of next season.

Short answer: plenty of people are still very jaded.

The Sept. 6-9 Yankee series should draw enormous crowds. I'd be astounded if they drew less than 150,000 for those games. The home finale series with the Red Sox also should be big despite the Red Sox's collapse. The rest of September is weekday games with the Rays and Jays, and the race will decide whether people come out. One thing is certain - that Rays series will draw a lot more than the equivalent September 2011 Rays series (which drew under 40,000 over three days). That series could be crucial in the wild card race.

[crowmst3k!]

SportsGuy always commented when he was here that the majority of tickets sold at a MLB game are Season Tickets, and only a small percentage are walkups, and that the walkup rate is fairly consistent. I find it tough to disagree with this.

Of course, just from my own experience I end up seeing more and more walkup business down at the ballpark this year than I have in a while, but there is ultimately a "bandwidth issue" so to speak with these queues getting outlandishly long. I think that the team can only really handle a certain amount of people lining up before people become impatient.

Having the only other way available for buying tickets as ticketmaster, with their astonishingly high fees makes that avenue not worth it for many. This causes the walkup business to plateau, despite the on-field success as of late.

It was easier for me when I was a season ticket holder to attend a ton of games. I would literally email my rep from work, tell him to charge my account and leave 4 tickets at willcall. No fees, no prime prices, and very short queues at the will call windows. I was able to get great seats to Yankee games, Red Sox games for a song, and there was no limit to how many I could buy, so I took my friends! Those ticket sales were driven by my being a season ticket holder.

Now, even if you can't go back and have that kind of season ticket holder level attendance, The Orioles should have been more creative with their ticket sales heading into August, seeing that the Orioles were playing well.

It would have been smart to sell some mini-plans, say...packs of 6 vouchers, and if you bought this, you immediately become put into their database as a "season plan holder", you get a rep and everything. It would have immediately sold some tickets upfront, and given the buyer access to tickets in a hassle-free way moving forward. It takes a little bit of innovation, but if the Orioles really tried, they could easily break through some of their attendance "barriers".

Hear that, Orioles? By the way, if there's an opening in your marketing and ticket sales department...

[wildcard]

The team with the best record in baseball is 50 miles down the road. Some of the fans in the Washington suburbs have converted to Nats fans. There is a pretty good buzz about the Nats down here. And most games they don't sell out. The Braves were just here and they drew 24K to 34K on a week night.

This is the first year both teams have been in the playoff hunt. I guess we are seeing why the O's fought so hard against the Expos moving to Washington.

[primetime]

The team with the best record in baseball is 50 miles down the road. Some of the fans in the Washington suburbs have converted to Nats fans. There is a pretty good buzz about the Nats down here. And most games they don't sell out. The Braves were just here and they drew 24K to 34K on a week night.

This is the first year both teams have been in the playoff hunt. I guess we are seeing why the O's fought so hard against the Expos moving to Washington.

The Nats factor cannot be undersold. Not only their presence but the fact that they're the best team in baseball is causing the DC suburb casual fan to make the trek to Nats Park, as opposed to OPaCY.

The other big factor is the 14 years of losing and how that impacted a generation of potentianl Baltimore baseball fans. Right now, anyone between the ages of say 18-25 (give or take a year or 2), unless they have an older relative or someone to instill a love of the Orioles in them, the franchise has done nothing whatsoever to endear themselves to anyone born in the late 80's/early 90's. That age group is most likely to attend games spur of the moment because they're less likely to have other life commitments yet; ie, spouse, kids, mortgage, etc.

It may be that the new normal for the Yard, if we continue to succeed, is somewhere around 30k per night and sprinkle in the occassional 40k+ crowd.

[jonesing4pie]

I live a short light rail ride from OPACY, and I've been to two home games and one away game this year with another away game already booked. I'm also looking into tickets for the Cal statue day; I was at Eddie's.

The reason I'm not shuffling in every single night is two fold. First, a $100/night habit (tickets plus gas plus train fare plus food) is unsustainable as someone making less than six figs. Even if I were making six figs it would be pretty unsustainable without sacrificing a lot of things that are important to me.

Second, I just don't have the energy to get home after midnight every weeknight only to get up for work less than six hours later. It would destroy my physical and mental health to regularly deprive myself of that much sleep. I work for a living, and it's not a very good living. I'm currently saving up a small fortune for maintenance that my car desperately needs, and I can't afford to eat into that savings for a ballgame, or I might find myself having to call a taxi to get to work, which is even more expensive.

I'd be there if circumstances were different and I could say money is no object. But I think a lot of area fans agree with my reasons for being unable to attend. It's expensive and time-consuming and takes away sleep. It's easy to criticize the lack of turnout when you exclude yourself from responsibility due to the distance you live from the park.

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I'm in the same boat economically as I'm a student and not criticizing you by any means but if you're a short light rail ride from OPACY there is no reason that a trip to OPACY needs to be $100 unless you have a large family.

You can get tickets for less than $20, lightrail costs you less than $5 and you can get a hot dog, drink, and peanuts before you walk into the stadium for less than $10. People should really take of the food options out of the stadium and the fact that you can bring in food. That can save you some serious dough as an individual or a family.

[allquixotic]

I'm in the same boat economically as I'm a student and not criticizing you by any means but if you're a short light rail ride from OPACY there is no reason that a trip to OPACY needs to be $100 unless you have a large family.

You can get tickets for less than $20, lightrail costs you less than $5 and you can get a hot dog, drink, and peanuts before you walk into the stadium for less than $10. People should really take of the food options out of the stadium and the fact that you can bring in food. That can save you some serious dough as an individual or a family.

I go to games with one other person, so the costs are:

• $3.20 round trip Light Rail x2 = $6.40
• Gas for a 10 minute ride to the Light Rail station @ 40 mpg = about $1.25
• At least $35 Tickets (I don't do standing room only, and I like to be able to see the action without binoculars, so no third deck) x2 = $70 minimum
• Signature O's food, because both me and the person I go to games with love to get the "O" shaped pretzels and at least one piece of pizza = $20 to $40 depending on how gluttonous we're feeling and how many beers we need

Seriously though, don't the Orioles make commission on the food? Yes? So I fail to see the difference between me spending as much money as I can on a couple games a year, versus coming out every single night. Either way, the O's get as much money as I can feasibly spare without winning the lottery or bumming some chump change off of one of the multi-millionaire players.

It's the difference between me being hungry/thirsty and not getting to buy the food I want at the quantities I want, versus showing up to many games. Either way, I have a finite amount of money I can spend on the Orioles, and it's just a question of whether I spend it all at once or over a period of many games. Considering how much I value my time (and sleep), I'd rather spend it on a couple games. I'm certainly not going to leave any money on the table, though. I'm paycheck to paycheck and spending whatever I can afford on attending the O's. I'll probably attend even more games than I can realistically afford (accrue unhealthy amounts of debt) if they continue to be in the race in mid September.

Way I see it, the only thing I'm doing is saving on gas money and light rail fees by blowing all my O's budget in a few games instead of spreading it out. The O's benefit from having well-compensated food service as much as they benefit from ticket sales. And I don't buy tickets just for the sake of being there. I want to sit in premium seats and be able to call balls and strikes by watching pitches with my naked eye. If I can't do that, it's no fun for me. I go to a ballgame to watch the ballgame and to gorge on delicious O's food.

[SilentJames]

You have to consider this: the attendance of this game last year would have been in the low 10's. Last night the place was about 75% full. Big change.

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[weams]

I go to games with one other person, so the costs are:

• $3.20 round trip Light Rail x2 = $6.40
• Gas for a 10 minute ride to the Light Rail station @ 40 mpg = about $1.25
• At least $35 Tickets (I don't do standing room only, and I like to be able to see the action without binoculars, so no third deck) x2 = $70 minimum
• Signature O's food, because both me and the person I go to games with love to get the "O" shaped pretzels and at least one piece of pizza = $20 to $40 depending on how gluttonous we're feeling and how many beers we need

Seriously though, don't the Orioles make commission on the food? Yes? So I fail to see the difference between me spending as much money as I can on a couple games a year, versus coming out every single night. Either way, the O's get as much money as I can feasibly spare without winning the lottery or bumming some chump change off of one of the multi-millionaire players.

It's the difference between me being hungry/thirsty and not getting to buy the food I want at the quantities I want, versus showing up to many games. Either way, I have a finite amount of money I can spend on the Orioles, and it's just a question of whether I spend it all at once or over a period of many games. Considering how much I value my time (and sleep), I'd rather spend it on a couple games. I'm certainly not going to leave any money on the table, though. I'm paycheck to paycheck and spending whatever I can afford on attending the O's. I'll probably attend even more games than I can realistically afford (accrue unhealthy amounts of debt) if they continue to be in the race in mid September.

Way I see it, the only thing I'm doing is saving on gas money and light rail fees by blowing all my O's budget in a few games instead of spreading it out. The O's benefit from having well-compensated food service as much as they benefit from ticket sales. And I don't buy tickets just for the sake of being there. I want to sit in premium seats and be able to call balls and strikes by watching pitches with my naked eye. If I can't do that, it's no fun for me. I go to a ballgame to watch the ballgame and to gorge on delicious O's food.

I sit in 336 in the fifth row. On the Aisle. I never need a binocular. I bring my own food often. I drive 90 miles each way. 20 games this year. Your way is cool too and occasionally I spend the big buck on seats. But plenty of folks sit downstairs with $11 tickets in their hands. I still think that Nestor got to a faction of folks who are so anti Angelos that they can not enjoy one of the cool sporting moments that they are likely to have in their lifetime.

[alaniee]

Attendance is up. I think someone said like 20% compared to last year.

The fans will come back with consistent winning. One winning season isn't going to do it. Especially after 13 or 14 losing seasons. The orioles are going to have to make it exciting for people to be willing to come out and spend money and hours at the stadium.

Just be happy attendance is up. Peter is happy.