Marlins Park’s Second Opening Night Attendance Woes
There’s nothing terribly surprising about the headline. The Marlins finished in last place in the National League East last season. They traded all of the marquee players over the winter, save for superstar Giancarlo Stanton, who is under team control until after the 2016 season. The team threatened to sue season-ticket holders who refused to pay their ticket invoice in a dispute over whether their view was obstructed. And a week before the season started, the Marlins had teamed with Groupon to offer two-for-the-price-of-one tickets for opening night against the Braves. Then the Marlins started the season on the road with a 1-5 record.
Still, when my colleague Jeff Sullivan snapped this photo just as the opening night was getting underway at Marlins Park, I was, well, surprised.
The official attendance, courtesy of the box score on MLB.com, was 34,439. That’s 3,000 or so shy of the 37,442 seating capacity. Of course, official attendance means tickets sold, not the number of fans through the turnstiles. Even so, the Marlins failed to match the attendance from last season’s inaugural opening night of the ballpark, missing that 36,601 mark by more than 2,000.
How does the Marlins’ second opening night stack up against other ballparks that have opened since 2000? Not particularly well.
Fourteen ballparks have opened between April 2000 and April 2012. The only one to see a significant drop in attendance from the first opening day to the second — other than Marlins Park — was Minute Maid Park (nee Enron Field) in Houston. The Astros’ new park opened in 2000 and hosted 41,583 fans on opening day. The next season, the Astros sold only 35,526 tickets to opening day. Why? I bet the collapse of Houston-based Enron — for which Minute Maid Park was originally named — had a dampening effect. It may have had something to do with the Astros’ .444 winning percentage in 2000, as well.
But a losing record in the first year doesn’t tell the whole story. Indeed, several other teams had dismal records in their inaugural seasons in the new digs. And yet fans still showed up for the second opening day. Here’s a chart listing the 14 ballparks opened since 2000, the inaugural opening day attendance, the team’s winning percentage in its first year in the new ballpark, and the second year opening day attendance.
| Team | Ballpark | Year Opened | Inaugural Opening Day Attendance | Winning Percentage First Year | Second Year Opening DayAttendance |
| Giants | AT&T Park | 2000 | 40,930 (sell out) | .599
NL West Title |
40,930 (sell out) |
| Tigers | Comerica Park | 2000 | 39,168 | .488 | 40,104 |
| Astros | MinuteMaid Park | 2000 | 41,583 (sell out) | .444 | 35,526 |
| Brewers | Miller Park | 2001 | 42,024 (sell out) | .420 | 43,005 (sell out) |
| Pirates | PNC Park | 2001 | 36,954 | .383 | 36,402 |
| Reds | Great American Ballpark | 2003 | 42,343 (sell out) | .426 | 42,122 (sell out) |
| Phillies | Citizens Bank Park | 2004 | 41,626 | .531 | 44,080 (sell out) |
| Padres | Petco Park | 2004 | 41,400 | .537 | 43,538 (sell out) |
| Cardinals | Busch Stadium | 2006 | 41,936 | .516
NL Central Title |
45,429 |
| Nationals | Nationals Park | 2008 | 39,389 | .366 | 40,386 |
| Yankees | Yankee Stadium | 2009 | 48,607 | .636
AL East Title |
49,293 |
| Mets | CitiField | 2009 | 41,007 | .432 | 41,245 |
| Twins | Target Field | 2010 | 38,145 | .580
AL Central Title |
40,714 (sell out) |
| Marlins | Marlins Park | 2012 | 36,601 | .426 | 34,439 |
Other than the Astros, and now the Marlins, only the Pirates saw a drop in attendance from the first opening day to the second, but it was minimal. Every other team saw opening day attendance rise in the second year, even teams with losing records in the inaugural season — the Tigers, Brewers, Reds, Nationals, and Mets.
This isn’t about “attendance shaming.” Marlins fans have every reason to stay away from the ballpark this season. It’s simply an effort to put the Marlins’ experience in some historical context. Based solely on these opening day attendance numbers, history hasn’t treated the 2013 Marlins particularly well.
And, don’t bother trying to ask the Marlins players about it. Eric Adelson of Yahoo Sports talked with Placido Polanco and Kevin Slowey about the crowd after the game, but notes that he was then escorted out of the clubhouse by the Marlins media relations director. At least he was allowed to stay in the stadium, unlike several fans who wore shirts and carried signs protesting the franchise’s direction, and were asked to leave by stadium security personnel.
Major League Baseball is at its most most prosperous point, perhaps ever. In an era of unprecedented labor peace and financial well being for all, the current state of the Marlins is simply an unfortunate stain on the game.
Wendy writes about sports and the business of sports. She's been published most recently by Vice Sports, Deadspin and NewYorker.com. You can find her work at wendythurm.pressfolios.com and follow her on Twitter @hangingsliders.
That picture must have been taken way early. Once things got started, and as some time went by, it looked pretty packed to me. I was there. 34,000 of 36,000 is pretty good to me, especially if you consider what the attendance figures were at Dolphin Stadium. I was very surprised by the crowd last night, but talking about it as being a low number is just trying to start something so everyone can make more jokes about the marlins. Its a typical media thing, but I expect more from this site than being typical media
I probably should have read this before commenting
I watched parts of the game, primarily because I wanted to see the attendance and also because, well as much as I dislike the ownership, still care for the team. Miami fans have a reputation for showing up late, as everyone knows, and this is an example of this also. It wasn’t that empty. That picture shows a stadium at 5-6K capacity? It was a lot closer to 12-15K. Not that that’s very good at all but it wasn’t THAT empty. I can’t wait to see how it’s going to look on weekdays in the middle of a season. Then it truly will be that empty and then some. And Loria deserves exactly that. The city deserves much more. All the tax money and promised jobs down the drain.
From that angle, Marlins stadium has a real SkyDomey look to it.
The Cardinals didn’t win the NL Central in 06, they snuck into the postseason via the wild card and won the World Series. Might account for the extra 4k they drew the next season.
Whoops, was thinking of someone different. They DID win the NL Central, mea culpa
It’s their record while doing it that had you thinking wild card
Although the Yankees did win the AL East title as listed in the chart, they won the WS as well.
Interesting to see more sell-outs in the following year after the stadium opened though and one would of thought the Yankees and Cardinals would have sold out on Opening Day.
I would bet that the Yanks and Cards did sell every “available” ticket when they opened their new parks. The difference in between the 1st and 2nd years is likely comp’d tickets. Comps don’t count as tickets sold in official attendance records – and I’d bet there were plenty of people to comp at the grand Opening of those 2 parks. So, you can see 2 sellouts with vastly different attendance.
Busch Stadium wasn’t totally finished in 2006 when the Cardinals opened it. There were a few sections in left field without any seats for the first few weeks of the season, and the team obviously wasn’t selling tickets for those areas. I think that is why attendance went up in 2007.
Well I for one hope fans in Miami out up some seriously low attendance numbers to get the attention of the commish and other owners. Loria needs to go Dan owners need to know they won’t be supported if they act similarly.
As someone pointed out somewhere, low attendance numbers just encourage the Darren Rovells of the world to say that the city can’t support a MLB franchise and the owners should move the team. Nothing short of a visit from the Ghosts of Marlins Past, Present and Future can convince Jeffrey Loria to change his ways.
Those empty seat “tickets sold” are not buying beer or hotdogs either.
When you treat your fans as bad as the Marlins have, it’s no surprised. Watched the game…from home, because it was the free MLB.com game. Even the announcers sounded like they didn’t want to be watching the Marlins. They’d rather talk about the Mets. The Mets!
Fantastic piece. So, when they sing “God Bless America” in the 7th, did they insert a line exempting that whole pesky freedom of speech thing?
they dont sing G-d bless America down here during the games. If they do, its for a special occasion. They usually only sing the wrong words to take me out to the ballgame
Not sure why attendance shaming is a bad thing. There are some things that should be shamed and the current ownership of the Marlins is certainly worthy of it.
Because it can be interpreted as it’s the fans who are being shamed for not showing up, not the owner being shamed for being a giant greedy two-faced douchebag.
Alright Johnny lets go. You’ve been warned. *Escorts Johnny Come Lately away from the message board for daring to speak ill of Hizzonor*
Not that it matters by BR has the Astros opening day attendance 2001 at 36,526, not 35,526. It was also a 4pm start on a Tuesday afternoon against a terrible Brewers team.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU200104030.shtml
In 2001 the Astros averaged 35.8K. That opening day number is more of an anomaly than a parallel for the Marlins situation.
Even if 34k tickets are sold (90% capacity or whatever)- an actual turnout of 12k or whatever it was is bad since that means concession stands aren’t making much money. People can’t buy hot dogs if they not at the game. Same for parking, etc.
I was there. It looked pretty packed to me
Was this stadium not mainly, if not all, publicly funded? What an shame that stadium security is able to remove fans attempting to protest the direction of the team in what is basically a public facility.
Am I correct in my recollection that MLB basically decided it couldn’t contract the Rays because that would mean trouble for the Marlins? If so, that’s clearly an example of just not thinking things all the way through.
Cards did sell out on opening day. Upper LF terraces were not finished yet.
I wrote about the Marlins suing their fans. There are no heroes in that particular story.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/miami-marlins-new-revenue-stream-suing-fans/