7,915

[Frobby]

That was the announced attendance tonight.  The lowest attendance last year was 11,142.    

That number is extremely significant because it basically tells you what the full plan season ticket base is. You can pretty much rack up 250,000 in lost attendance before the games have been played.    

[Ohfan67]

Yikes

[Legend_Of_Joey]

Weekday, cold, rain, school night.

Still pretty bad.

[Beef Supreme]

Used to be like a night-club out there, even on the cold nights. In the 90s, it was a hot ticket that was so desirable.

[TINSTAAPP]

13 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

Used to be like a night-club out there, even on the cold nights. In the 90s, it was a hot ticket that was so desirable.

It used to be like that with the Indians too and now they have terrible attendance even with great teams. Bad/cheap ownership can drive away the best of fans.

[Beef Supreme]

7 minutes ago, TINSTAAPP said:

It used to be like that with the Indians too and now they have terrible attendance even with great teams. Bad/cheap ownership can drive away the best of fans.

I picked Cleveland to win the WS last year. Good chance they win it this year.

[allquixotic]

Ticket prices:

 

 

Wages:

 

 

Sources: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

and https://www.statista.com/statistics/193426/average-ticket-price-in-the-mlb-since-2006/

Average ticket prices went up 39% in a decade, but the bottom 95% of people are earning roughly the same amount of money as they did 10 years ago. They may not be noticing major drops in attendace in metropolitan areas where there are ludicrous numbers of rich people like NYC, but for the rest of the country, this is no surprise.

Oh, and concessions are up in cost, too. And gas. $2.50 or so might be the "new normal" for gas, but it was only around 2004 when gas first hit $2/gallon, and it was much more than that for several years. Fortunately it's come down since, but it hasn't reliably been close to or below $2 ever since.

Also, this will depend on your exact circumstances, but my middle-class family's taxes went way up this year. It basically wiped out money we'd have saved up for a vacation or several trips to OPACY.

None of this info is politically motivated; it's just the facts. People are poorer now than they were in 2006, except for the richest few, while ticket prices continue to rise. "Kids cheer free" won't get adult butts in seats, either, and does almost nothing for school night attendance.

I'm afraid the O's would have to dramatically reduce ticket prices to restore attendance to levels it was at in the glory days of OPACY. It's not due to a lack of interest in baseball; people just can't afford it anymore.

 

[Odenton Mike]

Though I don't go to many O's games anymore, I was tempted to see Hunter Harvey in Bowie last night but the cold temps convinced me otherwise. My decision was made a lot easier on the 6:00 news when I heard  HH was sent up to the O's y-day. Takes a real, true fan to go to a baseball game in these conditions!

[fansince1988]

According to this article, it was the lowest attended game in the history of the ballpark.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bs-sp-orioles-set-dubious-attendance-record-20180409-story.html

[sportsfan8703]

I thought this was an over/under thread for team strikeouts this year. 

[mdbdotcom]

Team came in last place and didn't add to the team until spring training, long after season ticket renewals. How are other non-contending teams doing? Owners may have outsmarted themselves with their free agency waiting strategy.

[eddie83]

Couple of thoughts. 

In 2015 the lowest attendance the Orioles has was 15,963. It was a game on Wednesday September 2.  That year the first weeknight games in April were vs NYY. In 14 they won the division and leveraged their postseason push to get people to buy season tickets to be able to get playoff tickets in 14. That was the high water mark in recent years. 

2012-the lowest attended game was 10,141 on August 31. 10,415 on Wednesday April 25. 

2013-Wednesday April 22 had 11,168. Monday May 8 had 12,344

2014-Wednesday July 2 had 13,478. Odd that a July game was lowest attended. The lowest attendance in April was 4/14 where it was 15,799. The 6th lowest of season. 

2016- Thursday April 7 has 11,142 

The day before had 12,622. 

2017- Monday April 24 11,142. Next day had 11,472.  

We will have to see what the next couple of nights bring. The fact is they are hemorrhaging season ticket holders. They got greedy in 16 raising ticket prices. They have not had enough sustained success in this market to do that. They maintained many in  2017 coming off a playoff berth. Then this year the bottom falls out.  No moves until way late into the offseason.

They were building a season base. Then in 2015 the riots happened along with a mediocre team and then the next year a significant ticket increase. 

[eddie83]

You can’t lose for 14 straight years and then operate the way the Orioles did. They lost a mammoth amount of fans from the 1998-2011 era. The Ravens took over the town plus the Nats arrived. All teams are having issues selling tickets and having no shows for a variety of reasons in recent years. 

The early years of Camden they actually had to cap the number of season ticket holders. Then the second they have some modest success in a much different environment they raise prices way late in 2016 and send out invoices at the last second. They were slowly building back up and now they have torn it back down again. 

Its great they are offering the kids cheer free program. The dugout club is great also. The Orioles do many great things but the core of your attendance comes from season ticket holders. They completely mismanaged it. 

[Going Underground]

40 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

You can’t lose for 14 straight years and then operate the way the Orioles did. They lost a mammoth amount of fans from the 1998-2011 era. The Ravens took over the town plus the Nats arrived. All teams are having issues selling tickets and having no shows for a variety of reasons in recent years. 

The early years of Camden they actually had to cap the number of season ticket holders. Then the second they have some modest success in a much different environment they raise prices way late in 2016 and send out invoices at the last second. They were slowly building back up and now they have torn it back down again. 

Its great they are offering the kids cheer free program. The dugout club is great also. The Orioles do many great things but the core of your attendance comes from season ticket holders. They completely mismanaged it. 

And how many kids cheer free were at the game yesterday? Not many in that cold and a school night. Tuesday and Wednesday look a little warmer,especially Wednesday. i see about 10,000 a game for both games. Tonight might be less.

[eddie83]

9 minutes ago, Going Underground said:

And how many kids cheer free were at the game yesterday? Not many in that cold and a school night. Tuesday and Wednesday look a little warmer,especially Wednesday. i see about 10,000 a game for both games. Tonight might be less.

Exactly. Nobody is dragging their kids out in that weather on a school night.  

We can talk about weather all day long though but this is about lack of season ticket holders. There are no advanced sales for weeknight games in April. No giveaways these games either. Why would someone in advance buy tickets to these 3 games?  Even if the weather is nicer your fan base comes from the suburbs and is going to wait and go to games most convenient for them, Friday, Saturday and Sunday games.