Excellent post by the good people at Bleacher Report wondering why so many columnists, executives, and fans are complaining about the Rays attendance when it's up in the last two years. And most other teams' numbers are down.
As I wrote last week, the complaints don't really resonate when you're drawing improved numbers against lousy teams and the rest of the league is struggling too.
You can track the updated attendance numbers here.
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A 42% increase of very little is still not very much. In these cases, percentages mean nothing without a reference point.
ReplyDeleteAlso, all northern teams struggle early in the year because of the weather. When is was reported that the Rays were 7th in the AL last week, that didn't mean much because there has been so much bad weather the first few weeks. The Rays obviously dont have to worry about that. Once the weather gets better and kids are out of school, the Rays will be back down towards the bottom of the pack in the AL.
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ReplyDeleteFair points. But improvement is still improvement. They have been drawing weekday crowds of 13,000 for years.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder if the team's new five-tier ticket price system does more harm than good when it comes to convincing fans to come to the games.
I have no idea why they needed 5 tiers. I know the tiered system is gaining in popularity among baseball teams, but i dont know of any other teams that use 5 (anybody know?). Three would seem to be sufficient and would be easy to implement and understand. Make the Yankees, Red Sox and concert games the top tier. Make the weekday games against non-divisional foes the lower tier. Not only is it not confusing, but everybody understands the reasoning behind it and very few people are going to argue with it.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem with the tiered system woudl seem to me to be the walk-ups. As we know the Rays depend heavily on the walk-up ticket sales. If somebody walks-up for a Yankees game and pays "diamond" or "platinum" price for their tickets. Do they understand that the same tickets on another night against the Mariners will be cheaper? Or are they going to be hesitant to go to the Mariners game because they think all ticket prices have jumped that high?