Passan: Tanking Killing Baseball?

[Frobby]

25 minutes ago, atomic said:

They started the season in March.  That is what is wrong with attendance. You have games in March and have had half of April to add to it and of course attendance is down. Who wants to go to a game in cold rainy weather?  

It’s been unusually cold this spring.   Look how many games were postponed yesterday.    It’s always a little spotty and chilly in April, but this has been ridiculous.    

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

It’s been unusually cold this spring.   Look how many games were postponed yesterday.    It’s always a little spotty and chilly in April, but this has been ridiculous.    

True, but wasn't it you who pointed out how much lower the season ticket number seems to be?  Doesn't a large portion of overall attendance come from season tickets?

 

[Frobby]

28 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

True, but wasn't it you who pointed out how much lower the season ticket number seems to be?  Doesn't a large portion of overall attendance come from season tickets?

 

I’m not really addressing the Orioles’ situation here.    I’m talking about MLB as a whole.    

It’s correct that season ticket sales are a very large percentage of all tickets sold.    My supposition is that one-off sales are much larger (1) on weekends, and (2) when the weather is nice.    Who’s going to pay to go to a Monday night game where the temperature is in the low 40’s?    Practically nobody, unless that game is part of a ticket package they bought before the season.   And even some of those will be exchanged for a better date.   But there’s probably a good number of people who buy single tickets for a weekend game when the weather’s good.    Not so much when the weather sucks.   

I do think the O’s are in for terrible attendance this year.   I think they may be looking at a 25-33% drop. But the numbers cited by Passan are misleading, because we had a weekend series with the Yankees in home games 3-5 last year, and then a weekend series with the Red Sox in games 6-8.    This year our home dates have been the Twins and Blue Jays, with the latter three coming on weeknights.   

[TouchemAll]

57 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Does this count as chatting with friends online?

Cause I don't like all of you.

LOL Ahhh come on, I like You. Oh well maybe not

[Can_of_corn]

12 minutes ago, TouchemAll said:

LOL Ahhh come on, I like You. Oh well maybe not

I left it open that I might like some of you.  If you would like to include yourself in that group, I won't stop you.

[TouchemAll]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I left it open that I might like some of you.  If you would like to include yourself in that group, I won't stop you.

Thanks man!! But how is ALL OF you leaving any room for some of you

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, TouchemAll said:

Thanks man!! But how is ALL OF you leaving any room for some of you

I said I do not like all of you. That leaves me open to like some of you or none of you.

If I wanted to cleary state my antipathy for the entire board I would have said I dislike all of you or I don't like any of you.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, esmd said:

Only thing I can think of was Memorial Stadium was a pain to get to.  No convenient highway access, they "stadium" parked you so you were stuck there and couldn't leave early if you chose to, etc.  People that lived in the city could take the bus I guess, but for folks who lived in the suburbs, it was a pain.

I think this is right on the nose. Living in Pasadena, my mother would drive me to to my Grandfather's house in Little Italy where my Dad would pick us up, then drive to the stadium. There, he would avoid the clog of parking by parking on a side street or paying for an unofficial lot where the locals would watch your car. One time my Dad decided to forgo the $5 to park at the unofficial lot and parked on the street for free. When we came back all four of his spoked wheelcaps were stolen. LOL

Lesson for me was that you sometimes pay the unscrupulous guy to protect your stuff from other unscrupulous guys. 

Memorial Stadium had good memories because of all the winning, but it was an awful stadium to get to and park.

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Does this count as chatting with friends online?

Cause I don't like all of you.

You know we're the only friends you have.

[TommyPickles]

2 hours ago, 25 Nuggets said:

Must have it more accessible online.

I do the radio feed because it is not in my budget to do the video feed.  But I am old enough to remember going go games and that drives my waning fandom.

To wit, people are relocating more than ever in America.  A good number of us on the board are not within driving distance of a game anymore.  I'd have to drive about eight hours to get there, and that's speeding and without any delays.

Why not just buy the MLB package? I’m in my late twenties, I live out of state, and I’ve never paid for cable. But my friends and I always buy (split) the MLB tv package. It’s pretty sweet and not expensive. I can watch any game as long as it’s not being played in my city. I can watch either team’s broadcast. Or I can watch the game on mute with the local radio coverage, if I so choose. 

Way better than cable. Combine that with Hulu and streaming and you’re good to go.

[TouchemAll]

41 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

You know we're the only friends you have.

TRUE!!

[esmd]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

I think this is right on the nose. Living in Pasadena, my mother would drive me to to my Grandfather's house in Little Italy where my Dad would pick us up, then drive to the stadium. There, he would avoid the clog of parking by parking on a side street or paying for an unofficial lot where the locals would watch your car. One time my Dad decided to forgo the $5 to park at the unofficial lot and parked on the street for free. When we came back all four of his spoked wheelcaps were stolen. LOL

Lesson for me was that you sometimes pay the unscrupulous guy to protect your stuff from other unscrupulous guys. 

Memorial Stadium had good memories because of all the winning, but it was an awful stadium to get to and park.

My family did something similar.  My grandmother lived in Hampden, and my Dad worked at the old State Office complex near the intersection of MLK Blvd and Eutaw St.  My Mom was a stay at home Mom, so on night's we were going to the game, she'd take my brother and I to my Grandmother's to visit.  Dad would come to her house after work for dinner, we'd eat, then Dad and I (and in later years as he got old enough my Brother too) would head to the game, and Mom would head home to Pasadena.  Dad would always park on the stadium lot or at the old Eastern High School.  Good memories.  :-)  Luckily we never ran afoul of anyone who messed with the car.  I do remember all the neighborhood folks who would let you park in their yard for $$.  Definitely a bygone era.

[accinfo]

4 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

I think this is right on the nose. Living in Pasadena, my mother would drive me to to my Grandfather's house in Little Italy where my Dad would pick us up, then drive to the stadium. There, he would avoid the clog of parking by parking on a side street or paying for an unofficial lot where the locals would watch your car. One time my Dad decided to forgo the $5 to park at the unofficial lot and parked on the street for free. When we came back all four of his spoked wheelcaps were stolen. LOL

Lesson for me was that you sometimes pay the unscrupulous guy to protect your stuff from other unscrupulous guys. 

Memorial Stadium had good memories because of all the winning, but it was an awful stadium to get to and park.

All this is true. I would like to add that  Baltimore in the 70's (the time I was 11 to 19) this was a football town until Robert Irsay destroyed that.  It was also a much more blue collar poorer area where there wasn't a whole lot of disposable money.  Certainly not a lot of corporate money.  The Senators moved out of Washington in 1971 and by the end of the decade Edward Bennett Williams learned to market baseball to the region which sparked the attendance to rise by the end of the decade. This was just a different world then the one we live in now.  The Inner Harbor development in the 70's brought people from the suburbs of Maryland that never before had ever thought of setting foot in Baltimore City. 

[OsEatAlEast]

I just hope John Casey isn't right about his cold sun theory. Another Maunder or Dalton minimum would definitely not be good for baseball.

[foxfield]

9 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Does this count as chatting with friends online?

Cause I don't like all of you.

 

6 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

You know we're the only friends you have.

Apparently only some of us are...