# Worst attended sporting event you've seen **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 12, 2011, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403 "2011-10-12T06:45:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/21 "2011-10-12T17:49:15Z")
Wasn’t there, but I read about it in Jane Leavy’s bio of Mickey Mantle earlier this year. 413 fans showed up for a Thursday afternoon game in Yankee Stadium against the White Sox on [9/22/1966](http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1966/B09220NYA1966.htm). The Yankees finished in last place in the American League for the first time since 1912 that year. Red Barber made a note of the “crowd” on the TV broadcast and wasn’t rehired for the following season. ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/22 "2011-10-12T18:20:14Z")
Hmm, I went to a basketball game once featuring the two worst teams in the league on the last game of the season (Clippers and Suns I think). It was pretty boring. I left at the 3rd quarter. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/23 "2011-10-12T20:52:17Z")
Mike Tyson’s last fight against Kevin McBride. I just could not believe how many empty seats there were. The place looked like the first undercard at one of those Vegas events that start 14 hours before the main event. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/24 "2011-10-12T22:56:46Z")
I’d have to go with a Montreal Expos game in the 80’s - don’t remember anything more than that there were maybe 2000 people in the Big O, on a chilly night before they’d finished the roof. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/25 "2011-10-13T01:48:14Z")
> [@jonesj2205](#): > > I was at a game in the early 90s I believe at Cleveland County Stadium where about 3,000 of the 75,000 seats were sold. > And the ushers (who pretty much outnumbered the fans) wouldn’t let you move down for closer seats. I was at one of those games too. There _might_ have been 5k people there for a game against the Tigers. The worst attended game I’ve been at was a Central Hockey League game in Dayton. I don’t know how many people Hara Arena holds, but there was probably only about 800 people there. And probably 300 of them (including me) were there to see the visiting Komets. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/26 "2011-10-13T02:16:57Z")
I was at a Can-Am league baseball game that had about 150 people, mainly because it was like 55 degrees with a mild drizzle. We were sitting in the 3rd row, behind both 1st base as well as a bunch of the family members of an outfielder. As he was coming off the field at one point his family clamored for a ball and he threw one, except it sailed over all of them and landed in my lap. My friend leaned over and stage whispered, “I guess that’s why he’s not even in the real minors.” Hoo boy, the people in front of us didn’t find that funny. But I do still have the ball. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/27 "2011-10-13T17:34:15Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Heh. I was at Station Square during some of the filming. I’ve never watched the movie, though.😃 Based on how it’s rated on IMDB, I suspect you haven’t missed much (I’ve never seen it, either). ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/28 "2011-10-14T14:18:45Z")
Talking about the attendance of the Florida Marlins is like kicking a baby while it’s down, but there was that game this year [in which the Marlins drew 347 fans. Total.](http://www.nesn.com/2011/08/marlins-reds-game-draws-estimated-347-fans-ushering-in-new-low-for-florida-baseball.html) ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403/29 "2011-10-14T15:20:36Z")
Another Cleveland Municipal Stadium story – I went to an Indians game sometime in the late '80s, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in September. I don’t remember exactly what year it was, but I’ll never forget the official paid attendance when they put it on the scoreboard: 1,644. And that place had about 2.8 million seats, so it didn’t even look like nearly _that_ many. Nashville used to have two Minor League baseball teams that shared a stadium. One was a AAA team that was fairly popular (the Sounds are still around and doing well); the other was an A-ball team that nobody cared about. A friend and I went to a game of the latter after it had rained all day and didn’t look like it was going to stop. It did, though, and we were literally the only two people seated on the third base side of the stands. Maybe a dozen or so fans were sitting behind the home dugout on the first base side. The beer vendor came and sat down with us until we were ready to buy the next round. We got two foul balls that night, and could have had more if we’d bothered. That was a fun game. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attended-sporting-event-youve-seen/599403.md?page=1)