The Cleveland Indians have the lowest average attendance in baseball. Lower, even, than the Miami Marlins, who most people would assume own that dishonor. In fact, Miami is only fifth worst.
Cleveland’s average of 14,205 makes places like Miami, Tampa Bay and Kansas City look somewhat decent. The Royals, in fact, are second worst in baseball and average 4,000 more per game than the Indians.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Indians drew 9,514 and 9,474 with the Oakland Athletics in town. This was part of the Indians’ current hot streak, in which they’ve won 10 out of 11 games. And relief pitcher Frank Herrmann’s frustration made him try something. Herrmann, who is out for the season after Tommy John surgery, took to Twitter:
I would never tell people how to spend their hard earned disposable income but sub 10,000 fans back to back nights to see the hottest team in baseball is not getting it done. I am going to provide my own little stimulus package and give out two tickets to tomorrow nights game.
Herrmann told fans to submit nicknames for Indians players and he’d pick the best one and give away a pair of tickets.
Teammate Josh Tomlin saw this and jumped on board, saying he’d do the same thing. They told people to use the hashtag #TribeNames. Fans did and the players gave away tickets. Nice gesture and nice use of social media, right?
This story doesn’t end there, though. Team president Mark Shapiro took notice and started a nickname contest of his own. Only he offered a pair of tickets to the Indians’ social suite for Thursday’s game.
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The Cleveland Indians have the lowest average attendance in baseball. Lower, even, than the Miami Marlins, who most people would assume own that dishonor. In fact, Miami is only fifth worst.
Cleveland’s average of 14,205 makes places like Miami, Tampa Bay and Kansas City look somewhat decent. The Royals, in fact, are second worst in baseball and average 4,000 more per game than the Indians.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Indians drew 9,514 and 9,474 with the Oakland Athletics in town. This was part of the Indians’ current hot streak, in which they’ve won 10 out of 11 games. And relief pitcher Frank Herrmann’s frustration made him try something. Herrmann, who is out for the season after Tommy John surgery, took to Twitter:
I would never tell people how to spend their hard earned disposable income but sub 10,000 fans back to back nights to see the hottest team in baseball is not getting it done. I am going to provide my own little stimulus package and give out two tickets to tomorrow nights game.
Herrmann told fans to submit nicknames for Indians players and he’d pick the best one and give away a pair of tickets.
Teammate Josh Tomlin saw this and jumped on board, saying he’d do the same thing. They told people to use the hashtag #TribeNames. Fans did and the players gave away tickets. Nice gesture and nice use of social media, right?
This story doesn’t end there, though. Team president Mark Shapiro took notice and started a nickname contest of his own. Only he offered a pair of tickets to the Indians’ social suite for Thursday’s game.
But with no preseason notice, the Nationals front office for the 2013 season significantly diluted the Red Carpet Rewards program, and the number of points needed to buy extra benefits increased dramatically. For example, a game against the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday, May 25, costs 1,000 Red Carpet points for a field MVP or club seat, which is 10 times what it cost last year. The Nationals also shortened the window in which tickets can be redeemed ahead of time to one month; last year points could be used to buy a ticket for any game in the season.
. . .
The simple reason for it is the Nationals’ success on the field last year resulted in a surge in season ticket sales — and fewer seats to give away.
“We’ve had the largest increase in Major League Baseball in season ticket sales,” said Andrew C. Feffer, the Nationals’ chief operating officer. He declined to say how many season tickets the team sells but said, “We are in the top tier of the league in season ticket sales.”
Feffer said the team has expanded the options available to rewards members to include autographed merchandise, meeting players, viewing batting practice — even throwing out the first pitch — as a way to create value for season ticket holders.
The higher deck seats will be off limits starting with the Marlins next home games series which starts Tuesday. That will reduce the attendance capacity by about 10,000 . . . The team may consider closing the upper bowl for remaining weeknight games this season, but has yet to determine if it will do so. Fewer than 500 people own season tickets in the upper bowl, and those fans are being moved — with no additional charge — to seats in the lower bowl for all Monday-through-Thursday games.
• Fans like close games and close pennant races more than home runs
One of the great myths about The Steroid Era is that steroids “saved baseball” and made for a great period of huge economic growth. It’s baloney. After the great home run race of 1998, per game attendance went down three of the next five years. Take the best per-game attendance in The Steroid Era (1995-2003) and it would be the worst attendance rate of The Testing Era (2004-2012).
We are in an extremely rare period in the game’s history because offense is down and attendance is up. There are many reasons why this is happening, including something as macro an issue as the frightening pace in which America is becoming an entertainment-based society. We spend roughly three times as much money on entertainment as we do education. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, our overall spending from 1991-2011 rose 33 percent, but our spending on “Fees and Admissions,” which includes what we pay to watch sports, jumped 65 percent.
To an audience craving entertainment, baseball has provided more competitive games. Home runs are great, but having an outcome in doubt is better. The stands empty out in a blowout and stay full for a close game even if the ball never left the yard.
