How many Orioles fans are left in the world?

[Newguyry]

Serious question, after this rebuild and the problems in the city, how many of us are left out there in the wild? By my best guess I’d say 50–75k

[JR Oriole]

While I am sure the number is much higher than that, I certainly can understand how all of the years of losing can wear on fans such that they detach.  I do worry about building the fanbase, as it is just such so much easier to get young fans to care about a team when the team is successful.  How do you "sell" the Orioles to younger fans?  

A game like yesterday is so demoralizing because it would have been a really good game to win.  We came back in the 9th and then to have that guy hit a 3 run homer with 2 outs in the top of the 10th is just painful.  It cannot be good for young players to lose this much.  Confidence comes from success and too much failure is just bad for morale.  We need to start winning some games like yesterday's game instead of losing all of them.  Part of turning the corner is delivering painful losses to the opposition, and we don't do enough of that.  

[crowmst3k!]

Only 50k fans? Doubtful.  

Baltimore loves the Orioles. Whenever they're competitive again, they'll draw fans.  

Every major city has problems. Baltimore is not unique in that regard. I don't think that factors in to whether people like a baseball team. 

[DrungoHazewood]

It depends on where you draw the line.

• People who care enough to post on Orioleshangout at 12:43pm on a Monday:  Right now there are about 200 people doing that.
• People who post on Orioleshangout at 12:43 on a Monday, but only to complain that they didn't pick the best available player in the draft and the team is going to suck for all eternity... 10? 20?
• People who'd answer "who's your favorite MLB team?" with "Orioles"?  I don't know, at least hundreds of thousands, perhaps 1M+.
• Those who regularly watch the team on MASN... a few tens of thousands?
• Can name all 26 players currently on the roster... two dozen?
• Would go to a playoff game at OPACY if their buddy gave them a ticket?  Probably 100k+, maybe a lot more.
• Would go to a Tuesday night game in May if their buddy gave them a ticket... 13,225.
• Would pick between O's and Nats by who's winning more?  More of them than you'd like to admit.
• People who say "get back to me when they're over .500".  A lot.

Examples.  My wife.  She'd consider herself an Orioles fan.  Couldn't name a single current Oriole. Will watch the game, more-or-less, if I have it on.  Does she count?  

How about my kids, who will sometimes watch a few innings, and wear O's stuff sometimes.  But don't really know any of the players and are much bigger soccer fans than baseball.

 

[Just Regular]

5 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

People who care enough to post on Orioleshangout at 12:43pm on a Monday:  Right now there are about 200 people doing that.

Probably a lot of regression to the mean on this figure on days without the MLB draft.

[interloper]

Literally millions. 

[drjohnnyfeva]

Decreases by a couple dozen per game...

[Yossarian]

Like has been stated - every city and every team has their issues that may disenfranchise fans.  The perpetual losing does take a toll, for sure.  There a more reasons than just the losing that may be off-putting to fans.  Baseball, and major sports in general, seem to be losing fans except for the most successful teams in the large markets.  I would say that the outspoken political stances that Major League Baseball and one of the national all-sports networks that broadcasts baseball have taken has turned off a lot of fans.  I don't want to get into details or reasons in this forum, but I would say that is another reason for people not caring any more.  The labor issues and fighting amongst millionaires and egos has people turned off, too.

I have been a fan of the Birds since the early 80's.  Not living in the Baltimore area, I rarely got to see them play on TV and I never attended a game in Memorial Stadium and have only been to Camden Yards once.  But I would follow box scores in my local newspaper and every week USA Today would publish the stats leaders in their paper.  I would live for checking those out as a kid.  I still love the O's and probably spend more time than I should worrying about them.  I have a mlb.com subscription now and can watch every O's game on TV or my phone.  It is a wonderful thing.  

So when you tally up the number of O's fans remaining - count me.

[osfan83]

I kinda view my Oriole fandom like the grass in my yard. Very active during the spring growing season, but lay dormant during the hot days of summer. First part of the winter happy I don't have to think about it, but late winter looking forward to getting back at it again. 

[spiritof66]

18 hours ago, Newguyry said:

Serious question, after this rebuild and the problems in the city, how many of us are left out there in the wild? By my best guess I’d say 50–75k

For a bunch of reasons, I don't think you can put a number on it.

I think the important points are these:

1. There must be fewer Orioles fans, however you want to define that, than there were in 2014, or 2018, or even last season.

2. Some of those lost fans won't come back if/when the Orioles get better because they're too old (or deceased), they're spending their time and money in ways other than baseball, they've switched their allegiance to the Phillies or Nats or NYYs or whatever because they don't like rooting for a perpetual loser, etc.

3. It will be hard to replace those lost fans with new fans.

[GuidoSarducci]

We were in the playoffs just 5 years ago, something that is hard to do in baseball compared to other sports as only the top five teams make it.  That is nothing compared to the droughts a lot of fan bases have gone through *cough*Cleveland Browns *cough* 

Fans who left because of the current downturn weren’t real fans to begin with  Though I’m sure the Nats winning the Series took whatever casual fans they had left in DC/NoVa area. Only idiot diehards like me remain.  Though speaking as a fan of the New Orleans Saints, we’ll before the arrival of Drew Brees / Sean Payton, this is something I’m used to.  O&B for life, man. 

[Frobby]

19 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It depends on where you draw the line….

• Can name all 26 players currently on the roster... two dozen?

I’m not sure Brandon Hyde could do it.   

[schittenden]

I think I heard a faint O during the National Anthem last night. I’d have to listen again to be sure, but there was something there. 

[sevastras]

1 hour ago, schittenden said:

I think I heard a faint O during the National Anthem last night. I’d have to listen again to be sure, but there was something there. 

I think that was me at home when I was pouring a beer in the kitchen and my wife just rolling her eyes. 

There is a little town in Illinois called Chicago that has two teams that get lots of support and has a few problems, so that doesnt have anything to do with it.  When the Os start winning on a regular basis again, those Nats "fans" that use to be Os "fans" will start filling the park again.  Right now it is like paying major league prices to go watch a random minor league game.  People arent keeping up with who is on the roster and dont care because they arent winning.  

[NashLumber]

If it's 50 to 75K per the original post, for about 26K to show up for Hawaiian t-shirt night (and then crawl back under a rock the next game) this year was a herculean feat. 

 

I think it's far more than that. There's probably a complicated MLB merchandising formula that is pretty good at estimating what the actual number is.