April 20, 2005
Where are the Fans?
John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun is wondering where the fans have been the last two nights:
The weather was splendid. The Orioles were in first place, coming off that euphoric weekend sweep of the Yankees. For the first time in years, they're sending out signals that they have the potential to put together something real.
What a strange time to have a small-market moment.
But that's precisely what they had, setting a record for the smallest crowd in park history (16,301) Monday night, and then attracting just 1,708 additional fans last night.
I don't think it's the Nationals. John gets it right here:
But while conceding that the Nationals are having some impact, I still think the Orioles' seven straight losing seasons have cut the deepest into their ticket-buying public.
Too many real fans have been turned off or are waiting for the team to keep playing winning ball for longer before they come back.
Winning brings the fans out. If the Orioles keep their winning ways going for another month, we'll see big crowds again at Camden Yards.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:06 AM
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"Real fans" don't get "turned off" baseball. Ever. On the contrary, fans that show up only when "their" team is winning should not be defined as real. Rather, they should be called what they are; Bandwagon fans.
Pete I basically agree with you, and checking out attendance figures for Pittsburgh and Milwaukee the last two nights - about 1/3 capacity in beautiful new parks with, respectively, the team with the best record in baseball and the defending NL champs in town - really drives home the point that fans sometimes let the team down.
But I do think the O's fans - and even Brewer and Pirate fans -deserve some understanding. Angelos has driven the team into the ground, and at some point why should fans reward their teams' inept management? And Dave points up in the later post the terrible decisions made by the Pirates in the mid 90's that destroyed the team. I also agree with Eisenberg that the fans will fill up the seats once we're deeper into the season and the O's are still playing well.
Angelos won't get my dollars, except for what he is stealing from the Nationals.
If winning is the only way to put fanny's in seats, then what's the story with the Florida Marlins? They are a good ball club that plays to less than stellar crowds.
Orioles fans are pretty well-known for not being excited about much of anything, other than perhaps when "the wave" comes around to their section.
I have no doubt this used to be a different story, but ever since Camden Yards opened, the park seemed to be a bigger attraction than the team. And now that everyone's been to the park a bunch of times, that's not a big deal either.
And the big crowds they had for the Yanks over the weekend? Mostly because all the college kids who are Yanks fans or Yanks haters (Mets, Red Sox fans) came out in droves for the ticket promotions.
The Orioles don't know how good they have it. During the Royals' first homestand, they drew 41,788 on opening day. Then they drew 10,577 and 10,212 before drawing 29,720 on Friday and 22,881 on Saturday. The following Sun-Mon-Tue attendance numbers were 14,904, 11,115, and 11,884.
Yikes. I think the Royals have something like 9,000 season tickets sold, so that means virtually no one else is going to weekday games, and there's no way actual attendance is close to 11,000. I guess the fans are a little tired of not competing in the worst division in baseball with no hope in the immediate future.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/schedule?team=kan