How many Orioles fans are left in the world?

[jamalshw]

On 7/12/2021 at 12:50 PM, DrungoHazewood said:

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.

 

This is the best possible answer. It all depends on the metrics to determine what is a "fan." Like most have said or alluded to, the attendance will be a lot different when the team is good again (as will the viewing numbers). And it likely won't be immediate. In the next few years (hopefully) when we start out really strong, attendance and viewership will start low and will take a while to catch on to the fact we are good again.

The bulk of fans for any sports team are fair weathered fans. They'll come out when things are good and find other ways to entertain themselves when they are not. I'm even guilty of that. I'm the biggest Orioles fan I know personally (obviously would ranks many on this page ahead of myself on the "true fan" ranking), but I still only find myself tuning into Orioles games semi-regularly. I'll check in on how the team did/is doing daily, but I don't actually watch every game I possibly can like I did in 2012-2016 and will do again when they're regularly around or above .500. 

[scOtt]

147 of us. They're all on the Hangout...

[WarehouseChatter]

I moved from York, PA to Indianapolis almost 10 years ago.  I see as many Oriole caps around here as any team (other than Yankees).  They’re a beloved franchise and when the team sells and begins churning out a winning product while supplementing with free agents that make sense, fans will return.  We saw this from 2012-2016.  It wasn’t the early 90’s but that just doesn’t exist in this sport any longer.