Blue Jays have Largest Weekday/Weekend Attendance Split

[satyr9]

This is from a FG article about population, but forget the population part for a second and just recognize the fact we've got the largest split in the league.

My first thought is TOR's traffic problem. We'll brave a Sat/Sun or even a Fri night, but for a lot of people it's not worth the effort to get in and out of the city for a ballgame. I think there's also some weather, stadium, and seasonal issues that contribute, but in the context of this article it surprised me how large a split this is.

[hyper316]

i'd say check the teams who we face on the weekends, happens to be a lot of yankees and bsox, draw a lot of fans locally, plus a little more from the americans that come up for the weekend

[satyr9]

i'd say check the teams who we face on the weekends, happens to be a lot of yankees and bsox, draw a lot of fans locally, plus a little more from the americans that come up for the weekend

That was one of my first thoughts, but BOS/NYY actually helped the midweek games way way way more than the weekends. We had 9 Mon/Thurs and 9 Fri/Sun games each. If you take them out entirely it's 19.8k mon/thur and 34.2k fri/sun, which would take it up to an astronomical 72.7% split.

[CrookedJ]

I'm way out in KW, only wknd games are possible for us.

I would attribute it somewhat to the fickleness of TO sports fans as well. Its only a must see event to small group of die hards, for everyone else its a nice thing to do when its convenient or a nice day in the summer.

[Kurtz]

Toronto has I believe the worst traffic problems in North America, and residents of the city work some of, if not the longest hours in North America.

If baseball games didn't last 8 hours, I'd say pushing the start times to 7: 30 like they're trying with NHL/NBA would definitely help, but then the idea of leaving the stadium at 11 PM may not work for folks either.

[Rapsfan151]

The special giveaways like bobblehead days probably also bring up the attendance on the sunday games.

[SharoneWright]

Toronto draws from significant population 1 to 1.5 hours away. Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Guelph, K-W, Oshawa, etc... are all significant municipalities that are far more likely to take the time on the weekend to commute into Toronto to catch a game than on a weeknight. Much different than Chicago, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Minneapolis/St.Paul, St. Louis, etc, whose population is far more concentrated with less satellite affiliates in the surrounding areas.... (just a theory)

[tecumseh18]

I would go with the gridlock theory. I'm pretty close to downtown, have gone to weekend games, but would never consider going to a weeknight game.

For one thing, where do guys you park? For Raptors games, I always park on the East (Jarvis) side of the Esplanade parkade. $5 on a weeknight - cheaper than a two-way transit fare. But for Jays games?

And via transit, I never figured out an easy way to get to the Rogers Centre. The skywalk from Union Station is a bit of a hike, especially with kids in tow.

[Lateral Quicks]

I can see how traffic could be an issue. That said, you can always take the subway even if you're from out of town (just park somewhere such as Yorkdale Mall). That's what I often do.

[duppyy]

I went to one of the last Jeter games here and a lot of muricans made the trip. I had some sweet seats too .

[satyr9]

So I can't leave this alone and I have some theories. Traffic is a problem, but it can't be this big a problem. Even if it decreases the 30min radius significantly, there's still a healthy amount of people in range.

I think it's a combination of our weather, our recent team history, and entertainment opportunities.

In April and sometimes May (last it was still pretty chilly) you have to want it and we didn't. A terrible '13 and a disappointing offseason, up to May24 we were drawing around 15k during the week, which is probably just season tickets and a few stragglers. Combined with the fact that in April the weekend series were NYY and BOS while the mid-weeks were HOU and BAL, even with soft support we still draw for NY and BOS. So it did affect it early.

But the point I made about NYY and BOS affecting the mid-week more is true in numbers, but not really. Basically they suck out numbers early and then profit from what would be stronger numbers anyway in June and July. If a 6-game stand has fri/sat/sun NYY and mon/tue/wed HOU, what has a natural 25/30 split, becomes a 15/40 instead.

Then, when the Jays are drawing 30/gm against NYY and 35/gm against BOS in the middle of the summer, they look dramatically better than the APR/MAY <20k crowds midweek, but they're right there with what MIL and BAL were getting at that time when they came to town too, so it's really not that big a bump from playing those guys, we're just happy going to games in the summer while there's still hope. That's where 30/40 becomes 35/35. But that does not mean the NYY/BOS series alone take 15k-35k mid-week. Timing did the bulk of the work, it just looks crazy when you add it up the way I did.

The same thing happened by mid-August when the team was swooning. Divisional series on the weekends (although only 1 NYY series). The Cubs and M's during the week, so 35-40 on the weekend and 15-20 during the week.

And the historical part is that we know we can get tickets and we've known it for a long time. If we're thinking about a walk-up or scalps or stubhub, we'll look at the schedule and see a 6-game homestand and all the walk-up goes to Fri/Sat/Sun 'cause we have no fear or expectation of getting a better seat or paying more or anything like that. Everyone knows the dome will have room for us, but no one thinks it'll be easier getting in and out for a slower game, 'cause traffic isn't solely game related, so we have enormous peaks and valleys. Last year was the first time in at least 10 years I was with friends talking about going to a Jays game that week and someone mentioned we should just go to whoever was in town mid-week 'cause the dome was gonna be rammed all weekend and it'd be way easier to get 5-6 together. That hasn't been a concern for a million years and I think it shows up in these numbers.

BTW, does anyone know what happened on June 11? Was it a massive bobblehead or giveaway or something? >45k for a Wednesday against Minnesota is so large an outlier, I assume for now it's just a typo. It was the last game of the homestand coming out of our highest point, so I like the idea that it's something to look forward to if we're good, but since it's only the one day and not the whole homestand, I assume I'm just forgetting what made that game special.

[Modern_epic]

The traffic argument may be Torononian's justification for it... but if so it seems like a proxy for being weakly attached fans.

Yeah, we have bad traffic, but we also have the second highest transit usage for MLB cities, both in total and per capita terms, between the TTC and GO. Toronto also has maybe the highest employment densities near the stadium (our density of jobs downtown is one of the highest in N.A., and other cities with dense downtowns that I can think of have further out stadiums.) Toronto also has a pretty high downtown population density around the stadium thanks to all of those condos.

For one thing, where do guys you park? For Raptors games, I always park on the East (Jarvis) side of the Esplanade parkade. $5 on a weeknight - cheaper than a two-way transit fare. But for Jays games?

And via transit, I never figured out an easy way to get to the Rogers Centre. The skywalk from Union Station is a bit of a hike, especially with kids in tow.

You walk further from East of Jarvis to the ACC than the skywalk to the Dome. Though depending on your gate, walking down to the ACC and across Bremner can save you a couple minutes, especially with the recent path extension letting you skip the light at Simcoe. Also, depending on where you live, the Spadina streetcar is often your best bet.

Toronto draws from significant population 1 to 1.5 hours away. Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Guelph, K-W, Oshawa, etc... are all significant municipalities that are far more likely to take the time on the weekend to commute into Toronto to catch a game than on a weeknight. Much different than Chicago, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Minneapolis/St.Paul, St. Louis, etc, whose population is far more concentrated with less satellite affiliates in the surrounding areas.... (just a theory)

That is the opposite of reality - Toronto is the most dense of any of those cities, and Toronto's near suburbs are also far more dense than than the burbs anywhere in America.

Take a look at Chicago, for instance - the Chicagoland area is the same geographic size as something like Peterborough to Barrie to KW to St Catherines, and has more of its population in outlying areas than Toronto does. And Chicagoland is dense compared to Dallas/Ft Worth.

[Modern_epic]

I could see an argument that there is a mismatch between people who live or work downtown and baseball fans, however. Baseball fans are likely more middle class than upper or lower, and middle class people in the GTA tend to live in the suburbs. Other demographic factors could also play into it.

[BigLeagueChew]

BTW, does anyone know what happened on June 11? Was it a massive bobblehead or giveaway or something? >45k for a Wednesday against Minnesota is so large an outlier, I assume for now it's just a typo. It was the last game of the homestand coming out of our highest point, so I like the idea that it's something to look forward to if we're good, but since it's only the one day and not the whole homestand, I assume I'm just forgetting what made that game special.

Had to look it up. First 25,000 fans received a 2014 Blue Jays Team Card Set . Easiest way to get fans would be more promos and of course, building a winning team. Perhaps moving all promos to during the week would help and on weekend rely more on out of town-ers for attendance.

Here is a link for all jays promotions in 2015...and bobblehead days all appear to be on weekends.

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/schedule/promotions.jsp?c_id=tor