Baseball Attendance

I read a report about the ongoing actions to keep the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg and/or to find them a new stadium site somewhere in that part of Florida. Underlying all of the various activities – and arm-waving to try to disguise the lack of any real activity – is a bleak set of stats:

In 2016, the Rays had the lowest attendance in MLB – and by a sizeable deficit from the next-lowest attendance. The Rays drew 1,286,163 fans this year; that is 15,879 fans per game. The next lowest attendance was the Oakland A’s (no real surprise there) but the A’s drew 18.3% more fans than did the Rays. Oh, but it gets worse …

In 2015, the Rays were also the worst draw in MLB and they drew even fewer fans in 2015 than they did in 2016.

The Rays have finished last in MLB in attendance for 5 consecutive seasons.

One might be tempted to conclude that the Rays did not contend this year or last year in any meaningful way and therefore attendance ebbed naturally. Well, when the Rays played away games this year, they played to crowds that averaged just under 30,000 fans; they were enough of a draw on the road to attract fans of other teams to head on out to the ballpark.

St. Petersburg is in Pinellas County in Florida. A group called Baseball Forever is seeking ways to keep the team in St. Petersburg near where it is currently located. Other entities/individuals have put forth ideas for 10 other locations in Pinellas County where a new stadium might be sited. Will any of these plans provide the Rays with a larger and more reliable fanbase? I have no idea, but the lack of businesses and population centers within a 30-minute drive of Tropicana Field is quite often cited as a basis for the poor attendance over the years.

The various groups who think they have the “right place” for a new stadium cite these figures:

816,000 people live within a 30-minute drive of Tropicana Field.

Every other site mentioned in Pinellas County has more than 1,000,000 people living within a 30-minute drive of the proposed site.

I’m sorry, but that sort of argumentation leaves me cold. The Rays drew less than 16,000 fans per game last year. If 816,000 folks live within a 30-minute drive of the stadium, my interpretation is not that there are insufficient numbers of potential fans; my interpretation is that the people who live there are not baseball fans and would rather do something else with their time and discretionary expense money. Even if you assume that no one EVER drives more than 30 minutes to see a Rays’ game – clearly nonsensical – that means less than 2% of the “nearby folks” care enough to go see the games.

In the past, the Rays’ owners expressed an interest in having a downtown stadium in Tampa – which is not in Pinellas County. That suggestion/overture got some folks there looking into possibilities and that got a flurry of activity going on that side of Tampa Bay to include one suggestion to put a stadium out near Plant City which is along the Interstate east of Tampa. I have not heard or read anything about those sorts of activities/ideas for about a year now so maybe the “only game in town” is the “Pinellas County Lottery”. This is a situation that needs a solution…

Baseball attendance was basically flat this year; overall, MLB attendance was down 184 fans per game; total attendance in 2016 was 73,159,044. Seven teams drew more than 3 million fans for the season; the Red Sox almost did that drawing 2,955,434 which is a tad over 96% capacity at Fenway Park. Bad teams this year like the Braves and the Twins drew 700,000 more fans than did the Rays.

However, looking at the attendance figures for MLB this year, there were a couple of numbers that stood out:

The Orioles only drew 2.17M fans (26,819 per game). The Orioles were in contention all year long and made the second wild card slot in the AL. Nevertheless, the Orioles attendance was DOWN an average of 2,427 fans per game as compared to 2015. What is going on there?

The Tigers drew just under 2.5M fans (31.173 per game). They did not make the wild card slot bur were in contention for one of the slots until the final days of the season. Nevertheless, the Tigers’ attendance was DOWN an average of 2,483 per game. Say what?

The Nationals drew 2.48M fans (30,641 per game). The Nats ran away and hid in the NL East; it was pretty obvious they would be in the playoffs in early August. Nevertheless, Nats’ attendance was DOWN 1,703 fans per game. Oh, by the way, living in the DC area I know that all season long there were promotional games and series where fans could buy-one-get-one free ticket deals and other series where seats were available for $10. And attendance was DOWN?

The Washington Business Journal also took note of the attendance slump for the Nats in this article. Local business journals/publications are very good sources of data although they rarely if ever paint any sort of bleak picture in their reporting. So I found it interesting – because it was unusual – for the lead paragraph to be:

“The Washington Nationals might be back in the playoffs after a one-year absence, but the 95-win regular season wasn’t necessarily a winner at the gate.”

Finally, earlier this season, Dwight Perry took note of a foul ball that landed in a funnel cake deep fryer during a game at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Here was his comment in the Seattle Times:

“In other words, it was a deep fry ball to left.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports ………