Attendance Thread II

[ewokpelts]

Yep, no shows is the key here. I was surprised with this, but then again they play a lot of day games. People could just go to work and spend time with their families instead of watching horrendous baseball. The Cubs have actually fielded some good teams since the '98 season.

The no shows impacted night games more.

[ewokpelts]

When they are winning games and in first place, why does 2009 or 2011 matter? The White Sox fans not showing up in 2012 really spooked this team to new heights.

 

There have been a lot more people at games than I thought this year though. That will be tested during the week and when the kids go back to school. They are trying $1 hot dog Wednesday to see if that helps. So those ticket sales must really be meager. Family Sunday really is taking off. Almost 30k yesterday. And over 30k to get a piece of crap jersey on Saturday.

 

But the highlight on Saturday was a couple of rows in front of me was a group of about 6 guys. One guy did seem like the ringleader, he did buy a round of beers. He and another guy in his group got into an argument, and the other guy threw his entire beer on the ringleader and stormed away never to return. You buy a guy a $10 beer and he douses you with it. That ain't right.

Attendance is flat or below 2016, when they sold 100k tix in one week thanks to that hot start in April.

 

But they have played so few weekday games that the average isn't brought down.

[The Mighty Mite]

Attendance is flat or below 2016, when they sold 100k tix in one week thanks to that hot start in April.

 

But they have played so few weekday games that the average isn't brought down.

 

We can talk about all the problems with the stadium, traffic, pricies, location etc etc etc but when you come right down to it it's the size of the fan base. I don't know the exact figures but my guess is that in the metro area the Cubs rule with somewhere around 66% of the baseball fan base with the Sox picking the remaining 34%. At one time it was 50-50 but a lot of bad moves by ownership led to losing a couple generations of fans.

Edited July 31, 2017 by The Mighty Mite

[Iwritecode]

Then how come attendance was lower in 2009 than in 2008 which was lower than 2007

 

 

Because nobody really believed in that 2008 team. Justifiably so as it turns out.

 

Being in first place for the vast majority of the season doesn't make people want to come to the park due to what they did the year before? Kind of makes you wonder why they showed up and paid big bucks in 2005 for the WS considering it had been 46 years since they even went to one of those, and 88 since they actually won.

 

2006 was bigger because the team forced season ticket buys for WS tickets.

 

I remember the media roasting the fans in 2005 about the lack of attendance throughout the year. "This team is in first place, where are the fans?" Looking back now, it did go up. But you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence. Attendance usually doesn't jump significantly year-to-year without a big boost to the season-ticket sales. The season-ticket sales don't go up unless something significant happened the year prior.

 

Winning the WS is significant. Going to the playoffs 2 or 3 years in a row is significant. Being in first place for a few months of the season is not.

[SonofaRoache]

We didn't show up in 2012 because the team didn't do anything in 2010 or 2011 to make us believe that 2012 would be any different. The big attendance jumps don't really happen during the season. They happen in the prior off-season. That's why the 2006 attendance was higher than 2005.

 

And really, the loss of fans from 2011 - 2012 was pretty small compared to the year-to-year losses 5 years before and 5 years after.

 

 

 

 

That's really the good news in all of this. Give the fans something to believe in with a stated goal in mind and they'll actually support the effort. If only they would've done this 10 years ago.

 

 

That's also why attendance was almost 37k when we sucked in 2007. Had the Sox put together another solid season that 37k may have been sustainable. There problem is they have one good years and then 5-10 years that are forgettable.

[caulfield12]

Most research shows kids form their permanent sports attachments at 8-12...so they've already lost half a generation of potential young fans.

 

 

[Iwritecode]

Most research shows kids form their permanent sports attachments at 8-12...so they've already lost half a generation of potential young fans.

 

That's not necessarily true. I'm sure they haven't gained as many fans as they would if they were winning, but I became a fan of the team somewhere around 90-91. They weren't exactly winning fans with their play on the field back then.

 

But the alternative was the Cubs, and my best friend was already a Cubs fan. So I had to be different from him. Especially when we picked teams on my MLB game for my NES.

[Soha]

Most research shows kids form their permanent sports attachments at 8-12...so they've already lost half a generation of potential young fans.

 

That definitely applies to me. I was 11 years old in 1983 when the Winning Ugly Sox took over the city. It won me over bigtime. Prior to that season I was a fan of both teams. And I know it took hold there, becasue I remember laughing about Leon Durham's error the very next year in the playoffs.