Aberdeen Ironbirds attendance

[MurphDogg]

Does anyone have a sense of why Aberdeen's attendance is so lousy? They have averaged around 2,000 fans a game the last two seasons (2,207 this year, 1,847 last year), good enough for 10th and 9th in the 12-team South Atlantic League.

Delmarva averaged 2,381 in 2022 and 3,028 this year.

Bowie averaged 2,530 in 2022 and 3,636 this year.

I have always thought of Aberdeen's stadium as being the nicest of the Orioles non-AAA affiliates ever since it opened in 2002, and they sold out every game for the first decade of the stadium (albeit with a short-season schedule).

I totally understood the Orioles keeping Aberdeen rather than Frederick when an affiliate was eliminated (although I thought that the Nats should have grabbed Frederick instead of Wilmington, DE), but Frederick averaged 4,392 fans per game in 2019 and was well over 4,000 fans per game every year of the 2010s, leading the Carolina League and typically closer to 5,000 fans than 4,000.

Does anyone have a sense of why support for the Ironbirds has dropped off? Was anybody anticipating attendance being this bad as they shifted from a short season team to a full season team?

[LookinUp]

Because it's in Aberdeen.

I still think the Frederick decision was a bad one. Norfolk, Salisbury, Bowie and Frederick are all far superior to Aberdeen in terms of locations. It feels like we're beholden to it because of the Ripkens. I get it, but don't like it.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, LookinUp said:

Because it's in Aberdeen.

I still think the Frederick decision was a bad one. Norfolk, Salisbury, Bowie and Frederick are all far superior to Aberdeen in terms of locations. It feels like we're beholden to it because of the Ripkens. I get it, but don't like it.

^^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^

When it was new and shiny people came out and they only needed to come out during the very short season of the NYPL. Frederick's stadium may have needed upgrades, but it was much more populated and better suited for better attendance. 

Plus, I went last year and you would thought we were still in COVID with the lack of people to work there. Almost everything was closed. It was a bad minor league experience.

[Frobby]

I’ve never been there, but it seems like the Ripkens are running a second-class operation these days.  We all know about their poor video feed, and I feel like we’ve heard some other stories.  

[LookinUp]

13 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’ve never been there, but it seems like the Ripkens are running a second-class operation these days.  We all know about their poor video feed, and I feel like we’ve heard some other stories.  

It's tough. They built a nice facility to just be there for little league tournaments. At the same time, if you can't draw when Jackson Holliday plays, how are you going to draw when there's a team with mostly non-prospects? You really have to question the viability of that site as a minor league staple moving forward.

[glenn__davis]

Yeah, I don't know their business model but I'd like to see them scrap the Ironbirds, reclaim Frederick, and Aberdeen can be even more of a youth baseball complex.  

[turtlebowl]

I live in Bel Air which is the most populated area by Aberdeen and the Ironbirds are not marketed at all.  The surrounding community is big enough to support the team but more effort needs to be made to make the team relevant.  

Also as Tony mentioned, they don't even open up everything for games so the experience when there isn't the best.  

Just more effort needs to be put in by management to first draw people and then give them a nice experience to make them want to come back.  

[Tony-OH]

15 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’ve never been there, but it seems like the Ripkens are running a second-class operation these days.  We all know about their poor video feed, and I feel like we’ve heard some other stories.  

 

Just now, turtlebowl said:

I live in Bel Air which is the most populated area by Aberdeen and the Ironbirds are not marketed at all.  The surrounding community is big enough to support the team but more effort needs to be made to make the team relevant.  

Also as Tony mentioned, they don't even open up everything for games so the experience when there isn't the best.  

Just more effort needs to be put in by management to first draw people and then give them a nice experience to make them want to come back.  

I think this is really the key but the operations is really second class now since they've become a full-time affiliate. It's like the Ripken's have lost interest and whoever is running the day to day has a very limited budget. 

At least they added an announcer to their MiLB feed this year though they still don't have a center field camera angle for the batter-pitcher matchup.

The lack of food, beverage and dessert options (there was no ice cream at all on the game I went to last year) and the lack of atmosphere is real there. Say what you want about Frederick's stadium especially the locker rooms for players that were sub par, the stadium experience was always top notch and why they drew so well. 

 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

 

I think this is really the key but the operations is really second class now since they've become a full-time affiliate. It's like the Ripken's have lost interest and whoever is running the day to day has a very limited budget. 

At least they added an announcer to their MiLB feed this year though they still don't have a center field camera angle for the batter-pitcher matchup.

The lack of food, beverage and dessert options (there was no ice cream at all on the game I went to last year) and the lack of atmosphere is real there. Say what you want about Frederick's stadium especially the locker rooms for players that were sub par, the stadium experience was always top notch and why they drew so well. 

 

Frederick is also about equidistant to Baltimore and DC, and in a more populous area.  Its population is 5 times that of Aberdeen. 

[733baseball]

I'll say this much - the attendance numbers are accurate. There's a good percentage of teams, minor and major, who monkey with the nightly attendance numbers (Oakland averaging over 10k?). There's some teams that have bizarre sort of algorithms to determine what the listed attendance is going to be for any given game that have nothing to do with what the gate says. Aberdeen's are the actual, through-the-turnstile numbers. This wasn't always the case. (I'll also say this - I went to two Bowie games this year, and neither game could have possibly had 1,000 fans through the actual gates).

Edited August 29, 2023 by 733baseball

[Alasdaire]

I don't know the business/baseball operations side of things, but I definitely think Frederick was a better location for an O's affiliate than Aberdeen from the perspective of having a foot in the DMV and competing for fans with the Nats.

Growing up in MoCo, going to Frederick for Keys games was an easy and accessible way to experience professional baseball that strengthened my connection to the O's. No one from DC is going to Aberdeen.

Maybe the O's thought they preserved that presence with an affiliate in Bowie. But in all honestly, I don't think the edge of PG County really captures the MoCo/NoVa crowds.

[cboemmeljr]

I must admit, I'd expect better from a Ripken owned team.  Ther doesn't seem to be much effort being put forth to promote the team or its Orioles affiliation.  There is hardly any social media presence.  From my perspective as the summaries writer, there are very few video highlights posted on-line.  Most game day feeds/posts consist of silly cartoon GIFs.  I could do a better job running their Twitter account than they do, in my humble opinion.

I agree with the assessment that the Ripkens may have lost interest.  Billy is on MLB Network as an analyst now more than ever.  It just seems that all that is wanted to occur is to put the Ripken name on a field/facility.

It's sad because the facility in Aberdeen is very nice and was built to standards above the NYPL level at the time.

The "if you build it, they will come" approach does not work.  You have to reach out to your audience, promote yourself and make the experience a good one.  The Ironbirds have to do a better job.

[Frobby]

I know there were some disputes between the Ripkens and the local government over funding of certain maintenance and improvements costs.  Not sure whatever happened with that lawsuit, but it may explain why things have gone downhill there, with each party thinking the other is responsible. 
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/harford/aegis/ph-ag-tufton-files-suit-vs-aberdeen-1012-story.html

Edited August 31, 2023 by Frobby

[cboemmeljr]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I know there were some disputes between the Ripkens and the local government over funding of certain maintenance and improvements costs.  Not sure whatever happened with that lawsuit, but it may explain why things have gone downhill there, with each party thinking the other is responsible. 
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/harford/aegis/ph-ag-tufton-files-suit-vs-aberdeen-1012-story.html

Thanks @FrobbyI was going to mention that but like you, don't know what became of that lawsuit.

[Frobby]

6 minutes ago, cboemmeljr said:

Thanks @FrobbyI was going to mention that but like you, don't know what became of that lawsuit.

Looking into it further, it looks like the case was settled a few years ago. https://ballparkdigest.com/2019/11/14/ironbirds-owners-aberdeen-to-settle-lawsuit/