Errr... the "Fan Strike"

The mistake these guys are making is that a good many tickets are purchased well ahead of time. If I paid $30 for a ticket, I'm not going to let it go to waste because these guys think it's a good idea.

I understand their point and their frustration. I don't understand what makes them think this will solve anything.

 

You guys are right. I mean it was a Thursday night. Ofcourse attendance is going to be down.
The numbers that they post on the main site are misleading.ir
Attendance was down 45% for the Detroit Tigers at Oakland A's game.

The reason that the attendance was down 45% was because the Tigers are horrible. The previous series that Oakland played was against Cleveland. That was the first game in the series. No wonder why it went down. Attendance rises when the home team is playing a game team, and gets smaller when the are playing a crummy team.

There was a 19% dip in attendance at The Ballpark in Arlington for the Red Sox and Rangers game.
This was the first game in the series. The Rangers previous series was against the Yankees! Fans pack stadiums when the Yankees play, so offcourse the Bo Soxs vs Rangers attendance is going to be down from the previous game.

There was also a drop of 19% in New York, where the Mets and Astros clashed.
I happened to be at that game. It was a cloudy night, and it seemed like it could've rain. That could have affected the attendance. And also, there were only about 25 thousand fans in the stands, so that is a decrease of roughly 5 thousand fans. Weather has an affect on attendance.
Royals fans showed their disgust, with attendance down 29% for KC's game against Toronto.
Toronto is in 2nd to last place in their division. Fans don't like to come out and see crappy teams.
Attendance was down 11% in Atlanta where the Braves were going for a sweep of the Brewers. The weather had also been bad the previous two days.
The weather was bad. That is a simple answer to it. People were probably afraid to go out to the ball park because of the weather. Happens all the time. The attendance the previous 2 games must've been low due to the weather, so 11% isn't a shock.
Attendance was down 30% for the Marlins and 24% for Tampa Bay.
The Marlins? There attendance is always horrible. What is the difference between having 12 thousand fans show up then have 8 thousand fans show up? The Marlins are a terrible example. Tampa Bay was playing the Orioles. Do you think people flock stadiums to see the Orioles?
The Pirates drew a crowd that is 18% lower than average for their game against Colorado.
Colorado is 2nd to last place in their division. Again, no one wants to see a loser.

 

Their percentages are the numbers off the season average rather than from the previous series.

Just looking at the Rangers, there have been several times this season when their attendance was even further below the season average. I don't know how you point to those days and say they were just natural attendance dips caused by a variety of factors, but the dip on August 1st, well that was the fan strike.

Here's a stat for you. The Boston vs. Texas game listed here was the 56th home game of the 2002 season. Attendance was down 19% from the season average.

In the 56th home game of the 2001 season, attendance at the Ballpark in Arlington was off 16% from the season average. Coincidence? Or was there a fan strike last year that nobody heard about that happened to coincide with the 56th Rangers' home game of the season?

 

Another couple of things: They seem to have padded the average home attendance numbers. I went through the official home average attendance numbers I saw on the web, and I saw only a 3.5% drop on August 1st (computing from the home agerages listed for that time) rather than the 5% drop the site claims.

Also, it appears that most of the attendance numbers for August 1st were in line with numbers from days surrounding August 1st. For example, if it really was a fan strike keeping folks away in Pittsburgh on August 1st, how come attendance went up nearly 1,000 people from the game before?

Or did the folks in Florida get their strike days mixed up? They had 7346 fans on August 1st, but only 5167 for their next game.

And so on.

 

mrpaige--

Fantastic posts!!! As a point of interest I wonder if the discrepancy in numbers you're talking about is caused by the following:

The fan strike people going on people actually in the stands. The teams basing their number on tickets sold/promotional tickets handed out.

Just a thought.

 

That wouldn't do it because their attendance numbers for the specific games on August 1st matched the numbers I used. It was only the season averages where there was a difference.

But there may be some other reason. Unless I could find where they got their numbers from, I couldn't really say.