One year ago, Major League Baseball sent the Red Sox to Cleveland for a Monday and Tuesday night series in April. Attendance was 21,802 and 25,135, an average of 23,458 and ½ of a human being (he or she did not get in for half price, though). This year, MLB sent the Red Sox to Cleveland for a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday series (MLB does the Indians great favors with its scheduling). Attendance was 19,137, 19,613 and 18,652 – an average of 19,134.
By my math, that is a drop from Red Sox-to-Red Sox series of 18.4 percent. The Indians say that's exaggerated a bit, that an April series with anyone in midweek doesn't draw. They say attendance this time of year is never that good and the Red Sox aren't the draw that a team like the Yankees are.
A year ago in April, the Indians averaged 22,769 and ½ a fan in 16 games. In 12 April games this season, they've averaged 19,652 and 1/3 of a person. This is a drop of 13.6 percent.
This comes after the Indians did a ton of analysis on what affects attendance. For instance, the team found through study that attendance increases 1,200 when kids are on summer break and that a bobblehead giveaway adds 4,700. This resulted in different pricing for April, with the best seats available on weekday nights available for half what they will cost during premium games.
Yet there's a double-digit drop.
I'm not smart enough to analyze this drop in great detail, whether it's the product of the economy or just a bad April, but I would hazard that any double-digit drop is not good. Especially for a team that bases its payroll on attendance. And though things will pick up in the summer, I also wonder how much it will pick up if the Indians don't start playing better baseball.
People only have so much disposable income, especially in these times.
This isn't rocket science.
We're collectively tired of losers, even though we live in a mid-market area. Therefore, we as fans just don't want to pay and see the Indians put out a sub-par team every year and simply hope dumb luck gets them a winning record and a potential playoff spot.
If the Tribe hadn't had at least a little success the past five years, you'd probably see even LESS people turn out for the game.
An entire generation of fans were spoiled by the riches of the 90's success, and now they find themselves like us people who have followed the Tribe since they were perennial losers. (I've been a fan since 85 myself) So now the collective fanbase itself is just tired of the bad product, especially with the Cavs being so strong, and the Browns showing some optimisim.
Spend money and make the team more competitive? You'll see the fans return. It's that simple.
Funny you should write about this, the very first thing I did after each of the games of the Red Sox series was check the attendance. A complete joke.
I'm sick of hearing and reading the excuses. Every year. It never stops. I've mentioned the comparison before, but "the economy" all-inclusive BS excuse of today is the "9/11" all-inclusive BS excuse of yesterday. Weather? Bogus. Kids in school? Bogus. No bobblehead? Bogus. Slider the Mascot is not gender-specific and therefore the vet won't know if it should be spayed or it should be neutered? Bogus. I wonder at what point the "it's an ancient prehistoric 15-year-old ballpark" excuse is gonna be tossed out there by some desperate PR flak.
There are two Cadillacs in the American League: The Yankees and the Red Sox. Great weather for the Red Sox series. If they can't draw for the Red Sox in their only appearance of the season, then how are they going to draw people in for the dregs?
What, Milwaukee isn't affected by "the economy?" Don't kids attend schools in Milwaukee? OK, they can close the roof in their park if absolutely necessary, but so what. The Red Sox weather was prime, so weather was not a factor. The smallest market in the entire freakin' major league is Milwaukee. But Milwaukee is Beverly Hills and evidently the kids are retarded without an education, right? What are they averaging, about 34,000?
I think there should be a law: sports fans should be just like voting. If you don't vote about an issue that's on the ballot, then you have no right to gripe about that specific issue. If you live in the Northeast Ohio area and you don't patronize the Cleveland Indians, not even once, then you have no right to gripe about the Cleveland Indians.
Ed, their season from a few years ago proves that your last sentence is 100% wrong. I'm sick of hearing and reading that excuse, too. But that's an irrational fan excuse. It's also the sole excuse the PR flaks can't use, because it would be kinda silly if an Indians employee said, "We can't draw because we suck."
The Cavs are exciting. The Indians are not. People want to identify with a winner. They will pay a premium in a bad economy to do so. It becomes a bigger priority as far as disposable income.
The Indians are not only mediocre, they are undeniably bland. Could there be a more stark contrast than the Cavs bench and the Indians dugout?
So, RedHawkRick, basically what you're saying without actually saying it is that Cleveland is a crummy front-running sports town. Every town will support a winner more than they're going to support a loser, crummy sports time or not. Again, bogus excuse.
And please, it's not Municipal Stadium, a billion-seat cavern which was impossible to fill. The Indians have season-ticket holders, yes? I don't know how many, but they have them. So not including the season-ticket holders, of which there are thousands, are you telling me that there are no other people in the *entire* Cleveland metropolitan area, let alone Northeast Ohio, who don't have a few dollars to come see the Red Sox in their only appearance of the season? The Indians are averaging a horrid 45% of capacity. Again, bogus excuse.
The Indians' $81-mil payroll is fine, ranking about 15th in all of baseball. It's just that the players we're seeing for the $ are useless. Yet Shapiro falls in love with his own Frankenstein creation. They are doing something wrong, and the fans see thru it. That–plus, aside from the '90s, this is just not a good baseball market. Frankly, Cleveland is fortunate to have a local owner, or this team would be in another city.
@ Alan
I'm not wrong. You can put any negative spin you can on my last sentence of my first post, but I'm definitely right. Cleveland is TIRED of always losing. We won't get full behind a team unless it has a chance anymore, and that's just the sad realitly of being crushed by our teams for years. So if you want to call the majority of Cleveland sports fans 'front-runners' then go ahead. It beats spending my hard earned money on a team that couldn't give a rats a$$$ about the fact that it knows its product couldn't win a title.
I remember that Bloomberg report. The Indians' statistics were so inherently flawed that the usefulness of the data was almost nil. They were equating increased attendance with give-aways, despite the fact that they only did give-aways on Saturdays, the day where attendance is likely to be the highest regardless of incentives. As a result, they couldn't tell the difference between a give-away boost and a typical Summertime Saturday boost.
And by increasing the cost of Saturday games with giveaways, they defeated the purpose, essentially charging people extra for the "free" ridiculous bobblehead, like this Shin-Soo Choo monstrosity http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/schedule/promotions_popup.jsp?c_id=cle&puid=2009_06_13_slnmlb_clemlb_1. It's like they have no common sense at all in that marketing department.
Ed, what do you mean by, "We won't get full behind a team unless it has a chance anymore…". Specifically, the "anymore" part. In Cleveland, that's always been the case. You don't win, you don't show up. Yes, even with the Bravens. Or is that the Rouns.
But it's more than that, because even when they missed winning the American League by one playoff game, they still drew more crickets than people. Cleveland is simply a front-running sports town, no matter the sport. Sometimes even front-running isn't even good enough for a lot of people, and it has nothing to do with a person's disposable income.
And I just noticed that last comment, and I couldn't contain myself and just had to click that clink. I now have only one question: I recall Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas and Edward James Olmos being integral to the show, but in what season did Jackie Chan join the cast of Miami Vice?