This Yahoo news story is the second one I’ve seen recently: MLB Major League Baseball News, Expert Analysis, Rumors, Live Updates, & more - Yahoo Sports Briefly, several major league baseball teams don’t suck, but no one is going to see them. I was hoping there was a factual reason why. First off, are they really that good? I mean interesting to watch, in person. Are tickets ridiculously expensive? Are people just staying home because they enjoy it on TV more? Are these ballparks difficult to get to – traffic, parking, location in the city? That last one seems like something people would ignore when writing a news article.
One factor is that MLB has a 162 game regular season. Attendance is spread across more games than for the NHL or NBA with 82 game seasons, and far more than the NFL with a 16 game season.
I’m sure mileage varies, but I do find baseball games to be fairly boring to watch in person. I go to a few a year, but it’s more about being in the outdoors, hanging out with friends and consuming overpriced food and beer (some of the stadiums actually have pretty decent food). But as yabob mentioned, if I go to 3 games a year, that’s a much smaller percentage of the overall games than if I do the same for an NFL team.
The article deals, specifically, with the Cleveland Indians, so we would have to know what’s going on in Cleveland right now. Weather? Economy? FoundWaldo’s point doesn’t really seem to be at all relevant, since the question here is not why FoundWaldo doesn’t want to go, but why the number of people going to Indians games is relatively low as compared to MLB norms. I mean, I think football is insanely boring in person, but that would not adequately explain the phenomenon of one particular NFL team suddenly experiencing really low attendance.
Cleveland had very low attendance last year, about 20,000 per game, the second worst in the American League, and their attendance has been quite low for awhile now, as one would expect of a team with few recent successes. Adding that to the fact that it’s been lousy weather for most of the season so far and low attendance can’t be taken as a huge surprise. It’s down to 14,000/game so far this year, which is low but not as low as you might think; April tends to be the worst attendance month.
I realize the team has played well, so it must be frustrating to the Indians that the crowds are small on weeknights, but baseball fans do not, generally speaking, go sprinting to the ballpark to see a team that’s a few games over .500 in early May. We’re still at the point in a season where a team playing unexpectedly well hasn’t really done enough to get a lot more people interested in paying good money to see the team.
I’m a long distance Indians fan so I don’ tknow all that’s going on, but based on on line chatter, I believe one factor is that the fans seem very disenchanted with the current owner’s unwillingness to spend money to get good players. They did spend more money this past winter, but in recent years they for example traded away Cy Young winners, Sabbathia and Lee, in consecutive years.
Here are attendancefigures for all MLB teams, which might put things in a better perspective.
Note that out of 32 teams, only two (Cleveland and Seattle) are averaging under 40% of stadium capacity, while three others (KC, Houston and the White Sox) are under 50%.
On the other hand, there are two teams (San Francisco and St. Louis) averaging over 90% of capacity and five other teams at over 80%, so it looks like the bell curve is pretty steady.
Check back in late June or July after the weather gets warmer.
It tends to be chilly in Cleveland early in the season, the excitement over the not-so-new ballpark has waned, the team has been pretty crummy for awhile, and fans have seen hot starts turn into collapses before. Attendance will pick up as the weather warms, and especially if the team stays above .500.
I’m not so sure Miami can look forward to an attendance boost this year.
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As a Clevelander who’s been to 4 games already (6 by the end of Monday) think Jackmannii has it covered pretty much.
Even if the weather is good it might turn on you before game time, and it still is getting cold at night.
Also school is still on session and it’s little league season. So a lot of kids probably can’t make it to the ballpark right now.
And Cleveland baseball fans… No wait, Clevelanders who will go to baseball games, are suuuper fickle. If the team isn’t mathematically in the playoffs yet, people aren’t interested. This isn’t a baseball town IMHO.
I don’t know what people expect though…it’s as if they completely forgot the 70s and 80s and somehow feel that we are entitled to good baseball. We’re not, we’re still I’m Cleveland.
On a related note, how good is the ballpark-formerly-known-as-Jacobs-Field for watching a game? I remember when it first opened it was praised as a great place to watch a ballgame and a considerable improvement over the old Memorial Stadium. However, that was when the Indians had an excellent team and that tends to color one’s perception of a venue. Now that the Indians have been bogged down in mediocrity for several seasons, is there still the consensus among Cleveland fans that “The Jake” is a good park or have people begun to notice its flaws and complain about them more?
I don’t go to many games but I enjoy it when I do.
Tickets can be as low as $10. Nosebleeders, but it gets you through the gate and that’s cheaper by far than any other major sporting event. And you don’t necessarily have to sit in your seats; there are plenty of good places to watch the game from all around the stadium.
I would have to guess weather as being a big factor. I have been on leave for the last couple of weeks and able to go out to see some ball games. The last Royals day game I was about to go see was snowed out in May. There have been a lot of rain outs in the Majors this year, and I would think a lot of fans are in a “wait and see” mode when it comes to buying tickets that may be meaningless if you can’t make it to the make-up game. By the time you see what the weather will do, it is too late to get to the ballpark for the first pitch.
SFC Schwartz
Nope, it’s the real deal. All the seats are worth sitting in, tons of great food, bathrooms well maintained, some nice standing areas, TVs and radio all over.
New since the 90s is a huge kids area, a toddler area, about 20 kinds of beer and now some of the cheapest concessions in the MLB.
And still no posts to obstruct your view! 
A lot of people, I for one, am sick of getting ripped-off. I like baseball but have little interest in going to the park. I have a friend that has a season package to Yankee Stadium and says that now that the novelty of the “new” Yankee Stadium has worn off there are a lot of empty seats.
When I did attend my first game at the new Yankee Stadium it was because I was given the tickets. I and my wife sat down in prime seats (face value about $150 each) and ordered a beer for each of us and one hot dog and one chicken wrap. $40. With situations like that the average Joe can’t afford free tickets. To hell with the greedy SOB’s. Attendance at the ballpark is not a necessity and when you feel you are getting ripped-off it is not even a luxury. 11 for a beer that costs the team less than .50, cummon. Most of the money being spent at professional athletic events these day is corporate money that is expensed tax-free. Talk about government waste, let’s talk about corporate waste that rips-off the shareholders and is subsidized by those taxpayers that can’t take advantage of the expense loophole.
I used to attend a lot of baseball games. Now I have better things to do with my money. It’s not about what I can afford, it’s about prudent use of resources.
While I have no doubt a LOT of the money at a pro sporting event is being expensed, I really, really doubt it’s most of it.
Having said my skeptical part, though
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Even if it’s just 20 or 30 percent of it, it inflates prices, and
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It’s very expensive all the same.
Pro sporting attendance has never been higher, actually. But it’s becoming a class distinction; most working joes cannot afford regular visits. I’m middle class, a single dad, I’m not poor but taking my daughter to a game is a special treat. I couldn’t possibly go more than a few times a year. For the two of us to buy average tickets, and get to the park and buy a modest amount of food, I’m out $150-$200.
And that’s a team that has the stadium half empty most games. I went to a Leafs game with Ike Witt a few years ago and he scored us sweet lower bowl tickets. What we noticed, almost immediately, was that there were no children there. Families simply could not afford to go; it was all rich younger people, guys bringing dates or escorts, Upper Canada College grads, Bay Street types. The cost of going and having good seats was hopelessly out of reach to most families.
I think people’s attention spans have been getting shorter in recent years as part of an overall culture shift. That would include a shift away from going to and attending long sporting events. For me personally, there’s always something more interesting than trying to drive downtown to go to a ball game, I still haven’t been at the new Target Field.
I can only speak for myself, but I would rather watch paint dry. Baseball is boring. I know one person who enjoys baseball.
Baseball is a very boring game and most of the teams are out of contention by the first day.
As an Indians’ fan I’ve been to only 1 game so far but I generally go to 5-10 every season. For the low attendance I blame the Indians’ recent lousy play over the last several years and their lousy marketing and season ticket sale department. Their radio and TV commercials are sappy. They tend to rely on free advertising from TV news, newspaper and sportsradio, and all three of those things are in love with the Browns and not the Indians. As the baseball season started, the sports radio yakkers were engrossed in the upcoming Browns’ draft and the Browns’ owners’ FBI/IRS problems.
And this has just happened since last season?