By mroakland (76.102.83.101) on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 01:28 pm:

It's amazing to me that the Oakland Athletics are outdrawing the Cleveland Indians in their new ballpark and are only a few hundred fans behind the Pittsburgh Pirates and THEIR new ballpark. The Washington Nationals are also averaging just 19,000 fans in their new digs. Just think, before Wolff started seriously about relocation the Oakland A's averaged 27,000 fans per game just a few years ago under Steve Schott. This 27,000 average attendance at the Coliseum would have put as 14th so far in 2010. Oakland Athletic fans are saints for even showing up after all of the abuse thrown our way by this ownership. Can you imagine what a ownership committed to Oakland and a new ballpark at Jack London Square would accomplish? I have no doubt that we'd be in the top ten in attendance in MLB.http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance

By eyleenn (71.131.25.207) on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 09:49 pm:

I read recently that the Mets have had the steepest drop-off in attendance this season.

By eyleenn (71.131.25.207) on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 12:11 pm:

The New York Mets have seen the largest drop in attendance from last year of any MLB team, and somebody thinks they've spotted a trend:

"The problem is last year the tickets were really expensive and the team stunk and that can really stick with fans for a while," said Jon Greenberg, the executive editor of Team Marketing Report, an industry publication.
In the mid-1990s, Greenberg said, teams could count on new stadiums to help them boost ticket sales for several years, but that trend has ended.
"Stadium fatigue sets in much faster than it did before," Greenberg said, noting that new stadiums built in Baltimore and Cleveland in the early 1990s led to long periods of increased attendance for both franchises. "When Camden Yards and Jacobs Field were built, they were a big deal and were a complete change. The novelty has worn off."
That last note about stadium fatigue isn't entirely untrue, but it's also worth noting that the Orioles and Indians both got really good on the field around the same time they opened their new stadiums, which is the main reason their attendance honeymoons were so long. Cellar-dwelling teams have not been so lucky: The Pittsburgh Pirates jumped 41% in attendance the year they opened PNC Park, then fell 28% the next year after losing 100 games in 2001; the Cincinnati Reds had a similar but less-dramatic drop two years later.

Some of this is no doubt stadium fatigue — Camden Yards could have drawn fans in the early '90s even if the Orioles had been playing like, well, the Orioles — but mostly it's just an expression of the same principle at work as always: If your team is winning, you can stretch a honeymoon out for a few years; if not, it'll likely fizzle in two to three. Every stadium draws curiosity-seekers its first season, and every stadium is pretty much back to baseline attendance levels ten years down the road. Florida Marlins, you have been warned.

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/

By sactodavey (69.225.198.107) on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 01:37 pm:

like i have said before even in the 80"s the Yankees drew 2.2 million even under 2 million so with this great stupid increase in salaries these unwise stupid owners think that every baseball community has to draw over 2.5 million to be sucsessful , well this is not the case and it was normal for teams to draw around 1.3 million in the 70's and be deamed a sucsessful team in attendance.

the only solution to the problem is not paying the players so much $$$ so teams dont have to draw 2 million fans a yr or more.

really baseball is losing fans yet they expect to double the draw of temas in the 70"s or 80"s to be finaancially viable ummmm its gonna implode

By eyleenn (71.131.25.207) on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 02:55 pm:

Lowell Cohn's thoughts:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100505/SPORTS/100509748/1031/SPORTS07?p=all&tc=pgall

"There are reasons for this aside from the lack of stars you can grab onto, care about, hope about. The A's are unabashedly doing everything they can to ditch Oakland. They say they tried to get a ballpark in Oakland, made the sincere effort. That may be true. It's just that right now they have a U-Haul backed up to the stadium gate and, if they can get the go-ahead from Major League Baseball, they will fill the U-Haul and haul butt to San Jose."

By oaklandsi (69.107.110.118) on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 03:02 pm:

They've had the U-Haul there ever since Wolffish took over. (and they were thinking about it under Schottman)

By eyleenn (71.131.25.207) on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 03:09 pm:

The first thing Schottmann did was hire a guy to scout new locations.

By sactodavey (68.126.129.232) on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 10:12 am:

AGAIN WE ARE ABOVE CLEVLAND TORONTO AND PITTBURGH EVEN FLORIDA BUT 3 OF THOSE HAVE NEW VENUES IN LAST 20 YRS AND KANSAS CITY HAS SAME DATES 27 PLAYED YET ONLY HAS US BY 20K YET THEY PUT 200 MILLION INOT REDOING THIER PLACE .

SO DO NEWER STADIUMS MEAN BIGGER ATTENDANCE? ONLY AT FIRST THEN THE DROPOFF

IN SAC BEE ONE OF THE KINGS OWNERS MALOOF SAID A NEW ARENA IS NOT AS NECCESAARY AS IT WAS A FEW YRS BACK CAUSE WITH BAD ECONOMY YOU CANT EVEN SELL LUX BOXES, HE SADI A GOOD WIN LOOSS RECORD AND GOING AFTER THE SEASON TICKET HOLDERS MEANS MORE .

THE A'S ARE PROB GOOD WHERE THEY ARE AT AND IF THEY HAD THE 3RD DECK OPEN THEY WOULD BE AT LEAST 50K STRONGER IN ATTENDANCE AND ABOVE 2 MORE TEAMS

By eyleenn (71.131.25.207) on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 08:45 pm:

No yelling, please.