Attendance problem not just an Oriole problem?

[Dark Helmet]

They're were a few empty seats at the Ravens home opener. And today sounds like a Raiders home game. Maybe this is bigger than just the Orioles.

[MagicBird]

They're were a few empty seats at the Ravens home opener. And today sounds like a Raiders home game. Maybe this is bigger than just the Orioles.

The Baltimore team that needed the win got it today tho. Maybe Some Ravens fans were home watching the Birds.

[O's are Legends]

Quote

The World Series opener between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros narrowly averted setting a record low.

Washington's 5-4 victory Tuesday night averaged 12,194,000 television viewers, according to national numbers from Nielsen. That edges the 12,191,000 who tuned in for San Francisco's 7-1 win over Kansas City in the 2014 opener.

The network that used to employ Charlie Steiner

[DrungoHazewood]

12 hours ago, O's are Legends said:

The network that used to employ Charlie Steiner

Ratings for everything everywhere are far lower than in decades past because of entertainment choices.  Everyone has 300 channels, and nobody watches them because they also have the internet and Xbox and all their kids have activities six days a week.  Kids don't watch sports, and our increasingly older population only watches Fox News and the Weather Channel (source: Drungo's dad) and is asleep by 8:30 anyway.  On the east coast I don't think the Series starts until about 9:00; even if the O's were playing it would be a nightmare to watch and go to work for a couple weeks on four hours sleep.

And unfortunately, nationwide baseball ratings are highly dependent on whether the Yanks, Sox, or Dodgers are playing.  We have a front-running culture, to a large extent.  Part of the reason baseball won't take bigger steps to solve revenue disparities.

Yes, there's some amount of exaggeration in the post, but also a fair amount of truth.

[Aglets]

Pretty sure the series starts at closer to 8:00.

But yeah the trick is using the right data.  You can mold it however you want depending on what your agenda is.

Ratings are down for this year, sure, because Yankees/Sox/Dodgers aren't in it.  

But I understand it still won the timeslot for FOX,  so that's still significant out of whatever subset of people actually watch TV.   Wonder if those numbers include people like me who have streaming TV thru Hulu/Sling/YouTube / whatever.

I think Drungo is saying the answer to baseball's ratings woes is to create an authoritarian state that bans alternative means of media distribution.   And ban all but 20-30 TV channels.  Too much freedom is dangerous.................  

If I am misinterpreting though sir please feel free to correct me.

[DrungoHazewood]

Oh, and yes, MLB has been losing attendance at a rate of a bit less than 1% a year for the last 12 years.

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, Aglets said:

Pretty sure the series starts at closer to 8:00.

But yeah the trick is using the right data.  You can mold it however you want depending on what your agenda is.

Ratings are down for this year, sure, because Yankees/Sox/Dodgers aren't in it.  

But I understand it still won the timeslot for FOX,  so that's still significant out of whatever subset of people actually watch TV.   Wonder if those numbers include people like me who have streaming TV thru Hulu/Sling/YouTube / whatever.

I think Drungo is saying the answer to baseball's ratings woes is to create an authoritarian state that bans alternative means of media distribution.   And ban all but 20-30 TV channels.  Too much freedom is dangerous.................  

If I am misinterpreting though sir please feel free to correct me.

No, that's exactly right.  Although under our new regime some people will be very devoted to watching our dear leaders (me, you, weams, obviously) ride white stallions around Montana on the state media channel, which could lower the ratings for the World Series.  Perhaps some kind of picture-in-picture so we can watch both?  Or just require everyone to have two TVs on at all times?

[DrungoHazewood]

Part of the attendance "problem" is on purpose.  In the past 27 years almost every team has replaced an older stadium with a newer one that has less capacity.  Sometimes far less.

One example, in 2010 the Twins moved into Target Field.  In 2009 they had 14 games at the Metrodome with an attendance higher than the listed capacity of Target Field.  They had three pennant race games in early October that had 49-51k.  Those all would have been 38,000 and change in the new park.  I'd guess this effect is on the order of 50,000 to 100,000 fans per team per season.  A few percent.

And with all the new fields there's much less of a Camden Yards effect.  The Twins got a bump in 2010 but three years later they were back to the numbers they had at the Metrodome.  But presumably with greater revenues from higher costs of attending games and greater opportunity to extract money for things like suites.

[atomic]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

.

And unfortunately, nationwide baseball ratings are highly dependent on whether the Yanks, Sox, or Dodgers are playing.  We have a front-running culture, to a large extent.  Part of the reason baseball won't take bigger steps to solve revenue disparities.

 

I don't think Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers having higher viewership is to do with front-runners.  New York and LA market size dwarfs Washington and Houston.  And a lot of DC population is immigrants and people from other parts of the country. 

Baseball is more of a local sport.  I don't watch the World Series as the Orioles aren't in it.  I watch the Super Bowl no matter what the teams are.  I think that is the norm.   I have zero interest in watching the Nationals and the Astros play.    Really it would take someone paying me hundreds of dollars to get me to watch them play. 

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

I don't think Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers having higher viewership is to do with front-runners.  New York and LA market size dwarfs Washington and Houston.  And a lot of DC population is immigrants and people from other parts of the country. 

Baseball is more of a local sport.  I don't watch the World Series as the Orioles aren't in it.  I watch the Super Bowl no matter what the teams are.  I think that is the norm.   I have zero interest in watching the Nationals and the Astros play.    Really it would take someone paying me hundreds of dollars to get me to watch them play. 

New York and LA are big, but combined they're about 10% of the US media market.  The bigger effect, to me, is that in most areas the 2nd favorite team is the Yankees.  In some places like the Carolinas, New Mexico, Montana, and Louisiana the Yanks are the #1 team.  There are like 14 Orioles fans in Santa Fe.  There are probably 10,000 Yankee fans.

[Aglets]

Couple of conclusions I draw from that map:

 

1.  Poor White Sox............Poor Mets

2.  When do we break up the Blue Jays?

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

New York and LA are big, but combined they're about 10% of the US media market.  The bigger effect, to me, is that in most areas the 2nd favorite team is the Yankees.  In some places like the Carolinas, New Mexico, Montana, and Louisiana the Yanks are the #1 team.  There are like 14 Orioles fans in Santa Fe.  There are probably 10,000 Yankee fans.

Unlikely, population was only 83,776 in 2017.  Highly doubt one in eight is a Yankee fan.  Most probably aren't baseball fans at all.

[Redskins Rick]

8 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

New York and LA are big, but combined they're about 10% of the US media market.  The bigger effect, to me, is that in most areas the 2nd favorite team is the Yankees.  In some places like the Carolinas, New Mexico, Montana, and Louisiana the Yanks are the #1 team.  There are like 14 Orioles fans in Santa Fe.  There are probably 10,000 Yankee fans.

Having some family in the Carolinas, my unofficial opinion is, the two states are pretty much Braves for MLB, but college Football and Basketball is a religion to them. There is a sprinkling of Oriole Fans in some parts of NC, near Norfolk. 

[atomic]

26 minutes ago, Aglets said:

Couple of conclusions I draw from that map:

 

1.  Poor White Sox............Poor Mets

2.  When do we break up the Blue Jays?

On #2 probably Hockey Hockey Hockey.  Toronto could probably support 3 NHL teams. 

[DrungoHazewood]

26 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Unlikely, population was only 83,776 in 2017.  Highly doubt one in eight is a Yankee fan.  Most probably aren't baseball fans at all.

I counted them personally.  I won't 100% guarantee that some of those ne'er-do-wells from La Cienega didn't sneak in to sour the results.