Blue Jays attendance woes

[ratul]

Attendance has been an issue for Major League Baseball once again in 2019. After watching attendance drop by four percent in 2018, the early returns don’t look promising.

According to USA Today, 12 teams averaged fewer fans in March and April than they did compared to last season. The Toronto Blue Jays lead the way with a staggering 33 percent decrease.

The Blue Jays are far from the only rebuilding team to lose fans. The Miami Marlins, Minnesota Twins, Royals and San Francisco Giants have been the five biggest attendance losers thus far. Of that group, only the Twins went out and made significant additions in the offseason.

The Giants’ failure to draw fans is the most surprising, according to USA Today.

The most startling loss comes in San Francisco. The Giants have been almost perennial contenders and drew at least 3 million fans in 18 of 20 seasons at Oracle (neé Pacific Bell and AT&T) Park. Bound for their third straight losing season and with a concerted rebuilding effort at hand, the Giants are averaging 32,665 fans – down 17% from an average of 39,278 in March-April 2018.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/mlb-attendance-is-down-again-and-rebuilding-teams-are-getting-hit-hard-014951998.html

[torontoaces04]

Attendance has been an issue for Major League Baseball once again in 2019. After watching attendance drop by four percent in 2018, the early returns don’t look promising.

According to USA Today, 12 teams averaged fewer fans in March and April than they did compared to last season. The Toronto Blue Jays lead the way with a staggering 33 percent decrease.

The Blue Jays are far from the only rebuilding team to lose fans.

Perhaps raising ticket prices, while your team is failing to compete, isn't the greatest strategy.

With that said, so much of the team's revenue comes from "non-attendance" related streams. Ultimately it seems that teams really don't care how many people show up to the ballpark, and therein lies the problem.

[Lateral Quicks]

Attendance has been an issue for Major League Baseball once again in 2019. After watching attendance drop by four percent in 2018, the early returns don’t look promising.

According to USA Today, 12 teams averaged fewer fans in March and April than they did compared to last season. The Toronto Blue Jays lead the way with a staggering 33 percent decrease.

The Blue Jays are far from the only rebuilding team to lose fans.

Perhaps raising ticket prices, while your team is failing to compete, isn't the greatest strategy.

With that said, so much of the team's revenue comes from "non-attendance" related streams. Ultimately it seems that teams really don't care how many people show up to the ballpark, and therein lies the problem.

Yeah I was looking at taking some family (5 people total) to a game. They've never seen a game live so I was looking at some good seats down a baseline. All told its like $250-$300 before any food. That's a tough sell given the state of the team.

And since when do ball-caps go for $50 apiece? That's absurd.

[Aventador]

the weather hasn't been great in toronto yet either

[Schad]

Our attendance will absolutely be down significantly from last year, given that we're rebuilding. I'd expect us to draw something in the low 20k range on a seasonal basis.

The issue of ticket prices is a league-wide one; you'd think that, given the prices of everything within the park, it'd almost be worthwhile to give away the damned tickets if you could fill the stadium, but I'm sure someone has done the math and concluded that the high ticket prices are justified. The bigger concern for MLB isn't teams like ourselves or the White Sox who are rebuilding, it's how many competitive teams are drawing sweet fk all, including some with newish ballparks. Minnesota and Cleveland are the likely competitors for the AL Central title, and both are getting well less than 20k/night. Oakland/Tampa are perpetual problems. Having a bunch of bigger-market clubs on the periphery, with smaller-market ones competing is kinda the worst of both worlds for MLB at the moment.

[KL78192020]

Has Miami or Tampa ever had good attendance? those team needs to be moved.

[The_Hater]

Aside form the obvious reasons for the dip, having the Leafs and the Raps getting ALL the headlines and attention for the past month has hurt more them significantly.

With Vlad now on-board to bring people int the park, I think attendance should increase quite a bit for the rest of the season. Not o last seasons numbers but much better than we’ve seen this year.

[Duffman100]

Lower ticket prices. Lower beer prices. People will come as 'something to do".

[duppyy]

Casuals don't want to watch a rebuilding season so no surprise really.

[HangTime]

The mlb should reduce the regular season to 100 games. Expand the playoffs, and remove the afternoon start times.

[Myth11111]

Disagree with all of that.

[Black Watch]

The mlb should reduce the regular season to 100 games. Expand the playoffs, and remove the afternoon start times.

Jesus, man... no!

[Tanner]

MLB is not popular in North America. Way behind NFL and NBA. The average age for the fan base is in the 50's if I recall, and eventually that is going to catch up to MLB. We might be seeing the beginning of it now. As it relates to the Jays, bandwagon baseball city. When they start winning, fans will come (see 2015-17).

But again, I will stress what I have been saying all winter. Good players are the cheapest to acquire they have been in a long time. You can trade for good players without giving up top prospects. This is the perfect time to buy. The Jays decided not only to avoid buying, but spoon feeding playing time to fringe talent without having an organizational reputation for being able to fix players. So basically we are seeing fringe MLB players playing everyday, mixed with some prospects who should be good eventually (Vlad, Jansen, possibly Gurriel and Tellez). It's just a bad roster construction.

No one is going to pay to see that trash.

[Schad]

A couple good players isn't going to measurably affect our attendance, though. Competing would, but we're in no position to compete. You could tack on another $50m to our budget and, spent reasonably well, this team still maybe scrapes .500. And a .500 team isn't going to offset the loss from spending $50m*; given that attendance is, ultimately, a financial concern, that makes it a non-starter.


*Forbes estimated our gate receipts at about $63m last year. At about $28/fan, even a 10,000 fan a night jump (and we probably wouldn't get that by being mediocre) wouldn't come close to offsetting the money spent.

[Tanner]

A .500 team would draw more than what we will see this year. Like I said before if we gave 3 year deals to Brantley and Morton for more AAV than they got from Houston and Tampa (to get them to sign), we'd be adding good players for reasonable cost/term. That wouldn't make us a contender, but good players are assets. They help the team in one way or another. Fans wouldn't flock to see Brantley or Morton, but a team that flirts with .500 with Vlad and other prospects on the come up? That looks a lot more desirable to watch.

[Schad]

You just spent $40m a year to maybe make $20m a year, and that's very generous; I don't think that we're a Brantley and Morton from being .500. Further, Morton and Brantley on three-year deals are not necessarily significant assets, owing to injury and age...Morton's in his age 36 season, and the likelihood that someone's going to want to hand over trade value to pay $20m for the age 37 and 38 seasons of a guy who has never been more than above-average are pretty damned slim.

[wamco]

A couple good players isn't going to measurably affect our attendance, though. Competing would, but we're in no position to compete. You could tack on another $50m to our budget and, spent reasonably well, this team still maybe scrapes .500. And a .500 team isn't going to offset the loss from spending $50m*; given that attendance is, ultimately, a financial concern, that makes it a non-starter.


*Forbes estimated our gate receipts at about $63m last year. At about $28/fan, even a 10,000 fan a night jump (and we probably wouldn't get that by being mediocre) wouldn't come close to offsetting the money spent.

- what about when you factor in the in-stadium spending on top of the 28 dollars per ticket. How much does the team net per person for food and merch?

[dagger]

A couple good players isn't going to measurably affect our attendance, though. Competing would, but we're in no position to compete. You could tack on another $50m to our budget and, spent reasonably well, this team still maybe scrapes .500. And a .500 team isn't going to offset the loss from spending $50m*; given that attendance is, ultimately, a financial concern, that makes it a non-starter.


*Forbes estimated our gate receipts at about $63m last year. At about $28/fan, even a 10,000 fan a night jump (and we probably wouldn't get that by being mediocre) wouldn't come close to offsetting the money spent.

- what about when you factor in the in-stadium spending on top of the 28 dollars per ticket. How much does the team net per person for food and merch?

I doubt it's as much as you think. They are running promotions that amount to giving away any profit. A loonie hotdog event is probably a money-loser when you factor in the labour involved. Same for a cut-rate beer night. And who is buying merchandise? There was a run on Guerrero jerseys, but now that he's here and taking a lot of time to adjust, that has almost certainly subsided. Other than that, whose jersey would you buy? Socrates Brito? No one on the current roster not named Guerrero and maybe Tellez is assured of even being here in July.

[Fairview4Life]

http://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance

I mean, that doesn't scream time to panic.

[BigLeagueChew]

http://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance

I mean, that doesn't scream time to panic.

Poor Marlins.

I don't think we've had a series against the Yankees or Red Sox at home yet either, those usually sell well.