Attendance 2019

[atomic]

I constantly see these TV commercials for MLB.  They have dad's taking their daughters to baseball games having fun.  I think baseball is going to lose the female fans going forward.  My daughter has no interest watching men play sports.  She does enjoy watching women play sports.  She would rather watch a girls high soccer game or basketball game over an Orioles game.

Football fans at games are predominantly male.  Baseball has a lot of female fans.  Girls growing up today see themselves as equals to boys if not superior. I think female professional team sports will grow in popularity and baseball will lose fans as a result. 

Changing environment.  Soccer and women's sports gaining attention while other sports decline. 

A higher percentage of girls are playing basketball than boys are playing baseball. And girls volleyball participation is pretty much equal to boys baseball participation. 

[DrungoHazewood]

3 hours ago, atomic said:

DC united attendance is up.  They average 2,000 more fans per game than the Orioles.  Washington Spirit double their attendance from last year.  Sold out most of their home games  Sold out Audi Field with 20,000 people attending.  

 

That's a little apples-to-oranges.  United has 17 league home games, plus a few friendlies and cup matches.  As the NFL shows it's easier to draw when you play once, occasionally twice a week.

The Spirit doubled their single game attendance record because they had a special match at United's Audi Field, but play most of their home games at the Maryland SoccerPlex.  The main stadium at the SoccerPlex seats six or seven thousand, Audi Field 20k.  The Spirit did have a large percentage increase in attendance this year, but they only play 11 home games and were up from 3800 a game to just over 6000.  Literally 30% of their total "home" attendance came at that one-off game at Audi Field.

That's like if the Orioles played a single sellout game at a 200,000 seat NASCAR stadium, added that to the normal home attendance, and then touted how popular they got this year.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, atomic said:

I constantly see these TV commercials for MLB.  They have dad's taking their daughters to baseball games having fun.  I think baseball is going to lose the female fans going forward.  My daughter has no interest watching men play sports.  She does enjoy watching women play sports.  She would rather watch a girls high soccer game or basketball game over an Orioles game.

Football fans at games are predominantly male.  Baseball has a lot of female fans.  Girls growing up today see themselves as equals to boys if not superior. I think female professional team sports will grow in popularity and baseball will lose fans as a result. 

Changing environment.  Soccer and women's sports gaining attention while other sports decline. 

A higher percentage of girls are playing basketball than boys are playing baseball. And girls volleyball participation is pretty much equal to boys baseball participation. 

To a large degree people are fans of sports they've participated in, even at a lower level.  There are exceptions, of course.  Many, many football fans never played football outside of pickup games in their neighborhood.

But... the St. Mary's County soccer league has many hundreds of girls who play.  Maybe 1000, in a county that only has 120k people total.  They have rec leagues, RecPlus Leagues, and very successful travel teams.  There are many, many girls who've probably been made lifelong soccer fans by playing.  I guess there are some girls softball teams in the area, and a small handful of girls on the boys' baseball teams, but I'd guess two or three or five times as many play soccer.

[Going Underground]

 

This season featured the lowest-paying crowd in Oriole Park at Camden Yards history, 6,585 on April 8. There were only four games that drew more than 30,000 — three against the New York Yankees and one against Boston, none after June 15.

In a pregame media session to discuss the 2019 season, executive vice  president and general manager Mike Elias predicted that fans would return to the ballpark once the team begins winning again.

https://www.baltimorebaseball.com/2019/09/23/orioles-attendance-falls-250000-2019-elias-vows-fans-will-back-big-way/

 

[weams]

This town ain't big enough for the both of us, Pardner. 

 

[TonySoprano]

1 hour ago, weams said:

This town ain't big enough for the both of us, Pardner. 

 

And their current average gate is 11,453 more than the Orioles.

[weams]

2 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

And their current average gate is 11,453 more than the Orioles.

And it should be. They got the good end of the market. And the money and players to be competitive. 

[weams]

3 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

And their current average gate is 11,453 more than the Orioles.

Hey, it's their star that is complaining not me!

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, weams said:

This town ain't big enough for the both of us, Pardner. 

 

I'm sure when the O's move to Portland or Austin or Mexico City or whatever the Nats' attendance will go up by hundreds of fans a year.  It's an easy 90 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic from Towson to the Navy Yard on a Tuesday night at 6:30.

[Going Underground]

1 hour ago, weams said:

This town ain't big enough for the both of us, Pardner. 

 

Down 416,800 with 5 games to go. Also only played 80 games at home  in 2018.Should be down over 250,000 or a little more. By later on in the year,maybe he meant for the Enchant Christmas Light Maze and Market. 

 

https://www.mlb.com/nationals/tickets/specials/enchant#enchant-at-nationals-park

[Frobby]

The Nats’ drop is a bit surprising, considering they’re in the playoffs. This will be their lowest attendance since 2011.    One thing this proves: at this point, the O’s aren’t losing fans because they’re defecting to the Nats.    That shook out a long time ago.

[atomic]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'm sure when the O's move to Portland or Austin or Mexico City or whatever the Nats' attendance will go up by hundreds of fans a year.  It's an easy 90 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic from Towson to the Navy Yard on a Tuesday night at 6:30.

I parked at a metro lot once and took the Subway down there.  Never again.  Been to plenty of Capitals games but that is an easier drive as you are against traffic going down.  More places to eat and drink around the Arena. Tons of places to park. 

[atomic]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

The Nats’ drop is a bit surprising, considering they’re in the playoffs. This will be their lowest attendance since 2011.    One thing this proves: at this point, the O’s aren’t losing fans because they’re defecting to the Nats.    That shook out a long time ago.

Nationals are losing fans to Soccer.  Plus the Capitals were coming off their Stanley Cup season.   We are losing fans because we are terrible for second season in a row.  

[spiritof66]

On 9/23/2019 at 12:44 PM, DrungoHazewood said:

To a large degree people are fans of sports they've participated in, even at a lower level.  There are exceptions, of course.  Many, many football fans never played football outside of pickup games in their neighborhood.

But... the St. Mary's County soccer league has many hundreds of girls who play.  Maybe 1000, in a county that only has 120k people total.  They have rec leagues, RecPlus Leagues, and very successful travel teams.  There are many, many girls who've probably been made lifelong soccer fans by playing.  I guess there are some girls softball teams in the area, and a small handful of girls on the boys' baseball teams, but I'd guess two or three or five times as many play soccer.

For several decades, increasing rates of participation in youth soccer across most of the country did not translate into a major boost in interest in men’s or women’s professional soccer in the U.S. (other than U.S. World Cup matches). 

That has changed in recent years, though many of the adults I know who are soccer fans focus their interest on European leagues, especially the English Premier League. I don’t know the reasons for the recent and ongoing uptick, but I would guess these are among them: (1) the fact that the early generation of youth soccer players from the 1980s and 90s has reached prime ticket-buying age, and they can enjoy and appreciate soccer on their own or with their soccer-playing kids, (2) more aggressive and promotion by MLS, including a policy of rapid expansion that appears designed to find cities where soccer will catch on, including  smaller markets without MLB franchises, and (3) the decline of participation in youth football and baseball in many parts of the country. 

While growing, the attendance numbers for professional soccer in the U.S. remain modest. I think the MSL faces a major hurdle in many Americans’ spectators demand to watch athletic competition that is, or they can be convinced is, world-class. I don’t know whether the MSL can get there. A constructive first step would be to raise the level of play and player compensation to the point where the best American players, whom fans will know from following the national teams, will choose to make their careers in the U.S.

While I’m on my soapbox, I’ll throw in my own recommendation that would, I think, enhance U.S. fan interest. Like many Americans, my introduction to world/class soccer started with I started with the 1966 World Cup and continued with the launch of the NASL in the late 60s. One important way in which the game has changed is that, like athletes in other sports, goalies are now much bigger, faster, and more athletic/acrobatic than they were a generation or two ago. As a result, many well-aimed shots at the top or sides of the goal mouth, which decades ago would have resulted in goals, are now saved, some of them routinely. If I were running the MSL, I would consider sponsoring some experimental exhibition games, played with an enlarged goal areas. 

 

[DrungoHazewood]

36 minutes ago, atomic said:

Nationals are losing fans to Soccer. 

I think that's quite a stretch.  There is not a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of soccer and baseball fans.  It's me, maybe you, and like 10 other people. In any case, how many times has United and the Nats had a game at the same time?  Never?

Also, United's attendance is up 4-5k a game from the RFK days.  Every single one of them would have to be disaffected Nats fans for that to be the impact.

2nd caveat: there's not a fixed number of fans.  I'm guessing DC United, Nats and Orioles attendance numbers are largely independent of one another.