MLB Attendance Down
stown
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That's odd, someone was just claiming it was way up.. But (s)he also claimed increased box office sales were indicative of people spending money on entertainment.
But I digest.
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<< <i>Baseball Braces For A Summer Slump
Tom Van Riper, 04.20.09, 07:00 PM EDT
Early attendance numbers show the sports recession is real.
If you build it, they will come. Some of them, anyway.
Led by a disappointing opening week for New York's two new stadiums, Major League Baseball is seeing a rough economy trip up early attendance. Two weeks into the 2009 season, average attendance at major league parks is running 7% behind last year. The season's first 183 games have yielded 30,298 per game, compared with 32,543 averaged over the full 2008 season, a year that already saw a 1.1% drop off from 2007.
Chalk some of it up to weather--April attendance tends to lag a bit, especially in northern cities. Once school is out and baseball weather takes hold everywhere, the comparative numbers should tighten (an MLB spokesman didn't respond to an inquiry for last year's April-only sales numbers).
But even the warm-weather San Diego Padres are down by more than 1,000 fans per game, with Arizona (2,409 per game) and Houston (1,945 a game) also off. Take away the predictable attendance surges in last year's World Series cities--Philadelphia and Tampa Bay have increased their averages by 2,563 and 6,727, respectively--and the league-wide downturn looks even worse. Few doubt the full-season attendance declines will be worse than last year's.
"The economy will hit sports hard this summer," says sports business consultant Bernie Mullin of the Aspire Group. He foresees a down baseball season as a barometer for a drop off in NBA, NFL and NHL season ticket and sponsorship renewals for 2009-10.
Meanwhile, two gala openings in New York last week, the Mets' Citi Field on April 13 and the Yankees' new Yankee Stadium on April 16, failed to fill either house, with the Mets falling 991 fans short and the Yankees about 3,500 short (though the Yankees claimed a sellout based on actual sales and giveaways, despite some empty seats).
The Mets got 37,000 (88% capacity) a game for their first two series against San Diego and Milwaukee, while the Yanks averaged just over 45,000 (87% capacity) for their four-game split with Cleveland. While Yankees co-owner Hal Steinbrenner has publicly acknowledged that some ticket prices may be too high in the current environment--the Legend Suite seats go for $2,625 apiece--Mets Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wilpon doesn't anticipate that any ticket price reductions will be necessary to help the club through the rough 2009 economy.
"We're generally happy with where we are," Wilpon said as he perused the field before the opener.
The most noticeable observation at the Yankees' stadium-opening weekend, besides the right centerfield jet stream that helped launch 20 homers in four games against the Indians, were the big patches of blue in the first few rows stretching from one dugout around to the other. Those premium seats, which include those connected to the cushy Legends Suites behind the home plate area, were conspicuously empty. Other sections scattered across the park sat nearly vacant too, despite good weather and a history-making occasion in the making.
Not that some perspective isn't in order. As much as the economy is battering sales relative to earlier expectations, attendance is still healthy. Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost points out that the super expensive Legends Suites make up just 144 seats in the 52,000-seat house.
"We've sold over 3.3 million tickets so far," he says of 2009 advanced sales, which adds up to about 75% of season capacity. A successful season on the field could yet push the Bombers toward 4 million, quite a feat amid higher prices and a bum economy.
The expensive amenities that come with new cribs pretty much guarantee the two New York teams a nice bump in revenue over 2008, even if attendance doesn't meet early projections. For the rest of the league, making do with less could be the new reality. >>
But I digest.
Link
<< <i>Baseball Braces For A Summer Slump
Tom Van Riper, 04.20.09, 07:00 PM EDT
Early attendance numbers show the sports recession is real.
If you build it, they will come. Some of them, anyway.
Led by a disappointing opening week for New York's two new stadiums, Major League Baseball is seeing a rough economy trip up early attendance. Two weeks into the 2009 season, average attendance at major league parks is running 7% behind last year. The season's first 183 games have yielded 30,298 per game, compared with 32,543 averaged over the full 2008 season, a year that already saw a 1.1% drop off from 2007.
Chalk some of it up to weather--April attendance tends to lag a bit, especially in northern cities. Once school is out and baseball weather takes hold everywhere, the comparative numbers should tighten (an MLB spokesman didn't respond to an inquiry for last year's April-only sales numbers).
But even the warm-weather San Diego Padres are down by more than 1,000 fans per game, with Arizona (2,409 per game) and Houston (1,945 a game) also off. Take away the predictable attendance surges in last year's World Series cities--Philadelphia and Tampa Bay have increased their averages by 2,563 and 6,727, respectively--and the league-wide downturn looks even worse. Few doubt the full-season attendance declines will be worse than last year's.
"The economy will hit sports hard this summer," says sports business consultant Bernie Mullin of the Aspire Group. He foresees a down baseball season as a barometer for a drop off in NBA, NFL and NHL season ticket and sponsorship renewals for 2009-10.
Meanwhile, two gala openings in New York last week, the Mets' Citi Field on April 13 and the Yankees' new Yankee Stadium on April 16, failed to fill either house, with the Mets falling 991 fans short and the Yankees about 3,500 short (though the Yankees claimed a sellout based on actual sales and giveaways, despite some empty seats).
The Mets got 37,000 (88% capacity) a game for their first two series against San Diego and Milwaukee, while the Yanks averaged just over 45,000 (87% capacity) for their four-game split with Cleveland. While Yankees co-owner Hal Steinbrenner has publicly acknowledged that some ticket prices may be too high in the current environment--the Legend Suite seats go for $2,625 apiece--Mets Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wilpon doesn't anticipate that any ticket price reductions will be necessary to help the club through the rough 2009 economy.
"We're generally happy with where we are," Wilpon said as he perused the field before the opener.
The most noticeable observation at the Yankees' stadium-opening weekend, besides the right centerfield jet stream that helped launch 20 homers in four games against the Indians, were the big patches of blue in the first few rows stretching from one dugout around to the other. Those premium seats, which include those connected to the cushy Legends Suites behind the home plate area, were conspicuously empty. Other sections scattered across the park sat nearly vacant too, despite good weather and a history-making occasion in the making.
Not that some perspective isn't in order. As much as the economy is battering sales relative to earlier expectations, attendance is still healthy. Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost points out that the super expensive Legends Suites make up just 144 seats in the 52,000-seat house.
"We've sold over 3.3 million tickets so far," he says of 2009 advanced sales, which adds up to about 75% of season capacity. A successful season on the field could yet push the Bombers toward 4 million, quite a feat amid higher prices and a bum economy.
The expensive amenities that come with new cribs pretty much guarantee the two New York teams a nice bump in revenue over 2008, even if attendance doesn't meet early projections. For the rest of the league, making do with less could be the new reality. >>
So basically my kid won't be able to go to college, but at least I'll have a set where the three most expensive cards are of a player I despise ~ CDsNuts
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Jayson Stark Story
About those empty seats …
Attendance this April is no worse than attendance last April
Stark By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
Archive
Believe it or not, the Yankees are averaging 44,502 fans -- most in the majors.
Empty seats. The defining image of April was those empty seats in a ballpark near you.
Or was it?
Here at World Rumblings Headquarters, we've just finished a study on those empty seats. We totaled up this April's attendance numbers. Then we compared them to last April's attendance numbers. We bet you'll be shocked by what we found.
Guess how much lower the average crowd at a major league baseball game was this April than it was last April. Go ahead. Just guess.
Before we go on, we should tell you that we're not including the two New York teams in this question because their new parks aren't the same size as their old parks. OK, got that? Great. Now take a guess. How much lower?
Five percent? Ten percent? Fifteen percent?
Uh, how about 287?
No, not 287 percent, obviously.
Would you believe 287 people?
We kid you not. The average crowd at a baseball game this April was just 287 customers smaller than the average game last April -- even with one fewer weekend to draw from.
BIGGEST LOSERS
Team 4/09 Avg. 4/08 Avg. Diff.
Nationals 20,027 29,313 -9,286
Tigers 27,112 35,837 -8,725
Blue Jays 20,396 26,864 -6,468
Braves 23,675 28,008 -4,333
Astros 29,508 33,389 -3,881
And until Wednesday, when the schedule included six day games and six games in which the temperature never got higher than the 50s, the difference was only 30 people per game. Right, 30. That's it. Believe it or not.
Now this isn't turnstile count, of course. It isn't a count of the actual number of people in the park. This is total number of tickets sold per game. But it's the same attendance formula that baseball has used for years. And the decline still comes to just 287 people per game. Here's how we computed that:
Through Wednesday, if we include New York, the average paid attendance this April was 2.9 percent lower than the average paid attendance last April -- a difference that still works out to only 866 paying customers per game (28,917 versus 29,783 last year).
But remember, if you figure it that way, you're not comparing apples to apples, because the two New York teams are now playing in new, smaller ballparks. So the only fair way to look at these numbers is to factor those NYC figures out and study the attendance in all other markets. Well, we did that, and guess what happened? That alleged attendance drop disappeared -- or just about, anyway. The average non-NYC crowd last April: 28,514. This April: 28,227.
That's an astonishing development in these painful economic times. It's an especially astonishing development when you consider that just a few months ago, the commissioner of baseball was warning teams about massive attendance drops.
So when we ran our numbers past Bud Selig this week, he was one upbeat commish.
"Quite frankly," Selig told Rumblings, "it's too early to draw any definitive conclusions. But we have to be encouraged -- in fact, very encouraged -- by what we've seen over the first 3½ weeks."
These shocking attendance numbers signify two things, Selig said. One is that teams have been "very sensitive to the [economic] environment" and have dangled enough creative ticket and concession bargains to keep their ticket sales from cliff-diving. And the other, he said, is that this is just one more sign that "this sport has never been more popular."
While there's clearly some truth to those assessments, we thought we needed some outside corroboration. So we also reported our findings to David Carter, executive director of USC's Sports Business Institute.
But Carter was careful to say it's still too early to take these April attendance numbers and project where attendance might be heading. He also encouraged us to analyze attendance market-by-market. So we did that, too. Here's what we learned:
BIGGEST GAINERS
Team 4/09 Avg. 4/08 Avg. Diff.
Marlins 23,663 12,632 +11,031
Rays 28,986 18,867 +10,119
Athletics 22,282 17,325 +4,957
Phillies 41,713 38,420 +3,293
Reds 21,460 19,750 +1,710
If you break down each team's numbers, you'll find that 12 teams are actually up in attendance over last April.
Another seven are essentially even, meaning they're within a few hundred tickets per game of last April's average.
So that leaves only 11 teams that are down significantly in average attendance -- but two of them are the Mets and Yankees, and only if you look at their raw numbers. If you measure them by adjusting for stadium capacity, you find that both are selling virtually the same percentage of their seats this year as they were last April. So they don't really belong on this list.
In other words, only nine of the 30 clubs are reporting significantly worse attendance this April than last April. And that, said an official of one AL club, is "amazing."
"But you know what might be more telling," he said, "is August, not April. When we get to August, will there be five teams that are really hurting just because they stink? When it's clear they can't win, will people jump off those teams quicker?"
It's a question worth asking. It's also one of many questions about attendance and the economy that can't be answered until the days peel off the calendar.
In the meantime, two clubs in particular look like they're in danger of major attendance dips -- the Nationals and Tigers. Both are down about 9,000 fans a game compared with last April.
But in the Nationals' case, last April was the first month in the life of their new ballpark. And seeing how they've gone 64-117 since last Opening Day, this isn't just a commentary on the economy.
The Tigers are another team with a zillion attendance plot lines. And the economic mess all around them is clearly the No. 1 plot line, as they struggle to survive in a state with a 12.6 percent unemployment rate.
But attendance figures are also relative. And in this team's case, this was still their third-best April attendance in the 10-year life of Comerica Park. We're also comparing this season to a year in which the Tigers drew more fans (over 3.2 million last year) than in any season in the history of the franchise -- and then finished in last place.
So the Detroit Free Press reports that season-ticket sales have dropped from a record 27,000 per game to about 15,000 this year. Which figures. But the Tigers have been as innovative as any club out there in trying to hang onto those fans as best they can.
They've offered former full-season-ticket holders the chance to partner with buyers just like them in half-season plans. They've offered flexible payment schedules. They've offered 41-, 27-, 15- and even six-game plans. They're doing what many businesses need to do in these rough times -- reinventing themselves as best they can.
"This is still a very passionate baseball town," said Ron Colangelo, the Tigers' vice president of communications. "People are still finding ways [to attend] -- and we're doing everything we can to work with them and help them find those ways."
So while this has the makings of a tough year, a year that will produce much lower revenues than last season, it would be an exaggeration to call the Tigers a team in trouble. They're just a team dealing with reality.
And that's also a good description of where this sport is. It's coping with reality -- and surviving surprisingly well -- so far.
But there's also a segment of the baseball population that isn't quite as joyous as the commissioner over these attendance figures. That, not surprisingly, would be agents -- men who watched their free-agent clients take a beating last winter because of all the dire economic predictions about where this sport was heading. And now they can't help but wonder, more than ever, whether that beating was ever justified.
"The national pastime has survived recessions, depressions, scandals and wars," one unhappy agent told Rumblings. "In many ways and for many reasons, the game is indeed recession-proof. The commissioner knew, or should have known, that the MLB Network, MLB.com, the national TV package and season-ticket sales, etc., guaranteed that the revenues in the industry in 2009 would at least be comparable to the $6.6 billion in revenues generated in 2008. He overdramatized the potential financial losses so as to limit and to artificially control spending on free agency."
But Selig, naturally, pleads innocent. He says a month of stable early-season attendance does not mean this sport won't feel the wrath of the economy before this season is out.
"I'm nowhere near ready to predict that," he said.
He also says that when he warned clubs of potentially massive attendance hits, he wasn't urging them to stop spending or cut salaries. He was merely issuing prudent words of caution -- "and very serious caution."
"What I said to the clubs," Selig said, "was simply, 'Look, this is the worst economic environment we've ever lived through, so just act accordingly.' … And I think the clubs said to themselves, 'That's true. So if we hold on, it will be a miracle. And if it's worse, we don't know how much worse.'"
Well, we still don't know how much worse, because we don't know where this highway is leading. All we know is where we've been. And if these raw April attendance numbers mean anything, the Great Attendance Crash of 2009 just might turn out to be the biggest myth since the Loch Ness Monster.
Steve
1) I'll take Forbes' accounting over Jayson Starks any day.
2) You said attendance was up. Even if you were to believe Jayson's numbers from two weeks ago, attendance is still DOWN.
3) Better get some jabs in now before this alias goes *poof* too.
As usual, you talked out of your rear and proven wrong once again.
JS
i guess Axtell is going more for quantity of each post, rather than quantity of posts. LOL
The more accurate comparison is year-over-year April attendance.
<< <i>I don't like having to take Axtell's side of things, but in the first article they compare April's average attendance to the average attendance of the entire 2008 season. That's not a fair comparison and is extremely misleading. I'd much rather go to a game in June or July than on a cold and blustery April afternoon.
The more accurate comparison is year-over-year April attendance. >>
Don't worry, Von, you aren't really taking his side. Problem is, he stated over and over in the Manny thread that attendance was up.
The article he posted completely contradicts this.
It would be like claiming the sky is purple but then posting an article that it's blue.
As for the Forbes' article, you are right. It is somewhat misleading..
However, the article that Tinkerbell posted uses April 08 v 09, which shows a decline in attendance.
Funny how it just came back full circle.
<< <i>The article that Axtell posted referred to owners doing creative things to get customers to buy tickets. If they are offering better deals and incentives to buy tickets in order to get the same amount of ticket sales as last year, then aren't they losing money via ticket sales compared to last year, even though they sold a similar amount?? >>
I guess that could depend upon if ticket prices remained the same or went up.
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.
<< <i>Not a whole lot of teams worth going to see! Maybe the American public is sick of watching overpaid, under-achieving juicers bat .150 and not care about it!
JS >>
Giving up on the Phillies already? Get back under the bed before they get back under .500!
It seems to be a simple matter of misunderstanding. You seeing the word 'strong' and interpreting 'up', when no such suggestion was made.
starks article says an average of 287 less per game, which would be 706,020 less throughout a season full of games. It just depends on if you feel 10% decline is "strong". Tinkerbell likes to use vague wording so he can back peddle when needed.
http://sportsfansnews.com/author/andy-fischer/
blown out of the water.
oh, welcome back asstroll.
When you have so many banned aliases, it's had to keep track.
<< <i>If they are offering better deals and incentives to buy tickets in order to get the same amount of ticket sales as last year, then aren't they losing money via ticket sales compared to last year, even though they sold a similar amount?? >>
Absolutely.
For example, it's comparable to renting an apartment. Say you charge $1,500 a month, without concessions... When things are getting tough and to maintain the same rent (or a slight % increase), you offer a month or two of free rent and perhaps a look and lease bonus.
While on the surface, your rent is the same or better, after analyzing the rental income, your net number is actually lower.
706020/78000000 = approximately 0.0089
10%? Surely you jest. Wouldn't a 10% decline in attendance actually be 7.8 million?