Early in the baseball season is ordinarily a time for optimism in the game. There are new stars emerging, teams performing above expectations and injuries have generally not begun to pile up.
But for the game itself, there are troubling signs.
Attendance has been alarming at a number of ballparks in the first two-and-a-half weeks. And we’re not talking about half-full ballparks, or empty sections here or there. No, in Baltimore, Chicago and Miami, we’re not talking about nearly-empty ballparks.
At Oriole Park at Camden Yards last Monday, the O’s drew just 7,915 on hand for their game with the Toronto Blue Jays. In Miami, there were only 7,003 taking in the Marlins-Mets on the same night. At Cleveland’s Progressive Field, 9,843 watched the Indians and Kansas City Royals. The White Sox-Rays game in Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago attracted 10,377, but with snow having hit the South Side earlier in the day, cameras showed a crowd of mere hundreds actually in attendance.
(Remember, MLB attendance figures reflect tickets sold and not fans in the ballpark, so, as was the case with the White Sox-Rays, the actual number of people in the seats was often far, far fewer than the attendance figures suggested).
Even at Fenway, the Sox failed to sellout the first two games of their series with the Yankees, a situation that would have been unthinkable, say, 10 years ago. Red Sox CEO and president Sam Kennedy has acknowledged the home team is off about six percent in ticket sales from a year ago, but is confident that, with the team’s strong start, that can soon be made up.
And while it’s important to not overreact to an early season dip that represents such a small sample size, some of the numbers are too minuscule to ignore outright.
Some points to be gleaned here:
— It’s always a tough sell for teams early in the season, thanks to cold weather and certainly, that played a factor in Chicago and Cleveland, where the conditions were near arctic-like. And over a long season that, thanks to a new CBS which now includes five additional off-days and now stretches from late March into early October, it’s tough convincing fans that they need to come out to the ballpark five or 10 games into the schedule.
— It doesn’t help that a record number of teams are tanking – or, at the very least, not terribly interested in winning, with an eye toward replicating the approach that eventually produced championships for the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs. It’s understandable – in fact, perfectly logical – that fans interested in seeing the White Sox or Marlins or Reds would want to wait for the weather to warm up or school to be out before paying major league prices to watch what are effectively Triple-A rosters.
— The competition for the sports/entertainment dollar has never been more fierce, and that’s especially true in early April, when NBA and NHL teams in many of the same markets are jockeying for playoff spots down the stretch, or taking part in the early rounds of their respective post-season tournaments.
— Against the backdrop of such a competitive marketplace, there’s every chance that MLB teams have too much inventory to sell. Eighty-one home dates represent double the number of home games played by NBA and NHL teams, and 10 times that of NFL teams. When you offer plenty of other chances to see your product – statistically speaking, there’s an average of almost one home game every other day or night for six months – it’s a challenge to get people to come out when it’s windy and 38 degrees. A return to the 154-game schedule would be welcome, but of course, that’s something that would have to be collectively bargained, and while owners could perhaps be talked into losing four home gates per season, the players would balk at a commensurate reduction in their salaries.
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