Cleveland outdrew us? Attendance down 13% so far

[LittleHurt05]

Just walked in here -- now taking a look around, I'm tiptoeing out silently...

 

Door is locked!

[knightni]

Just walked in here -- now taking a look around, I'm tiptoeing out silently...

[Buehrle>Wood]

Ill be at my 3rd game tommorow. #whatsyourexcuse

[knightni]

Ill be at my 3rd game tommorow. #whatsyourexcuse

Too busy creating multiple catch-all threads.

[bigruss]

Too busy creating multiple catch-all threads.

[Bob Sacamano]

While the Sox don't have good attendance, there are a few reasons why they've drawn so few people so far.

 

1. Danks has pitched twice at home, and people won't spend their hard earned money to watch him.

2. A game was rained out.

3. The game before that was terrible weather, and the upper deck was closed and many people left as a result.

4. Day games during the week never draw many people.

As others may have mentioned, one of Danks' starts was a sellout.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

I was there too. We were waiting outside the gates for just about 2 hours, so I'm sure there were thousands of people that didn't want to stand out there for that long, so they just left. Even when they let us in, they "upgraded" us to seats in the shade when it was like 30 degrees out in the sun lol, so naturally we were freezing. We ended up sitting in the sunny part in the outfield, but the whole experience was a clown show. I still had a good time though

 

Assuming they just left, if they had tickets beforehand, it should count towards attendance I would think. Also possible they didn't just leave but went to the bar and grill or back to car for a beer a few until lines were moving.

Edited April 22, 2016 by soxfan2014

[chitownsportsfan]

Fans are apathetic about this team and I don't blame them. Even the wins are hardly punctuated with much offense.

[Dunt]

Second game today. Fully plan to hit atleast 1 a homestand.

[Dunt]

Where's the attendance pitchfork mob today? Oh, that would go against their narrative, that's right.

[Buehrle>Wood]

Where's the attendance pitchfork mob today? Oh, that would go against their narrative, that's right.

We always draw big on half price days

[southsider2k5]

26,048 today. As a comp, Sunday April 26, 2015 vs KC the Sox had 20,350 for the first game of a DH. The second game drew 23,317.

[BaconOnAStick]

26,000 got a good show, they'll be back. If the Sox come back from this tough road trip with the best record in the AL people will start flocking to the park.

[cabiness42]

A good percentage of ticket sales are full and partial season ticket packages, so attendance is going to be low all year. It will pick up some after Memorial Day if the Sox are still in or near first, but even if this team wins 95 games the attendance will not move accordingly. It will have quite the effect on next year's attendance though.

[Dick Allen]

A good percentage of ticket sales are full and partial season ticket packages, so attendance is going to be low all year. It will pick up some after Memorial Day if the Sox are still in or near first, but even if this team wins 95 games the attendance will not move accordingly. It will have quite the effect on next year's attendance though.

Didn't work in 2008/2009. I am pretty sure the only way to get a huge bump would be a WS trip. People will commit to a season for WS tickets at cost.

[thxfrthmmrs]

I don't get this thread, are we calling for firing of Chance the Rapper already?

 

If you expect a 20 game sample size and the big offseason addition of Todd Frazier to have meaningful impact on the attendance, then you're mistaken and do not understand the Sox fan base. If we can stay in the race all year and spend more time in first place, you're going to see a healthy bump in attendance rate by season's end. But to significantly change the culture on Sox fans attending games, it will take several winning season in a row, legitimate superstars, and several other extrinsic factors to make that happen.

[flavum]

Maybe some entertainment dollars just became available for the Sox.

[Dick Allen]

Maybe some entertainment dollars just became available for the Sox.

Sox may be 14-6, but they got outdrawn by Cleveland last week, and attendance is down 13%, so no reason to be happy. Just ask Caulfield. It is nice how little he posts when things are going well. All he had was the attendance card.

[flavum]

Sox may be 14-6, but they got outdrawn by Cleveland last week, and attendance is down 13%, so no reason to be happy. Just ask Caulfield. It is nice how little he posts when things are going well. All he had was the attendance card.

 

It's not a contest. We get it. You go to a lot of games and see Ed Farmer once in a while.

[greg775]

Sox may be 14-6, but they got outdrawn by Cleveland last week, and attendance is down 13%, so no reason to be happy. Just ask Caulfield. It is nice how little he posts when things are going well. All he had was the attendance card.

I haven't posted a lot lately, but don't mistake it for me not loving what's going on. I'm just loving how the team has performed so far this April. I think Robin is emerging as a force. Do you realize if the Sox make the playoffs, he's going to be this team's manager for a long long time?

I'm still trying to figure out how the Sox are doing this? Personally I think the starting pitching is "that" much better this year. Sale and Q are taking the next step and don't discount Latos. The 4-0 record is huge. And Rodon is showing signs of very-good-ness.

[BigEdWalsh]

Oh jeez..............here's the attendance thread. You would think, that as mostly long time and knowledgeable White Sox fans here, this would not be necessary. That, or the thread was started by a Cub fan.

It's attendance....in April......who f***ing cares?!!

[cabiness42]

Didn't work in 2008/2009. I am pretty sure the only way to get a huge bump would be a WS trip. People will commit to a season for WS tickets at cost.

 

2008 did not generate the buzz that a playoff trip would generate this year. In 2008 it was a team that was supposed to do better. This would be more like 2005, even without the WS trip.

[caulfield12]

 

Attendance first 9 games

 

2008 228,065 (finish 16th in MLB, this despite a disastrous 2007)

 

2009 252,230 (finish 16th in MLB, bounce from 2008 playoffs, albeit disappointment due to CQ injury)

 

2010 206,879 (17th in MLB, team does well and is in first place until fading down stretch against MN)

 

DIVIDING LINE 1

 

2011 207,900 (21st, slight uptick again due to relatively successful 2010 season offset by Dunn disaster)

 

2012 188,177 (24th, fallout of the Dunn disappointment, team is in 1st for most of year but finishes 4-11 and 3 gb)

 

2013 181,696 (24th, surprising performance of 2012 season stops bleeding but no playoffs)

 

DIVIDING LINE 2

 

2014 152,141 (28th, bottom completely drops out and the wheels come off the wagon, Abreu/Sale/Eaton the only reasons to watch)

 

2015 183,308 (26th, White Sox spend nearly $200 million in offseason spree on Cabrera, Robertson, LaRoche, Duke, etc.)

 

2016 170,939 (27th, currently down -6.7% from 2015 start)

 

 

The Red Sox series will be another interesting "tell" next week...unfortunately, those games are midweek and not a weekend series because the Twins have been playing like crap. Do they still have the "dynamic pricing" in effect?

 

Realistically, the White Sox, should they continue to play competitively (not necessarily first place but within 2-3 games of it) could jump up to around to 22nd-24th in attendance but unless they're way out in front like 2005 and running away with the division, the 2012 "skepticism" will stay with them until they actually win it and fans jump back on the bandwagon (and/or get tired of the Cubs' Love Fest).

 

For what it's worth, I might have been hasty saying the season ticket loss was 2000-3000 per game, it now looks like it might be roughly 1/2 of that...we'll find out more in the coming weeks.

 

The positive here is that we're up 12.4% on 2014 already, which should continue to grow in the next 4-5 weeks before the real "summer" attendance and weather arrives.

 

 

 

 

[fathom]

Great news here:

 

Jeff Nuich ‏@JeffNuich 5h5 hours ago

.@CSNChicago posted its HIGHEST-RATED #WhiteSox game in OVER TWO YEARS last night; peak = 115K Chicago mrkt homes.

[caulfield12]

Great news here:

 

Jeff Nuich ‏@JeffNuich 5h5 hours ago

.@CSNChicago posted its HIGHEST-RATED #WhiteSox game in OVER TWO YEARS last night; peak = 115K Chicago mrkt homes.

 

 

To put it into perspective, the Cubs averaged 49,000 two years ago and the White Sox 37,000. Last year, the White Sox were around 26,270 per game, so that's an incredible jump of 438% over last year and 311% over two seasons ago. Obviously, it's only ONE game, but it's a nice trend to set in April during a weeknight. Of course, this year the Bulls and Blackhawks were out of it early, that's another factor, one could argue.

 

Then the Cubs jumped up 122% last year to a 3.32 ratings share (112,317 average, although still down from 4.19 in 2009, note that doesn't include WGN/ABC for 24 games).

 

According to Sports Business Journal/Sports Business Daily’s semi-annual look at regional sports network ratings across the 29 U.S.-based MLB teams, using Nielsen data, the playoff-bound, 97-win Cubs had the second-biggest ratings increase in baseball at a whopping 122 percent with a 3.31 rating for their 83 games on Comcast SportsNet Chicago. That is the equivalent of 112,317 market TV households watching per game, according to a CSN Chicago news release, which credited the Cubs with a 3.32 average.

 

Speaking of room to grow, the White Sox were the lowest-rated team in baseball with a 0.82 average TV rating. Their 29 percent decrease from last season was the fifth-worst in baseball. Only two other teams finished with an average rating below one point: The Oakland Athletics (0.91) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (0.95). The Dodgers are still having distribution problems in the Los Angeles market. Thanks to a lot of buzz about their offseason moves, the Sox actually had the eighth-biggest attendance increase in baseball at 1,051 fans per game. But their per-game average of 21,947 was the fifth-worst in baseball, according to ESPN and Baseball Reference information.

 

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/jon-greenb...ox-lowest-rated

 

 

 

 

 

The opposite ratings trend happened on the South Side this season.

 

Despite finishing the 2014 campaign with its lowest paid attendance total in 15 years, Sox ratings on CSN Chicago increased 4 percent to a 1.15 average rating, or just more than 37,000 area households tuning in per game.

 

That placed third-lowest in baseball, according to Sports Business Journal, ahead of only the Los Angeles Dodgers on the new (and sparsely carried) SportsNet L.A. and the Houston Astros on Comcast SportsNet Houston.

 

Overall, 12 MLB teams showed annual increases in ratings, while 16 showed decreases — the most since 2008, according to SBJ.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/201...-on-csn-chicago

Edited April 28, 2016 by caulfield12