Two Million Baseball Fans Are Missing
Rob Manfred, MLB owners, players: we have a problem. Some of your ticket buyers are missing. In fact, nearly two million of them.
As we approach the official beginning of summer and the midpoint of the baseball season, attendance is down by about 2,000 per game, or 6.7%, relative to a year ago.
MLB attendance has generally and gradually been declining since its peak of 79.48 million fans in 2007. That was 32,696 per contest. The average per-game figure fell below 30,000 last year for the first time since 2003.
Of course, this year’s numbers were deflated early in the season, when April brought brutally cold weather to much of the country. Through the first two-plus weeks of the campaign, baseball was drawing about 2,700 fewer fans per game — or about 8.9% compared to the previous April, as noted by Jeff Passan.
So, for a while, it was unclear how much the unseasonable temperatures were responsible for the decline. Now, however, the weather has warmed in most places. What has happened in the two months since the frigid start to the season? The league is still failing to keep pace with last year. Over the last two months, from April 16 to June 14, MLB attendance is still off 2017’s pace by 6.1%, or a total of 1,376,770. The decline isn’t all weather related.
Said one anonymous league official to Passan in his April 16 piece, “The tanking scares me.”
Perhaps it should. Perhaps we are seeing its consequences in action.
On Thursday, this scribe wrote about how the Blue Jays, who had hoped to thread the needle and capture a Wild Card berth this season, ought to sell. They were one of the few teams in the AL — along with the Angels, Mariners, and Twins — that entered the season in something of a middle tier between the super teams and clear non-contenders.
Well, the Blue Jays now have less than 2% odds of making the postseason. In fact, only six AL teams have double-digit odds of making the postseason as this contributor noted in the aforementioned piece. Four of them — the Astros, Indians, Red Sox, and Yankees — have a 97% chance or better of reaching the postseason. The other nine teams have a 5% probability or worse. It’s seems unlikely that we’re going to have many dramatic postseason races. The AL East crown? Sure. But beyond that? Even the second Wild Card spot might not facilitate much competition with Shohei Ohtani’s status in doubt.
As I noted in the Blue Jays piece, one year ago to the day, only one team — the Astros — had a 90% chance of reaching the postseason. Ten AL teams had a double-digit probability or better. Again, this season it’s six.
Two years ago at roughly this same point in the season, 12 teams had double-digit probabilities, eight had a 30% or better chance. Three years ago, 10 teams had a 20% playoff probability or better in the AL, and eight teams, over half the league, had a 35% or greater chance. Four years ago, 10 teams also had a 20% or better chance of the reaching the postseason.
We might be seeing the effects of this age of Super Teams and Tankers in the American League standings. While MLB attendance is down 6.7% as a whole, attendance is down 9.7% in the Have-and-Have Not American League.
Consider the following table comparing the first 1008 games from 2017 to the first 1008 games from 2018 mined from Baseball-Reference data:
| Tm | 2017 G | 2017 Attendance | 2017 Attend/G | 2018 G | 2018 Att | 2018 Attend/G | YoY Diff | YoY Diff/G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BAL | 31 | 862,498 | 27,823 | 31 | 611,633 | 19,730 | -250,865 | -8,092 |
| BOS | 34 | 1,212,759 | 35,669 | 34 | 1,173,820 | 34,524 | -38,939 | -1,145 |
| CHW | 32 | 676,934 | 21,154 | 32 | 535,149 | 16,723 | -141,785 | -4,431 |
| CLE | 31 | 681,641 | 21,988 | 31 | 591,437 | 19,079 | -90,204 | -2,910 |
| DET | 39 | 1,108,748 | 28,429 | 39 | 819,040 | 21,001 | -289,708 | -7,428 |
| HOU | 33 | 958,819 | 29,055 | 33 | 1,165,990 | 35,333 | 207,171 | 6,278 |
| KCR | 33 | 865,496 | 26,227 | 33 | 667,139 | 20,216 | -198,357 | -6,011 |
| LAA | 35 | 1,267,078 | 36,202 | 35 | 1,297,581 | 37,074 | 30,503 | 872 |
| MIN | 34 | 754,095 | 22,179 | 34 | 754,384 | 22,188 | 289 | 8 |
| NYY | 33 | 1,243,818 | 37,691 | 33 | 1,370,017 | 41,516 | 126,199 | 3,824 |
| OAK | 36 | 655,937 | 18,220 | 36 | 548,259 | 15,229 | -107,678 | -2,991 |
| SEA | 35 | 867,120 | 24,775 | 35 | 848,833 | 24,252 | -18,287 | -522 |
| TBR | 31 | 450,753 | 14,540 | 31 | 415,833 | 13,414 | -34,920 | -1,126 |
| TEX | 36 | 1,164,564 | 32,349 | 36 | 1,003,070 | 27,863 | -161,494 | -4,486 |
| TOR | 35 | 1,354,039 | 38,687 | 35 | 954,428 | 27,269 | -399,611 | -11,417 |
| Total | 508 | 14,124,299 | 27,803 | 508 | 12,756,613 | 25,111 | -1,367,686 | -2,692 |
Eleven A.L. clubs have experienced attendance declines. In the entire majors, the Pirates, Tigers, Orioles, Marlins, Royals and Blue Jays are down 200,000-plus fans. Toronto has shed a staggering amount of fans from this point last season, selling nearly 400,000 fewer tickets. Since the Blue Jays play in a controlled environment, weather cannot explain any of the club’s ticket woes.
Of course, there are other factors at play — and perhaps a significant one is the secondary ticket market. That’s what Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro told Shi Davidi in an interview this spring with SportsNet.
SN: Then there’s the challenge of selling tickets after a difficult season.
MS: Again, that’s a little bit misleading. What happened when we were headed to the post-season, there was a huge amount of season-ticket sales for the following season, largely built around people who wanted access to post-season tickets. A lot of them were brokers and the secondary market — almost 50 per cent of our season-ticket holders were brokers last year, which is not uncommon for other teams.
As we progressed in our business model, we didn’t think it was advantageous to have 50 per cent of our tickets controlled by the secondary market. The main reason for that is a lot of tickets just get dumped and the integrity of pricing for season-ticket holders and the average fan goes way down and the most desirable tickets get sold at a maximum premium. We wanted to create pricing and packages that benefit our fans and provide them with alternatives and values that meet their individual needs. Our changes are meant to benefit them instead of the secondary market.
More and more people have taken to the secondary for ticket needs and some have made it a personal business endeavor by purchasing season tickets in large part not only to sell regular season tickets but to have access to purchase postseason tickets, which can be sold at a significant profit. Teams have begun to fight back, placing restrictions and reducing the ability for individuals to profit on the secondary market. Moreover, clubs typically are not reducing ticket prices at the box office.
There are also the well-known societal and technological challenges. High-definition cameras and flat-screen TVs have enhanced the quality of the in-home experience. Manfred has long been worried about attention spans, hence the focus on pace of play and amateur participation rates. If you play the game as a youth, you are more likely to be a consumer of it — and a ticket purchaser — in adulthood.
While baseball is still doing just fine as a $10 billion industry, while by some measures it has never been more popular, selling tickets and concessions is always going to be important. So this downturn should have the game’s attention. And while many factors are at play, while some are out of the game’s control, other factors like competition and pace are among the controllable factors. Perhaps more than anything this year, particularly in the AL, fans are responding to the drama that is absent from the field
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
Attendance is down 6.7% across the league? Well Rickey is still going to games so it’s only down 5.7%
The game on the field is just not very appealing anymore. The pace is torpid. There are too many Ks. There’s an endless procession of anonymous middle relievers that dominate the last 40% of every game.
And, the tickets are monstrously expensive. I’m spending almost $500 tomorrow to take my Dad and two nephews to Yankee Stadium. We’re not even in the lower deck. It’s an absurdity.
Yup – cost is huge. I’ve got three kids. I’m in Seattle and we’ve got entire empty sections. But the face price is still over $30 per ticket. Before $15 beer and the rest. Price seats to fill stadiums and get bodies in: $5 bleachers! Then on top of this I can’t watch games without cable which we don’t have so for my kids to even see baseball I need to go to a bar…. It’s like baseball doesn’t want the next generation watching because they are so scared of ticket brokers and what not. First principle should be to make it easy to watch but that isn’t the case. Sigh.
Only 10 or so years ago bleacher tickets at Safeco were $7. Now they’re $20. Pretty audacious considering the product on the field for those ten years has not been great (nor has the attendance). Now they’re trying to sell a package of all 14 July games for $98…$7 a ticket.
To be fair, the Mariners seem to be making a concerted effort to get people to the ballpark – especially important now given the playoff implications. What they’ve done is offer a ballpark pass for the month of July for $98. With 14 games at home this comes out to $7 per game.
Will be interesting to see how well these passes sell and if it becomes a new way to get fans to come out to games.
Edit: didn’t see the comment from 3cardmonty saying pretty much this
Yep, pricing is definately an issue. Especially now that all (or almost all) teams employ “dynamic” pricing. If you want to know why Pittsburgh is down over 200k so far this year that might be partially to blame (it’s mostly the fans finally being fed up with the owner who refuses to actually spend any money on the team). My brother was recently in from California, and the only game we could both do was a Saturday afternoon game against the Cardinals. Tickets in the lower level, along 1st base in the outfield were $51 each. It is such an effective pricing model, that the announced attendance was only like 20k (and there were no where near that many actually there). Teams need to realize that they can only get away with price gouging, I mean dynamic pricing, if the team is actually decent, there is a buzz, and the demand for tickets is high. Otherwise, it just pisses people off who might normally buy tickets.
The problem teams haven’t realized with dynamic pricing is that they let prices rise when demand is high, but they don’t let it fall when demand is low. For example, if I wanted to go to the Jays game tonight, I can either spend 9$US (~12 CAD) on stubhub, or if I want to buy from the team’s website, I’m spending 31$ (21$ plus 10$ in fees). When you’re also charging 13 bucks for a beer or 9 for a hot dog, they should practically be giving away seats for the less popular weeknight games.
When I was an undergrad, the Jays had $2 Tuesdays in the upper deck. Did I then proceed to spend dozens of dollars on food and drinks that I wouldn’t have otherwise spent? You better believe I did.
I’d be really interested to see a team attempt a Becker Degroot Marschak auction some time for unfilled seats and work from there. Teams employing one way dynamic pricing are just racheting with a censored demand function and not really efficiently maximizing anything. My suspicion is that you reach much different optima from BDM (or something resembling Google’s ad auction) than current ticket pricing models.
It’s the prices. It’s absolutely crazy, and it’s only going to get worse. When prices are so high, you can’t take your kids to the game. When you can’t take your kids to the game, they don’t get used to go going to games, and don’t spend as an adult.
You absolutely have to have an effective family pricing option or else you’re losing an entire generation of fans.
It’s not just families. As a single young adult, it gets to be around 50$ each experience. And that is if you are really frugal. Whether its the 12 dollar Coors Light at Safeco, or the 22$ sandwiches at AT&T park; every park is squeezing us for as much as they possibly can. For a 162 game schedule none of these prices scream “come back to the park, friends”. The weather? not a factor. The pace of play? It’s practically the same game I’ve been watching for the past 30 years. Tanking teams? Mariners aren’t tanking and i think last time i checked they were ranked about 19th in attendance this year. That cant be it either. It’s the damn prices.
I don’t have kids but I can’t imagine having to take a family of 4 to a game. You are probably looking at least $100 in tickets, $40 in concessions (assuming you only go once and buy the cheap stuff), and $20 to park. And that’s the low end, you will be sitting in outfield of the upper deck for a total of $160. That is a lot of money for 3-4 hours of potential entertainment.
There are so many different entertainment options for families now that I completely understand not going to a baseball game.
$40 in concessions? What you getting, 2 coors lights?
Yes…each kid will spend 40. Trust me.
You’re also losing a generation of fans (Millennials) who can no longer watch in-market games since many do not have cable.
This. I cut the cord in 2008, and never looked back. I missed getting to watch live sports, but not enough to pay Comcast or the satellite companies the ridiculous amount they charge. Especially when they make me take a few hundred channels I’ll never watch.
Baseball has already lost two generations of fans. Tim Tebow has more followers on Twitter than Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge – combined – and more than the NYY or LAD (and thus presumably any other team too).
Baseball long ago stopped caring about future generations of fans.
+1 and millions if not billions more. Baseball has soaked (and is soaking) the Greatest Generation, Boomers, and probably older Gen Xer’s — of which I am one.
The shortsightedness of owners who simply enjoy counting their money will do them in long term.
And it’s also not just the cost, too. Honestly, I love baseball, but it can be boring to sit in the stands at a game. When you watch on TV, you get analysis, they show replays, and you get into it. When you’re at the park, they announce the batter, play 8 seconds of walk-up music, and that’s it. Half the time you have to guess what’s going on, and if you’re not an avid fan, you have no idea what’s going on so much of the time. Even on a replay review, you get a few random hand signals from the ump and it’s up to the crowd to deduce what the call was. They definitely need to make some changes to liven up the atmosphere in the park, especially if the team is out of it in the season.
This is what no one wants to talk about. Some people love the atmosphere of the ballpark/arena. But an increasing number of people prefer to analyze the game and observe every detail. There’s a reason why most Cowboys fans just watch the game on the giant screen rather than on the field. It’s even tougher when you’re in the outfield at a baseball game.
Availability of detail has created demand for even more detail. Sitting in the upper deck is not going to satisfy this demand, no matter how cheap the seats are or how quickly the game is played.
Finally, commentary about ticket pricing and the true cost of going to games for fans. Guess there wasn’t enough room in the article, but needless to say there’s a lot of factors going into the dip in attendance, but I bet if ticket and concession prices noticeably dropped there’d be more people in the seats willing to take a chance on seeing a good game.
I live in the Boston area. *Standing room* at Fenway is $20+ and the only seat under $30 are the upper bleachers ($25) directly under the scoreboard, which is not some place you want to sit unless you have a fine pair of binoculars or a telescope. Parking ($30+), concessions (good beer: $10+)… forget it. Radio/TV it is.
Can’t stop greed, but if owners really want to bring up the attendance even for tanking teams, it’s easy as dropping prices significantly and hoping that advertising/radio/TV pays the bills.
And long term the pricing issue is astounding. I was at Nolan Ryan’s 5th no-hitter. September 26, 1981 against the Dodgers. Sat 10 rows behind the Astros dugout in my dad’s company seats and I still have my ticket stub from that game. Face value was $6.50.
Put that into one of the inflation calculators and you’ll find that the inflation-adjusted cost of that ticket is somewhere around $18-$19. Just try today to get a ticket 10 rows behind a dugout for less than $100. So over almost 40 years (40 years!) the price of a baseball ticket has increased at more than 5x the general rate of inflation. No wonder people have trouble justifying going to games.
“Greed”
Please take some time to learn how markets function. A team like the Red Sox would be retarded to price tickets lower than what it takes to clear the market. If you’re upset about tickets prices, blame the enthusiasm if the fanbase, not the owners.
It’s greed. Supply and demand is obviously apparent, but a $10 beer is not really a $10 beer. It’s probably only about $1.50, but the owners greedily capitalize on the demand. They could sell it for $3, thus still getting a profit, but choose not to. The $100 seat is a price probably devised from what they think someone will pay for that seat. But they don’t have to sell it for that much… they just want the most money they can get.
Enthusiasm of the fanbase is indeed partially to blame because people are still buying those $10 beers and $100 seats. However, if the enthusiasm is waning (thus, the point of this article), then the owners need to cut back on ticket prices and concessions to get people back to the park. Indeed, they need to lay off some of the greed that they are clearly exhibiting.
You were doing so well until you dropped “retard” in there.
I find the bitching about the on field product to be disingenuous, but… holy god the prices. The prices are so bad, league wide.
Boring discretionary and expensive is no way to build a business son
with apologies to Animal House – https://youtu.be/mkoPq5AOCOA
How is a strike out any less exciting than a routine ground out? And MLB has the lower ticket prices than NFL and NBA, so that argument holds no water. Try taking your family to MSG when the Knicks are as hot as the Yanks and tell me how cheap that is.
On;y point I agree with is the endless stream of relievers.
With a routine ground out, there is a lot to see and think about. The fielder’s placement before the ball was hit, the fielder’s first step, the good or bad bounce, etc. Yeah, most of the time it’s going to be an out, but there is a lot more going on than just a swing and a miss.
You nailed it. Too expensive and too boring.
And the game is watched mostly by old people. I guess that’s what happens when the pace is so slow and players having fun is actively discouraged and often punished.
It’s not the most elegant way of putting it, but I *do* think he has a point re: the fun factor. Show some enthusiasm for a key strikeout or home run? Prepare to get plunked, or at the very least harrumphed with a “THAT’S NOT HOW THE GAME IS SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED” from the old guard…
‘Prepare to get plunked, or at the very least harrumphed with a “THAT’S NOT HOW THE GAME IS SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED” from the old guard…’
And if you have baseball players acting like punks and try to turn baseball into the NBA those of us in Old Guard will abandon baseball for golf – and we’re the backbone and great majority of MLB’s support. Baseball is absolutely supposed to have dignity and unwritten rules. Without them? Forget it. We never watch the NBA for a reason.
And soon you’ll be dead. Who will watch baseball then?
Yeah, the NBA is really hurting for fans.
Oh my god … a “punks in the NBA” and flag-hating thugs in the NFL guy. Please do go watch golf — and you can probably get a good deal on a MAGA cap to keep the sun out of your eyes.
I won’t down vote you. But you sound like Jeff Spicoli. If all you need is some tasty waves and a cool buzz who needs the park? Thanks for supporting something I cherish with a membership. Party on pineapple man.
High-definition cameras and flat-screen TVs have enhanced the quality of the in-home experience.
This. So much this. It’s a far better viewing experience at home. And the concessions are much cheaper 😉 If I want the social aspect, I can go to my neighborhood sports bar and still pay far less than for the real game.
I like going to games. But it’s a great big hassle and costs a ton of money (inc. family).
And sometimes the weather is bad. And if the home team gets squashed I feel like I have to stick around anyway to justify the expense. I go to a few each season, but it’s an event … not something I’m going to do more often than 3-4 times a season.
And, frankly, talking about “attendance” is a canard. What matters to the owners is stadium $$$. If prices go up but attendance goes down and revenue stays flat, that’s not really a problem for the owners (I call this the Daniel Snyder business model). If attendance is what really mattered, they could cut prices tomorrow and attendance would go up immediately.
Your point about revenue is the main thing. As long as owners bottom line is not being hurt from attendance, then they will not do anything to solve it. Owning a team is not necessarily a cash cow for these owners.
And let’s face it, has anyone asked owners if attendance is a problem for them? Going to baseball games is *almost* a luxury item now especially in newer stadiums where the entire experience is revamped. I’d be interested in seeing the % of revenue from the lower box seats compared to % of the rest of the seats. That might tell us where teams’ focus, given filling seats, is on.
In my outlandish opinion, I am eager for a disconnected reality experience (IDK how else to describe it). I’d pay $10 per game to put on a headset, choose a seat, and experience the game all from my home. Technically, I am “attending” the game!
This is why all sports are losing attendance over the long-term. Unless you have great seats, you’re almost always better able to watch the game at home than in person. In football, it’s the “concussion effect.” In baseball, it’s the pace of play issue. The issues are real, but they are also a drop in the bucket compared to the “TV problem” — which is not a problem at all for the leagues, since they are getting paid massively for the rights.
Fewer people are going to pay anything for non-premium seats. Quietly, over time, teams will start giving away these tickets while maintaining some phony face value to try to preserve appearances.
All in all, not a big deal. Just a shift in the way sports leagues are earning money.
1. cost of attendance
2. time of attendance (pace) – i dont get why the focus is on pitchers when hitters are always stepping out of the box! thats what is slowing games down.
3. super teams, no hard cap, so there’s little parity moving forward
4. length of season (who can/wants to attend 81 home games? I love baseball but even that is a bit much)
5. death of small ball
1. Absolutely yes
2. It’s still the pitchers
3. Is not particularly proveable. There was an effective cap this past offseason, in that most of the big spenders didn’t. The smaller teams didn’t jump into the void and buy up all the FAs.
4. Is no different than during peak attendance years
5. Is also the pitchers
re: 2 and 5. It’s all about so many pitchers living in the mid to upper 90s these days. It’s harder to string together hits. It’s harder for starters to go as deep. The calculus of HRs vs. Ks (for batters) has shifted. If it were easier for batters to get hits (generally) then you’d see more small ball, and more use for guys who can’t hit HRs.
What use is a cap if the smaller teams cannot afford it? What is missing meaningful revenue sharing and a cap that all teams can reach, and to reach it, without lowering player salaries, is big revenue sharing. Intelligently designed caps don’t have to hurt players.
The current status quo benefits everyone but small market fans:
-Owners of both large and small market teams, do fine. They adjust their business practices to the economics they face, make money. Hard to win as a small market owner, but not hard to make money.
-Large market fans benefit from spending discrepancies. Their teams have a structural advantage. Maybe that is by design because there are a lot more fans in the large markets than small markets.
-Small market fans are screwed, faced playoff and competitiveness droughts that large market fans would find intolerable.
Fix the spending power discrepancies and reach parity (of inputs; not results), then we would have a healthier more interesting game.
As a 50 yr old who grew up loving the game it’s gotten harder. First off we start every season pretty much knowing who 8 of 10 playoff teams are going to be. Tanking and revenue eliminates half the league, we pretend the good teams are just “super teams” instead of the artificially inflated good teams getting fatter off all these teams that can’t and won’t try to compete for long stretches as they gamble on some high picks paying off simultaneously at some distant point and try to cash in on a 3 yr window like KC until they have to blow it up again. And yes the pace is horrid. Again, long time fan who loves baseball more than the rest partly due to the pace. I almost never watch a game live so i can hit the 30 second commercial jump button between pitches and still somehow rarely miss a pitch. Manfred is right to want to change things. Don’t know if he has the stomach for the kind of harder changes the game needs.
“artificially inflated good teams” Precisely. And MLB capping the signing bonuses for draftees was a deliberate attempt to keep this dynamic. Honestly made me hate MLB a bit.
I enjoy baseball for the unique one-on-one battles it produces and the incredibly detailed performance metrics it allows. But as far as thinking of it as a true sport with an even playing field, it’s not even close. It’s as much of a joke on that front as a fantasy league where certain teams were allowed to spend 4x that of certain others in acquiring players.
When I want to watch organizations truly competing with one another, I turn to football. No one is signing aging players to 10-year guaranteed deals just because they can. Baseball is more of a show than a sport.
LOL at being worried about ‘the integrity of pricing for the common fan’ which sounds like ‘keeping ticket prices high for your own good’.
I didn’t know Lon Trost went to work for the Blue Jays
https://deadspin.com/yankees-coo-defends-new-ticketing-policy-like-a-true-ri-1759975895
This. As a plaintiff-side antitrust lawyer, the phrase “pricing integrity” just sets off all kinds of alarm bells.
i don’t think it’s anything like tanking or too many K’s ETC ETC… It’s just easier to watch games from home now. At least for myself, mid-30’s with children, it’s a hassle for me to drive to Oakland, about an hour away, watch the game, get home around 11:30-12, then have to work the next day. And even in Oakland weekend games are still somewhat busy so i’d prefer to avoid that with a young child. The other option is the GIants but i’m cool off $75 a ticket to watch the team that is actively trying to eliminate my A’s from California. And then not to mention things like MLB TV where you can have your buddies over and watch any game on a 70+” TV. Times are changing and technology itself might be responsible for the demise of, at least for some, seeing games in person.
Co-sign on this. I’m closest to the NY market, but within reasonable distance from Boston. All of Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox games are expensive. I haven’t been to a game in the last 3 years, despite the fact that I regularly read fangraphs and other baseball sites, play fantasy baseball, and watch a good chunk of games on tv. Hell, I’ve been to Cooperstown twice since the last time I went to a live game. It’s cost and the fact that I have a more pleasant viewing experience on a big, HD TV than sitting a mile up in the second deck. Not to mention, I can cook a better meal at home for less than I’d pay for a hot dog at the park and I can have a beer for 1/6 of the cost of one at the park. For me, it’s not the tanking, either. I used to live in a smaller, market with a mediocre team that had reasonably priced tickets and I used to go 4 or 5 games a year then because I could afford to sit in reasonably good seats for those games.
This..As a Detroit fan, I actually am going to more games this year (5-6) than I have in past years (usually 3-4) because prices are way down. Tickets that used to be $70-80 a pop are now $20-30 & as long as you get in the lower sections, you can move up to the 1st 10 rows after an inning or 2.
If you’re a fan of the game itself (as opposed to just a fan of your team winning), it’s enjoyable to see a great pitcher. I watched Corey Kluber dominate Detroit hitters for $25. Sure, i’d prefer Detroit wins, but, watching greatness is fun, too.
I went to an A’s game one year, during the Cahill / Anderson / Gio Era, and there was literally 5000 people there… When i tried to move down they told me no and i need to upgrade my ticket…. Come on A’s! At least treat the one who do show up well! This was pre Kaval and the fan experience is much improved since then but man
I remember going to Mets games around ’83-’84. we’d buy the cheapest tickets $6-$7 then find a premium section with no one in it and slip the usher $2 to sit there. ‘Course that changed a year or two later when people actually started going to Mets games. I also remember walking up to the Wrigley field bleachers when I was in H.S. and paying $1 to get in. Seats weren’t assigned, the earlier you got there the better the seats, but there were always some seats available. The teams were awful, but we didn’t care. We just wanted to be outside watching baseball. Now going to the park is a lot like watching TV, but TV where you have to fight traffic and pay $100. The piped in noise and Jumbotrons take away from just sitting and talking to your neighbor and being outside. And smartphones, yipes, I’m really old, I hate smartphones.
Now that the weather is regularly nice, I’ll probably hit up more White Sox games. This deal in particular pretty much rules: https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/tickets/specials/bleachers-and-brews
I live a 2 mile walk from Fenway but to be able to afford to live anywhere near Fenway means Sox games are a 3-5x a year extravagance tops. They also SEVERELY cut down the beer options w/o dropping the prices this year. It’s Sam Adams stuff, Harpoon IPA, Magic Hat #9 and that’s it. Mostly in cans, all $10.50. F that.
my buddy bought 2 bud light limes @ AT&T for $24 hahahaha.
Why would your anecdote describe the whole market? As people like slide into the kids into your decline, others replace you. You aging into your thirties has nothing to do with leaguewide trends, your story is noting new.
Exactly. I’m 15 minutes closer to Oakland than you, but same issues. I’d have to leave a weeknight in the 7th inning to get home at a reasonable hour and be able to function the next day. Hard to make the effort and spend the $ when the experience is better at home if you aren’t really vested in the specific game. Can’t fathom why anyone would see the half the teams in the league if it was a cold or wet night.
Two reasons: cost of attendance, and blackouts. I am spending upwards of $500 for four of us to see the Tigers at Wrigley. Why am I, and why are my kids still Tigers fans? Because six teams are blacked out here in Iowa. Sure, it would be nice for my boys to become a fan of the Twins, Brewers, Royals, Cardinals, ChiSox, or Cubs, but we cant watch them on the MLB package here, so they never see them. Actually, nearly 50% of Tigers games are blacked out here. Just brutal.
Just download a VPN or something, or have your kids do it if you aren’t tech savvy. There are a million ways to get around a blackout.
Great fan experience! Download a work around!
If you’re region-locked out of something, are you more likely to find a hard way to pay for it, or an easy way to not pay for it?
Vegas when I am trying to watch on my phone, I am blacked out from Dodgers, Giants, Athletics, Mariners, Rockies, Dbacks…It is absurd.
I did that for a while. It’s too much a pain for other things e.g., switching back and forth between wireless networks because other things don’t work when you use a VPN (i.e. netflix, etc…). Doesn’t fix the issue of having 6 teams blacked out in an area that is 3.5 hours from any team whatsoever.
Technical question: if I’m watching MLB.tv, it’s always on something besides a computer. It’s something like a Roku, smart TV, PlayStation, etc. Does anybody know a way to get those devices to connect through a VPN?
It’s also pretty easy to find high quality streams on Reddit
Remember, “It’s the economy, stupid”?
It’s the price of tickets, stupid.
I’m a White Sox fan and looked long and hard at getting season tickets this year. My plan was to go to maybe 8-10 games and sell the rest to pay for the tickets, or at least recoup some of the costs. The problem was that the seats I felt had reselllability were not available at a price I felt I could afford. In the end it seemed to make more sense to just buy my 8-10 games on Stubhub/Seatgeek. Which gets me really great seats at pretty reasonable price. But gives the White Sox and MLB no extra money.
For me it is cost. If I go to a game I don’t want to sit in the upper deck (save for a few rows in a few sections of the park).
If I’m not sitting in the lower bowl, preferably in the infield, the viewing experience is better at home or at a bar. I live in Cleveland and to go to tonight’s game against the Twins it will be at least $65 per ticket to sit where I would want to. Throw in $10-$20 to park, $10 beers, and $5-$20 on food, I’m looking at easily $100 just for me. For a regular season Indians vs Twins game (Kluber is pitching, I’ll give that an extra $5 value.).
There are dozens of things I could spend $100 (or less) that would give me just as much entertainment or value.
Front row 500 section right behind home plate at Progressive are great seats…….or just cough up the money and get the club tickets on the 1st base line……….
some of this is just obvious: a few of these teams suck. and suck hard. why pay high prices to see shite product?
while it’s down in aggregate, doesn’t the aggregate for northern climes hide what may be recovered over time due to the horrendous mar/apr weather? could looking at the trend line for say, boston, cleveland, even detroit, show a move towards their year to year norm per week.
whatever, i should go back to work.
Like just about everyone here, I love baseball. Absolutely love it. I live in L.A., and taking the family to a Dodger game is ridiculous. They just jacked up prices big time last offseason, and we’ve checked out. For a similar time investment, we can hit up one of the local Cal League teams (Lancaster Jethawks, Inland Empire 66ers, or the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes), and it’s both more affordable, and frankly, just a better fan experience. For $8 a ticket, you’re so close to the action, and those dudes bring it every game, they’re hungry. Obviously it’s not the same level as a major league game, but it’s good enough, and the kids love the kooky minor league promotions. I mean, monkey rodeo? HECK YEAH!
But at the end of the day, we all know that the owners will charge whatever the market will bear. Attendance has gone down, but where does revenue from attendance stand?
What I do know is that we have been priced out. I mean, we could go to a major league game. Or, we could go to a minor league game and have like 5 other family outings, all for the same price as the single trip to Dodger Stadium. The calculus isn’t difficult.
not to mention that, for more than 5 years now, less than half of So Cal is able to see the Dodgers in their homes, due to a never-ending TV dispute. Yet one more way in which a product which was proudly passed down in family heritage asaa tradition no longer is. Hundreds of Los Angeles fans are finding other things to do, and the loss will become very evident soon.
I’ve actually come to the same conclusion. The quality of baseball is nowhere near as good, but to take the family regularly you have to cut corners somewhere. And the kids have a good time no matter what.
There seem to be more teams tanking than ever
So from what I have come across, baseball is much more affordable than the other major professional American sports. I have a half season ticket package that I spit up with some friends, so I get 8-9 pairs of tickets. Runs less than $500 for the season, and we are pretty much free to exchange when ever for what ever, as long as it isn’t the Yankees or Red Sox (and even then, I ended up with face value Red Sox). Good seats, get lots of outfielder tosses, HRs into our section, good view of the strike zone. Parking $10-15, but I get free with govt ID. With travel and game, 4 hour commitment.
Used to have NFL tickets. $2200 for a pair, upper level corner end zone (even though lower level was rarely 50% sold). 8 games, obviously no exchanges, and rarely a market to sell to. Sunday/Monday night games almost impossible because you get home at 2 am. Came with parking, which was $70/game face. With travel, game, escaping the parking nightmare, 6-7 hour commitment.
Had MLS tickets for 15 years. Paid $1999 for 4 tickets to all 18 games at the end (2010), though some were moving cup dates that wouldn’t be set until the week before. Mid field, under cover, but easily within earshot of the field. $5 parking. Had a friend recently re-up his half season plan for the same MLS team. Upper level corner, 13 games: $975. Time commitment is ~2.5 hours.
Never did hockey or basketball, though had some friend say that hockey tickets had gone up about 150% since 2008.
Beer and food prices on the other hand are out of control, but at least we can bring our own food to the game, and get 15% off concessions with season tix.
While I agree that all sporting tickets have gotten absurd, comparing the cost of baseball (with 81 home dates) to football (with 8 home dates) is a bit tough. Official capacity at PNC is about 39k @ lets say $40/ticket avg = max ticket revenue of about $125 million if every game is a sell-out. Heinz field capacity is roughly 70k @ about $125/ticket, which equals about $70 million for the season in ticket revenue. So it seems baseball is pretty overpriced, no? I do go to some hockey games and that is probably the worst (likely because they don’t have much of a national TV deal). Nevermind, 18,500 capacity * $100/ticket*41 games = $75 million. Baseball still gouges more.
Can’t speak for others but to me it’s less even a money issue and more a time issue. I’m someone who never pays for stadium hot dogs or drinks and I used to pay for the upper deck tickets for cheap, generally $10-20. Now I have more money and can pay for better seats and perhaps some nachos if I want… except now I don’t have the time and effort to go there and spend upwards of 4-5 hours for the trip+game itself. Not to mention I’m generally on my phone half the time even at the park, just so I can fill my typical quota of time wasting stuff like posting on fangraphs while watching.
I know there are a lot of things that MLB can potentially do better. But I think they may consider some structural changes to the concept of the “stadium experience.” When my hometown Astros built Ballpark at Union Station/Enron/MMP it was suppose to be a downtown revitalization or some schick like that. Now I hate going to downtown because of parking and traffic, saved only by the existence of Uber, although that introduces a new cost. I just don’t think these big ballparks in the densest part of the city are just optimal going forward. I don’t know what the solution is, but I honestly think long term we may actually be moving more towards virtual stadium type situations where people just log onto their VR headsets to enjoy the game being played in a park only filled with advanced cameras to capture player movements and stuff.
Eh, Houston has a really nice train that goes pretty close to the stadium. Last time I was in Houston, it took me like 4 hours total for commute/game from the medical center area and the train cost way less than parking.
Medical Center is basically downtown adjacent. I know you don’t live in Houston but even so, if you take a look at a map of Houston I think you would have a very hard time finding that many people who can go to a game for less than a 4 hour investment.
Really like that chart. Any way we can get a link to the NL version?
I also wonder if part of it is the decline of leisure time. Expectations of employees are always going up. We used to be a culture that worked 8 hour days. Now, with our “smart” phones, the expectation has become that we are always on and accessible at a moment’s notice. And the responsibilities of the working class continue to go up and up. We lose time for lower-priority leisure activities. Especially ones that have gotten more and more expensive while competitive balance is being discouraged by the very entity (MLB) putting on the games.
Not to mention that we are sick of paying more and more money and devoting our time and our identities to corporate America in general.
“Since the Blue Jays play in a controlled environment, weather cannot explain any of the club’s ticket woes.”
Uh, simply playing in a controlled environment doesn’t mean that weather has no effect on attendance.
/thatguy
This past winter I took my two kids skiing for the first time. It had been years since I last went too and I was excited. In order for me to be free to hit the runs I wanted, and get the kids trained, I opted for the kids ski school package. For me it was $157 for the lift ticket and about $80 for the rental package. Each kid was $279 including lift ticket and school. That’s $795/day and we went two days. Sure, I could buy 2 season tickets to Kauffman for that amount, but I’m certain that I enjoyed myself and my children’s enjoyment more than sitting around trying to pretend that this team is going to even try to win a game.
(and yes, I am already researching for cheaper ski packages – I’m not researching going to baseball games, and it’s June)
Consumers stop coming if they don’t perceive value, and MLB apparently does not have another set of consumers willing to take their place. And teams can tout their less expensive tickets all they want but everything surrounding those tickets is still a significant expense. I do pretty well professionally and don’t consider myself cheap but I think going to a MLB game is expensive. And like everyone here I love seeing major league action. But I am spending more of baseball viewing either attending minor league games, amateur games or MLBTV.
It’s all the Mets’ fault. They are literally so unwatchable that they’ve ruined the entire league.
In person, absolutely. But on TV you’re just watching to see what the next disaster will be. Batting out of order was spectacular TV.
I am a Mets fan, and I agree.
Oh, it’s definitely cost. I make an annual trip to Houston for no other reason than baseball. I’m hoping to take my young nephews (6 and 9) this trip. They’ve never been to a major league stadium and they are budding Astros fans. I would LOVE for them to sit field level behind the Astros’ dugout for one game. They would be ecstatic to see Altuve and Springer in person. Maybe they get a ball. Maybe they just create the kind of memories that I carry around from my days attending games at the Astrodome. I mean, that experience is how you create lifelong fans. However, it’s $180 (face value plus fees) for 2 tickets that are probably 40 rows behind the dugout. That’s as cheap as you get in that area. There’s going to be 4, maybe 6 of us going. So, we’re talking $560 for tickets to one game. Plus, first timers will want souvenirs. Heck, even I will probably drop at least $50 in the gift shop just on myself). Then there’s hot dogs, drinks, peanuts, parking.. It’s gonna be a $800 night to sit there. THAT IS RIDICULOUS. I’m sure I’ll get tickets off the secondary market for cheaper than face value but the fact that I have to go to the secondary market to get “affordable” tickets is fairly ridiculous. I’ll do everything I can to make sure these two kids get an experience that cements them as baseball (and more specifically, Astros) fans but I do feel like the price is a little overboard.
I blame Colin Kaepernick.
The games can be boring—far too many K’s, enabled by 12-13 person pitching staffs and constant hooks. Baseball is already a static game–it needs baserunners and action on the field–the sacrifice, when appropriate, the stolen base, going first to third and second to home.
But equally important, “Too many teams are tanking.” Amen to that, and the fault is the CBA, which encourages it in several ways, and an MLB front office too obsessed with mechanisms to try to hold down salary than concerns about quality product.
Regarding prices: Teams are going to maximize revenue, so if they lose 7% of the fans by raising prices 10%, they’re going to do it.
But looking at the data, it just looks like teams who are no longer competitive ( TOR, BAL) or lost big stars (MIA) are getting crushed. And the weather has probably exacerbated that effect.
” if they lose 7% of the fans by raising prices 10%, they’re going to do it.”
Except that this is wrong (though I agree teams think this way) unless the team doesn’t make any money off parking, food, and souvenirs.
They also raise the prices of parking, food, and souvenirs.
See those words “Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro”? I’m a former Blue Jays seasons ticket holder. I haven’t been able to bring myself to go to a single Jays game since they hired that unspeakable bean-counter to run the team. And I know a lot of Jays fans who feel the same: as long as Shatkins are running the team, we’re just not interested.,
This is a ludicrous assertion. First, the Blue Jays literally had a game canceled this season because of ice damage to their stadium.
Second, fans don’t snap their fingers and teleport into their seats. They have to travel to the game, which is very much impacted by the weather.
Third, for the large portion of game attendees for whom that attendance is an event and experience as opposed to normal, weather that impacts pre- and post- game plans (or even uncertainty about weather impacts) would weigh against the decision to attend a particular game.
Yep this was the first time ever in 29 years of going to Jays games that i’ve gone downtown only to learn that the game was cancelled! I was a bit miffed but at the same time it was good for a laugh since the game being cancelled isn’t something i’ve ever thought to check.
MLB is more like the NBA and NFL. Wake me when the silly pre season and regular season are over and the real (post) season starts.
US median income has increased since the 80s, and I wonder how much ticket prices have increased since then
Median income has gone up, but so has inflation. And discretionary spending money has actually plummeted due to the rising costs of housing and healthcare.
Edit – And, I just realized your link there is in adjusted dollars, so ignore my inflation remark.
I meant to say it has barely increased so my whole point of the post is kind of screwed lol.. but yeah median income has barely increased over 30 years while as you mentioned housing, healthcare, education has exploded. And I assume ticket prices have skyrocketed compared to the median income as well
Its actually declined but the inflation figures are now calculated to understate inflation and reduce COLA’s and mask the decline in wages and living standards.
Check out shadowstats for more detail
I can’t wait to see the NL numbers. The Marlins Attend/G has to be worse than Tampa’s.
I assume almost everyone reading Fangraphs is a serious baseball fan. If serious baseball fans are deterred by the cost, pace of play, etc, I can only imagine what those effects on the casual fans’ desire to attend games must be.
Did the ticket prices experience a significant hike this year?
If not, “it’s the ticket prices stupid” argument doesn’t hold a lot of weight
for explaining the two million missing fans Travis is talking about.
From here – https://www.barrystickets.com/blog/mlb-ticket-prices/
and here – http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/2017/
2018 ticket prices are up 55% from 2011. Household income is up 18% in that time.
This stuff can lag – esp when stuff like rent/health/etc are squeezing hard on the other side – and then gas goes up this year – and 17 of the 30 MLB teams reduced their 25-man payroll (a poor proxy for ‘investment in on-field product but in an off-season that was totally devoid of any other proxy re teams attempting to improve themselves) for an overall payroll reduction of 5.8% (2 entire teams gone) – and half of the 13 that increased payrolls started from a ‘tanking’ level last year.
I’m actually surprised the attendance reduction is so small. At some point, it will hit a tipping point and look more like an actual fan strike
Tanking has nothing to do with it. With insurance costs continually rising and everything else going up aside from most people’s paychecks…the disposable income just isn’t there and it’s not like beer and food prices are going down.
The year of spin rates and launch angles is leading to a ton of boring baseball.
Red Sox have only had a single 3 game midweek series against the Yankees so far. Their home schedule to this point has been nothing short of terrible.
One 3 game series with the Yankees
Two 3 game series against the Rays
One 3 and one 4 game series with the Orioles
One 3 game series with the Royals
One 3 game series with the Athletics
One 3 game series with the Blue Jays
I wouldn’t want to go to many of those series either…
My comments are a little more controversial:
Fans not interested in ALL those stats, over saturation of MLB and stats, pushing female commentators and records mean nothing.
Hearing people talk about 50 different stats, plus the over saturation of the sport due to their own network is a bit jading to fans. Women HATE math and most children care about the play. Most men would rather drink bears and compare Babe Ruth to Mike Trout.
Baseball has really hurt itself.
Female commentators detract from the game. I compare it to NYK basketball games. The men always take shots at each other joke around, and when you do that the audience has a good time.
When a female enters the booth, everyone is on eggshells because any slight comment will get you fired. Everything changes due to females having a less commanding voice and you feel less inclined as a fan to enjoy the sport if the commentators sound like they are not having fun. If the game is boring on the screen in the comfort of your home, what chance will it have if you are their live?
MLB has gotten to complex for regular fans. We care homeruns, rbis, runs, steals and average….FIVE TOOLS essentially. Then steroids has destroyed the love of the game as stats USED to mean something. Every year, the commentators talked tradition, the Maris 61, who will break it this year, the triple crown, the hitting streak, batting .400 and no one cares because the way the game changed and pushed.
Everything is HOMERUNS! Boring
Everything is OBP…BORING
Everything is about insider stats and numbers and just too much stimuli.
EVERYTHING is to complex for regular fans and I think ALL sports are in trouble because of the above except maybe soccer.
Not so controversial really, just kinda self centered and not very well thought out.
Exactly the post I expect from someone who exclusively uses “females” to refer to women.
‘Exactly the post I expect from someone who exclusively uses “females” to refer to women.’
Yes, exactly that kind of post: precise and accurate.
Hmm, apparently Google manifesto guy has been reduced to posting his gender theories in fangraphs comments sections. Quite the downfall.
Also – “We care homeruns, rbis, runs, steals and average… FIVE TOOLS…” immediately followed by:
“Everything is HOMERUNS! Boring”
Pick a side and stick with it, Switzerland…
My opinion is a little controversial:
Fans do not care about all the numbers, plus the saturation of the MIB and statistics, the suppression of women and the viewing of records do not mean anything.
Let’s hear people talk about 50 different statistics, along with saturation of sports fans for their small networks. Women hate math and most children are interested in the program. Most people like to drink bears and compare Babe Ruth with Mike Trout.
Baseball is really a pain.
Women comment on the defect of the game I compare with the NIK basketball game. People are always struggling around you, and when you do it to keep the audience well.
When a woman goes to a booth, everything is an egg, because there will be some small comments slaughtered. You need to change all women with less voice control and think that it is less sensitive to fans of cessation of sports if the comment does not seem to be fun. If the game is boring on the screen in the comfort of your home, which will be lucky if you have a life?
Major League Baseball has become complicated for ordinary fans. We have HomeRun, IRI, short, flies and medium … in the tools of nature. Then, the steroids spoil a love game as statistics sometimes meant something, the commentators talked about tradition, wife, 61, who will break this year, the king hitting a little, singling out. 400 and nobody cares, because the game is a way to change and push.
All HomeRuns. depressed
All hits …
Everything is about internal statistics and numbers, as well as challenges.
It’s all complicated for fans often and I think that all sports are fighting for things, maybe football.
Double U, Tee, Eff.
What is this drinkable bear that you speak of and where can I find one?
Travis, you’re an excellent writer, but you’re kinda carrying water for the league here.
It’s blatantly obvious (just look at the comments preceding mine) that escalating tickets and concessions etc costs are a major factor, yet you barely mention it. Surely you were aware of this problem before seeing all the comments. Call MLB out for their bs, which is what this is: blaming other problems when the obvious one is right there staring us all in the face. I don’t think you’re doing it willingly or knowingly, but please don’t assist MLB in gaslighting us all.
C’mon. You can think he should’ve touched on cost/perceived value more without a “carrying water for the league” and especially a “gaslighting” (groan).
I don’t know if your objection is just to the vocabulary, in which case fine, but it does seem (to me at least) like this article is passing on, uncritically and without much investigation, claims made by ownership. The whole paragraph after the Shapiro line is essentially just a paraphrase of it in “this author’s” own words. Seems to me like a good journalist would be independently investigating those claims instead of just nodding along.
Seems to me that players’ agents and the union would have a bigger axe to grind regarding tanking, as compared to “MLB”, which represents ownership. I’d say this article is carrying water for agents and the union. They’re the ones that are disappointed that bad teams didn’t waste money on mediocre free agents in the offseason, only to remain bad teams despite the needless expenditure.
If you’re going to quote me, quote the whole sentence. Leaving out the qualifiers makes you a hypocrite… calling me out for my terminology without even quoting me accurately.
Besides, gaslighting is an appropriate term. MLB came out with a large list of reasons why attendance is suffering and they didn’t mention pricing. Travis should know better (thus, carrying water for the league… which means, helping them lie to us. I pointed out he wasn’t doing it on purpose).
Several good points in the comments. Cost, comforts of home, short attention spans and tanking. Although, if you are struggling now, then you either lack a marketable skill or have made some poor choices in life. Of course excluding medical emergencies or similar life altering disasters. It’s booming out there gang. We are interviewing people on a weekly basis because of the turnover. Thanks to the tax reform I received a second bonus this year, along with 90% of my fellow coworkers. Because of the hot job market, I received a second raise so I wouldn’t look elsewhere.
Maybe the missing fans are at an Overwatch tournament. E sports are a thing now. Youth football has been declining for 10 years and now the NFL appears to be in decline. Baseball might follow. Hey it happens. Boxing and Horse racing were once on top.
“Although, if you are struggling now, then you either lack a marketable skill or have made some poor choices in life.“
Amen. For the first time in American history there are more jobs than there are unemployed people to fill them. The bad news is that the great majority of the unemployed never bothered to do the work required to get the education or to learn the skills required to have any marketable skills, and all they are good for is being parasites on the good people who did the work necessary to get that education and those skills.
I literally have more work available than I have hours available in the day to do it in. But then I put in the work required to get the education and paid the dues required to learn marketable skills.
LOL, clearly the parasites are voting. Remember, real adults get an education and/or learn marketable skills (skills are great: I have a relative who hated school and wasn’t very good at it, but he is very successful and makes a lot of money as a certified auto mechanic and can pick and choose employers).
In college, don’t waste time and money majoring in English or gender studies or such. Major in STEM if you can cut it; otherwise in anything else that makes you marketable as a professional. And, no, millennials, being a barista is neither a profession nor a career.
If you can’t get into college, enlist and go into support instead of combat arms. The services’ support units have some wonderful and marketable skills that they will happily teach you (my best friend was cyber trained in the service, and makes a fortune in civilian life). Plus the GI Bill will put you through college later. Most importantly you will learn discipline, leadership, and teamwork, and those skills are beyond price.
If you can’t afford college, take the enlisted service route above or join college ROTC. It will pay your way through school, make sure you keep your grades up, make sure you stay fit, and then give you a couple of years of useful training and service.
And you don’t need to come from a family with money to succeed in America – that’s a total myth. All it takes is getting a useful education and/or marketable skills and hard work. That’s it.
I am self employed and I downvoted you. It’s not because of anything in particular that you said, but the fact that it’s so off topic.
I’ve been a member here for long enough to know that getting downvoted for being off topic is very standard.
So why are you still wasting your valuable time on the Internet lecture circuit?
Either get back to work ya lazy bum
Or start buying 2.2 million baseball tickets
Playoff series aren’t really “races” are they? I think the races really occur during the season, not post-season.
Costs too much. MLB TV lets me watch every game for a fraction of the cost. Not that it’s better than going to a game, but those are super expensive, especially with parking factored in. If I had the money, I’d happily be a season ticket holder, but I don’t, so I’ll stick to MLB TV
Another comment section better than the article here. You can’t get far with this issue by dancing around the obvious fact of skyrocketing ticket prices.
It’s because the super teams essentially have it wrapped up already. Houston, Boston, NYY, etc… Who in Toronto, KC, Detroit, or Tampa are going to bother?
In the AL the playoff teams are already established. 10 teams are basically out of the WC race with almost 4 months of baseball left.
AL teams spent less than half the NL on free agents. 4 AL teams have a chance to lose 100 games, and one is on pace for 120 losses. Thats historic. AL is also losing the interleague play race thanks to all the AAAA teams
As an AL fan I have watched very few games this year. The games are not competitive. Many teams have 4-5 replacement level hitters in the order. Some teams cant be bothered to sign a DH hitter and one team does not even have 5 SPers
When 2 of the 4 good AL teams face off, which is rare, i will watch (unless its a WC night game)!. Only games I have watched this year are Yankees-Red Sox match ups
I am also disgusted with the collusion that took place. I watched baseball to escape the real world there is too much real world in it. Tanking teams, lies about juiced ball that destroys sanctity of stats, reviews that lack transparency, suspensions for yelling at your wife and taking lasix, etc
Then there are the boring games (long pitch counts, delays between pitches, long pitching changes, yawn).
Lot of reasons to hang it up as a fan. Not there yet but it wont take much more to end 50 years of fandom
Looking at the reasons for my/family’s decreased attendance it is primarily less interest from our kids as they place a higher value on other entertainment . I think the reduced attractiveness as a family outing may well be a secular trend that will prove challenging. With attention spans and appetites for lengthy time commitments unlikely to reverse any time soon, I think the industry has reason to be concerned.
Ratings for Sunday Night Baseball way down as well so its not just attendance and better TV’s
http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/06/sunday-night-baseball-ratings-down-every-week/
well, the A-Rod for Boone trade was not a great one for ESPN.
Tons of good points being made, I don’t know many people who are true baseball fans that never played. The specialization and lack of participation by youth is likely starting to show up in attendance as well. Less kids play sports, you have less fans, less kids are playing for there community and for the $$ leaving for travel teams, that makes the adults less interested in following the players and the whole idea of a team loyalty seem like a farce. Prices are likely a huge factor, but the trend is here in almost all sports. Baseball players don’t quite have the rep of the football but the public is no longer idolizing athletes likes they used to.
Some fixes:
1. Every pitcher has to face a minimum of three batters. If the pitcher is injured or otherwise claims he can’t go on, then every remaining batter of his three get an immediate automatic intentional walk.
2. There are no more player-called timeouts. Period. Ever. No hitter can leave the box and no pitcher can leave the mound during play unless they are injured and have to leave the game. Leaving either one during play constitutes automatic admission of injury.
3. Enforce the pitch clock. If the ball is still in the pitcher’s hand when it expires, it’s an automatic ball.
4. Each pitcher gets a maximum of three warm-up pitches.
5. No team can every carry more than ten pitchers on its active roster.
6. Anyone who goes on the 10 day DL has to stay on the DL for all 10 days. It’s not a shuttle.
7. Implement robotic ball and strike calling. Set sensors at the corners of the plate and at every batter’s shoulders and knees to define the zone for each player, fairly. Let’s make pitchers throw strikes.
8. All bleacher seats are $2 at the door in all stadiums for all non-playoff games, no exceptions, no pre-selling, no reservations, first come-first served.
Done. The pace is back…and every stadium has affordable seats.
I like these, esp #1. It’s a very elegant solution to the excessive pitcher substitutions. Sadly, I think MLB is more likely to implement something inane like a ban on shifting before doing any of the things you mention.
Manfred seems more concerned with balls in play per pitch than anything else right now: https://youtu.be/OoYLO145Dvs?t=144
I shudder to think of what secret, midseason changes he has in store next.
At 4:30, Manfred basically admitting that he changed the ball…”that’s the thing about rule changes.” What “rule” was changed that led to more flyballs?
Actually, this will make games significantly longer as you are much more likely to have innings that never end, and careers that end much quicker.
i don’t think people object to run scoring. They object to people trotting on and off the field and having unlimited unofficial timeouts.
Is it a coincidence that the peak of attendance was in 2007 right before the Great Recession? The middle and lower classes were hit the hardest during that time, and they’ve been the slowest to recover. Some would argue that they enjoyed no part of the recovery. Baseball is a sport that relies on ticket sales during 81 home games, and I’m not too sure how sustainable that model is when the largest audience is being forced to make choices about discretionary spending. Meanwhile prices for tickets and concessions continue to rise.
Many people mention that they’d simply prefer to watch the game for less money at home because of the rising costs of going to the game. And who can blame them? Even if I could afford to go to 30 home games for my favorite team, there’s no way I’d be able to afford playoff tickets since all those get bought up by rich folks who show up just in time for the party.
I don’t think the problem is with the game. As others have mentioned, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
One problem also might be the rather accurate projections. There still is like a plus minus 5 win or so variance but generally there is less delusion.
15 years ago fans might have gone crazy if their mediocre team had a hot start but now it is “yeah, they will regress”.
For ticket sales ignorance can be a blessing, especially in pre season and early year sales. Owners used to be able to sell false hope, not anymore.
I generally spend 6+ hours per day with baseball on in the background. Usually I am cycling through games to see the fantasy relevant players in my “big” dollar leagues. I do go to a few games in person, and am planning on taking a couple weekends this year to go to Seattle and to Denver to watch a series or two. The cost is a bit prohibitive in comparison to yesteryear, but it is in line with a lot of pricing changes I have seen. If you go out for a beer where I live at a bar you’d be lucky to find one for $8. When I go to Vegas (a few times a year for last dozen years) prices are even more absurd in comparison to a dozen years ago. A couple weeks ago I went to a pool party in Vegas. It was $50 cover, and the cheapest drink was $15. It used to be no cover before noon, and $25 buckets of beers (5). Hotels now have all added a $40 per day “resort fee.” I don’t think it is necessarily baseball that has changed, but prices for discretionary spending stuff has changed in a way that doesn’t jive with income. A single pbr at the store is now $2.59. In 2010 a 30 pack was $9.99.
In terms of the on-field product, as much as it pains me to say this, I do feel like the 90s steroid era was a lot better for the casual fan. People love controversy. People love cartoonish figures hitting home runs 500 feet. I don’t think the MLB cares that much about attendance.
I do sort of feel like something needs to be done to curb strikeouts. Any of you fantasy baseball enthusiasts remember sorting through players by K/9 and grabbing someone who was in the 7-8 and being super happy, and consistently streaming guys in the 5-6 range? In my 7 of my 8 $250+ leagues not one team out of 12 has less Ks than innings pitched. Thingkabout the absurdity of that. That means that the average rosterable pitcher in fantasy baseball ( for the worst team in your league) strikes out more than 1 batter per inning. There has to be a tipping point, and I feel as if we are getting close. I’d hope lowering the mounds is next.
This point has been alluded to a bit in the comments section, pertaining to both pace of play as well as the time commitment to the game. I have always felt that if Manfred is serious about solving some issues, the first thing that needs to be agreed upon is that no game during the week should be scheduled to start later than 6:15 PM local. You have a generation of your future fans (kids) that are unable to watch the end of most games as well as a large segment of the adult population that can’t justify going to a game, getting home late, not getting enough sleep, and then going to work the next day.
I would also make all weekend games have a start time no later than 3 PM local, with the exception of a nationally televised game that starts at 6 PM local.
Once MLB can figure out how to make a 4-3 game not last 3 and half hours, then they can potentially move the start times back a bit. Until then, make it so more people are willing to start viewing a game they know they can see the conclusion to, because the average person is saturated with various entertainment options.
Price, price, price. I’m a millennial who recently moved to Phoenix and has no strong previous team loyalties. I can get a low-end but not terrible ticket to tonight’s game for about $25.
That’s honestly a pretty good deal for a major league game on a Saturday night — but still about double what it’s worth to me. As someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of cash right now, even that small difference matters.
For working-class folks, students and other young people, and people with young kids, even cheap tickets are a splurge, not a default option. My loyalty is pretty much up for grabs. Do you care about earning it?
I wonder how much the new tax law eliminating business deductions for entertainment expenses has to do with this. Teams are not public entities so we can never see the books, but I would bet a lot of businesses let their season tickets go in 2018 because of this.
Nevertheless, this is all very good news for fans. It makes secondary tickets cheaper to get, and it will likely prevent teams from jacking up prices significantly next year, since the market is demonstrating that buyer demand is not meeting supply at those prices this year.
there are a lot of things that have led to a boring product
1. Replay – terrible disaster for the sport
2. Ticket prices – so extreme
3. Concession prices have moved from bad to crazy
4. Late games – people with families don’t want to stay after 10 pm
5. Shifting – they need to throttle it back
6. Too many Ks
7. Too many relief pitching changes
8. Station to station baseball – what happened to taking an extra base or stealing ?
None of them are determinant in their own but combined they are lethal to the in stadium experience
I don’t know about baseball fans, but some of these US Open fans are sooooo obnoxious.
30 years and someone still thinks “It’s in the hole” is funny.
All the things on this board mentioned are likely valid reasons. I think the mistake MLB is making is not replacing existing consumers. I’d argue they are worse at this than the other “Big Four” sports, and im not even including soccer, which while still small is probably growing at the greatest rate because of this.
MLB is fine soaking the customers they’ve got, and short and medium term this probably isnt a terrible idea. But they aren’t bringing in folks who are outside of that at all on any kind of regular basis. They used to understand that getting kids into the ballpark was the best way to keep them there. I assure you that’s gone in big numbers anyway.
I can tell you here in St. Louis — where baseball is as close to religion as it is in any town in America — you see fewer and fewer little kids compared to even 5-10 years ago. I only take my whole family (5 of us) once a year — when we have an organizational group outing — because of the costs. I go in on tickets with some guys, and have access to others as well. I get to handful of game myself or with friends… because this is what I grew up doing.
I take my kids individually at least once a year as well. But none of them love the game the way I do. Even a in place like St. Louis, you’ll see plenty of jerseys and shirtseys of guys on the team now… but you’ll just likely as see as many Messi or Ronaldo jerseys. And we dont have an MLS team and probably wont. Baseball has failed to keep the newbies. Short of letting folks in for free, they’ll likely not get them either.
Attendance in the NHL and NFL are down as well. The NHL’s games aren’t affected by weather. Meanwhile, the NBA is at record attendance even though they have superteams. Pace of play has also improved in MLB this year. Out here in Colorado, there’s been a noticeable attendance spike at Coors Field because the team’s been doing the best it has in the past decade while having a history of frequent April and May rainouts. I’d think it’s some other factor. Maybe “full employment” and people working multiple jobs means people don’t have time to go to as many games. My unsupported hunch is people are a bit more isolated than they used to be given the political climate. Maybe everyone is just playing FortNite instead of going to a game? Either way, many sports are having problems with attendance right now.
There’s quite a few reasons, I think.
1. As many have said, price. Where you can get tickets for a deal, everything else seems to be massively overinflated. Between parking to concessions, it’s ridiculous. A perfect example is Suntrust Park with the Braves. You can get decently priced tickets, but you’re going to pay 20 bucks for parking and 10 bucks for a beer. What the Falcons did with their concessions is great, they made them extremely affordable. I’m not sure what this upcoming season’s prices will be, but it was $2 for a soda with unlimited refills, 2 bucks for a hot dog, 5 dollars for a beer. Whereas NFL tickets are more expensive, at least there’s some relief on the concession side of things.
2. Specific to this year… weather. There’s been a ton of rain, or chances of rain, for a lot of these ballparks. I know we were on pace for more rainouts than since they ever started keeping track of them. (And may still be)
3. Going to the ballpark is a great experience, but… watching on TV is terrific. HDTV, surround sound, MLB.tv. It’s just awesome. I mean, for Father’s Day you can get the rest of the MLB.tv season for $49.99. (Apparently only if you haven’t done it in the past. *shakes fist*) So for the cost of a ticket and parking, I can get every MLB game. Sounds like a fair deal to me.
You can attend an NFL game for roughly the same price and usually be more entertained after 3 hours than at the ballpark.
When half the teams are not competitive and the cost….not surprising.
I’m inclined to believe that so-called “tanking” is low on the list of reasons why attendance is down. The fact is, most, if not all, of those teams would have been bad even with additional payroll, and bad teams get low attendance.
The number one reason for dropping attendance, as cited by most commenters here, is the fact that costs to attend a game continue to rise at a pace that dramatically exceeds the growth of real wages. People just can’t afford to go.
I also believe an underrated problem is the fact that fans can’t watch games on TV in many markets, because games are only on cable, and fewer households have cable.
Combine those two factors, and you have a generation of kids who can’t see games at all–parents can’t afford to take them to the ballpark, and the games aren’t on TV. I don’t know how baseball expects to remain relevant when they have shut out the next generation of fans in so many markets.
This is my personal experience in the Milwaukee market, and I know this is an issue in other markets.
I don’t know about that. Look at the team by team data, and competitiveness stands out as the primary driver of attendance.
The team by team data shows a lot of noise. It’s hard to say *anything* is a primary driver of attendance based upon that data from just part of a season. Maybe competitiveness is the issue for Baltimore (which is not a “tanking” team, just a bad team with a $150 million payroll), but Detroit is less than 3 games out of first place. Those are two of the top three overall attendance losers. And then consider Toronto: they’re the number one attendance loser by far: almost 400 million fans down, which is more than 1/5 of the entire turnstile deficit for all of MLB. They were built to compete this year (not a tanking team).
To be fair, Detroit and Kansas City are accused tanking teams, but both of those teams had nowhere to go but down. Detroit’s payroll had gotten up into $200 million New York Yankees territory, with nothing to show for it, and Kansas City was getting diminishing returns on their post-World Series inflated payrolls. Both teams were overdue for a reset.