Somebody in New York's Major League Baseball offices is keeping score, and he or she doesn’t like the tallies so far this season.
Attendance is down. In some cities, it is way down. In baseball-crazy cities like St. Louis, the number of fans buying tickets is slightly down, but the number of empty seats is alarming. In fact, Cardinal Nation could drop out of the top 10 in attendance by season’s end if current trends continue.
The Cleveland Indians, the surprise team of the 2011 season, have an attendance increase of 9 percent. The Indians and the Kansas City Royals (with a 4 percent rise in attendance) are the only two teams that can brag of attracting more fans this season than last season.
Memorial Day is usually a huge baseball day. In the past, most stadiums were sold out regardless of the home team’s record or the opponent. Even based on numbers of tickets sold—not actual fans at the game—this simply is no longer true.
On Monday, the Boston Red Sox hosted the Chicago White Sox and drew a standing-room only crowd of 37,463 to Fenway Park; that is 101 percent of the team’s regular-season seating capacity. The New York Yankees were at Oakland, and the As drew its largest crowd of the season: 35,607, or 100 percent capacity. The Cardinals were third in Memorial Day ticket sales in the game against the world champion San Francisco Giants; the 40,849 tickets sold comprise 93 percent capacity at Busch Stadium.
The rest of the league went as follows:
• Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies: 34,789 (83 percent)
• Chicago Cubs vs. Houston Astros: 30,450 (75 percent)
• Detroit Tigers vs. Minnesota Twins: 30,198 (73 percent)
• L.A. Dodgers vs. Colorado Rockies: 36,962 (66 percent)
• Kansas City Royals vs. L.A. Angels: 24,406 (64 percent)
• New York Mets vs. Pittsburgh Pirates: 24,490 (58 percent)
• Atlanta Braves vs. San Diego Padres: 25,832 (51 percent)
• Cincinnati Reds vs. Milwaukee Brewers (50 percent)
• Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Florida Marlins: 23,465 (48 percent)
• Seattle Mariners vs. Baltimore Orioles: 22,819 (47 percent)
• Tampa Bay Rays vs. Texas Rangers: 14,203 (39 percent)
• Toronto Blue Jays vs. Cleveland Indians: 12,902 (26 percent)
Washington cashed in on Phillies fans driving down Interstate 95 to D.C. The Reds’ attendance has been pathetic all season, considering the team is the defending champion of the National League Central division. The Cubs drawing barely more than 30,000 to Wrigley Field on Memorial Day is a signal that something is very wrong.
The Top 10 teams in tickets sold per game—again based on capacity percentage and number of home games—are Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Minnesota, L.A. Angels, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Texas. The high mark is 86.5 percent, and the low mark is 68.8 percent. The Cardinals are at 74.1 percent.
So what's the deal? I’ll examine what is hurting baseball—especially in St. Louis—next week.
Commentary By Alvin Reid
