2016 Attendance Thread

[Going Underground]

So attendance is down, but why? Is it because people have been influenced by the riots? Do people have less spending money? Less time to go to the ballpark b/c we work too hard? Death of live sports? Poor weather? I'm not sure. Probably a combination of all.

I'd love to see the fans come out though and we're playing some entertaining baseball!

Yankee fans not coming to see a bad team.This also hurts in a bizarre way.

[ChuckS]

Attendance will pick up into the Summer once school is out like it always does.

I expect attendance overall to be down this year with the reason being the increased ticket prices.

[ChuckS]

Yankee fans not coming to see a bad team.This also hurts in a bizarre way.

Many/most Yankees fans are front runners. Especially ones that aren't from NY/NJ. I'm not surprised that they are not showing up this week.

[OFFNY]

Many/most Yankees fans are front runners. Especially ones that aren't from NY/NJ. I'm not surprised that they are not showing up this week.

Trust me, many of those Yankee fans are front-runners, also.

Granted that when the Orioles started their streak of consecutive losing season in 1998, they had a new stadium, but I still believe that the following numbers are quite telling:

In 1988, the Yankees' were 2nd in attendance in the American League. They had a winning season that year, going 85-76 with one rain-out, and they stayed in the hunt for the division title until the final week of the season.

They immediately took a major nosedive in attendance when they started losing in 1989.

1988: 2nd out of 14 Teams (Winning Season)

1989: 8th out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

1990: 9th out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

1991: 11th out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

1992: 11th out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

The Orioles, on the other hand, were first in the American League in attendance when they had a losing season in 1998, and continued to draw well for the next 5 seasons, in spite of the Orioles continuing to put up losing records.

1997: 1st out of 14 Teams (Winning Season)

1998: 1st out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

1999: 2nd out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

2000: 2nd out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

2001: 4th out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

2002: 3rd out of 14 Teams (Losing Season)

The fans of the Yankees bailed on their team a lot sooner than did the fans of the Orioles when their respective teams started losing.

[OFFNY]

o

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I once saw an HBO documentary about the 1951 Bobby Thomson home run off of Ralph Branca in that year's 3-game playoff to decide the National League Pennant.

They interviewed many fans and historians of both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York baseball Giants. One of them described many Yankee fans to a tee ...... they said that Yankee fans would root for the U.S. Government in a tax suit against an average American citizen. He said that Yankee fans were full of bluster when they were winning, but you never heard a thing from them (or even saw them) when they were losing.

[Nevermore]

I was at tonight's (Tuesday's) game. The attendance was pathetic. Where is everyone??!?

[Rene88]

The weather was crappy yesterday. I had whole rows to myself. Vendors were not happy.

No Ollie's Bargain Nights anymore. They don't promote well. I went to the Nationals game last Saturday and they send me a code for $15 to $ 20 off any mid week series thru June. They have $5.00 ticekts for midweek games and $1.00 hot dogs and Harris Teeter family packs . Look at all the promotions the Rangers do.Tigers have weekday value packs Astros have plenty.

http://texas.rangers.mlb.com/tex/ticketing/specials.jsp

http://m.astros.mlb.com/hou/tickets/info/valueoptions

http://m.mlb.com/det/tickets/info/weekday-value-pack

Nats are evil. I hate Papel-douche.

[Going Underground]

Nats are evil. I hate Papel-douche.

One guy i do not like. The fans when he comes in are also kind of lukewarm. Not a fan favorite. Also blew the game yesterday.

[Going Underground]

From Schmuck in the Sun:

With all due respect to Martinez, the seemingly obvious answer is Maryland's unpredictable climate. Just about every game in April featured cold temperatures and some kind of precipitation. But there has to be more to it than that.

Average temperature and precipitation numbers for the same period last year were not all that different, but O's fans -- and the team -- couldn't help but notice that the weather seemed to get warmer and drier every time the club left town.

The spike in violence in Baltimore after the Freddie Gray unrest might have been a factor, since it had a direct and probably indirect impact last season. The Orioles had their worst full-season attendance total since 2011, which was impacted directly by the loss of three home dates and the infamous no-fan game.

It's certainly fair to suspect that a lot of potential walk-up customers -- particularly tourists -- chose to steer clear of the ballpark during the five months that remained of the season after the unrest.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/schmuck-blog/bal-imperfect-weather-adds-to-perfect-storm-that-has-diminished-orioles-attendance-20160504-story.html

[Redskins Rick]

From Schmuck in the Sun:

With all due respect to Martinez, the seemingly obvious answer is Maryland's unpredictable climate. Just about every game in April featured cold temperatures and some kind of precipitation. But there has to be more to it than that.

Average temperature and precipitation numbers for the same period last year were not all that different, but O's fans -- and the team -- couldn't help but notice that the weather seemed to get warmer and drier every time the club left town.

The spike in violence in Baltimore after the Freddie Gray unrest might have been a factor, since it had a direct and probably indirect impact last season. The Orioles had their worst full-season attendance total since 2011, which was impacted directly by the loss of three home dates and the infamous no-fan game.

It's certainly fair to suspect that a lot of potential walk-up customers -- particularly tourists -- chose to steer clear of the ballpark during the five months that remained of the season after the unrest.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/schmuck-blog/bal-imperfect-weather-adds-to-perfect-storm-that-has-diminished-orioles-attendance-20160504-story.html

I wonder if the surrounding businesses in the Harbor can document a $$$ loss last summer?

Seamed to me, the times, I was there in July, August and September, that it was the normal hustle and bustle of a busy metropolitan area.

[jjk26]

not sure if weather can be blamed if the nationals are averaging 6000 more fans (than o's) per game this year.

[Going Underground]

I wonder if the surrounding businesses in the Harbor can document a $$$ loss last summer?

Seamed to me, the times, I was there in July, August and September, that it was the normal hustle and bustle of a busy metropolitan area.

Many were hurt real bad. Business is still down but has come back mostly.

Impact of Baltimore riots will be costly, research suggests: Early estimates of how much the riots could hurt the city weren't promising. A study of the Los Angeles riots showed that over the 10 years following the riots there was a cumulative loss of at least $3.8 billion in taxable sales in the city.

http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/blog/charm-city-flavor/2015/08/la-tasca-at-harborplace-is-closing-citing-riots.html

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/baltimore-businesses-still-recovering-from-april-riots/36760310

[Redskins Rick]

Many were hurt real bad. Business is still down but has come back mostly.

Impact of Baltimore riots will be costly, research suggests: Early estimates of how much the riots could hurt the city weren't promising. A study of the Los Angeles riots showed that over the 10 years following the riots there was a cumulative loss of at least $3.8 billion in taxable sales in the city.

http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/blog/charm-city-flavor/2015/08/la-tasca-at-harborplace-is-closing-citing-riots.html

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/baltimore-businesses-still-recovering-from-april-riots/36760310

I know the Mom and Pop business where hit hard and that Mall.

But, the main drag around the Stadium and down to little Italy, really wasn't affected, and those areas was what I was referring to.

Not sure, its fair to compare this to the LA riots, how many city street blocks were destroyed in LA? If my memory servers correct, the damage was 100x worse in LA, than what Baltimore experienced.

In 1965, property damage was $40M and 34 deaths.

In 1992, property damage was $1 billion and 55 people killed.

Wikipedia doesn't even call the incident in Baltimore a riot, they call it a protest and civil unrest.

[ShaneDawg85]

Eddie Matz of ESPN posted a picture a little while ago with the caption "Another lovely day in Seattle, Washing...oops, I mean Baltimore."

http://es.pn/1TpTw5V

Seriously, that's literally what it has felt like almost every home game this entire season. Maybe I'm forever ruined for sitting through 2.5 hours of rain in the ALDS game four years ago, but I can't blame anybody who looks at these constant conditions when that's not the norm and says I'm not sitting through that. This isn't September or October, it's April. That's not fun, it's downright miserable.

[OFFNY]

o

3-GAME SET, vs. Yankees (May 3rd, 4th, 5th)

GAME 1:O 16,083 o(35.0%)

GAME 2:O 15,998 o(34.8%)

GAME 3:O 19,598 o(42.6%)

_________

3-GAME TOTAL: OO) 51,679

3-GAME AVERAGE: oo 17,226