Baseball’s numbers are down, but Rockies still a draw
During two different April road trips, Rockies veteran outfielder Carlos Gonzalez was already noticing the roots of a troubling trend across major league baseball this season, where attendance is down 5.9 percent from 2017 and those numbers haven’t risen annually for six years now.
“It’s really obvious when you go to Miami, and there’s nobody in the stands,” Gonzalez said. “And places like Pittsburgh — which had really impressed me because not too long ago, we were going in there and the place was packed and they had a really good team — were half-empty too. The atmosphere felt like fans didn’t really care, even though granted, when we went there, it was super cold.”
Early-season inclement weather is surely partly to blame for the 2018 attendance dip, as freezing cold temps across the midwest and northeast not only led to a major league-record number of postponements in April, it also made sitting in the stands for nine innings less than appealing.
But even as weather’s warmed,
attendance — which is counted as the number of tickets sold, and not the exact number of people who come through a ballpark’s turnstiles — is still down considerably. Through Sunday, June 17, overall attendance is down 1,846,631 from the same point last season, and per-game attendance has fallen 1,739 from 29,361 to 27,623. The major league average hasn’t dipped below 28,000 since 2002.
Not surprisingly, the teams already facing double-digit deficits in the wild card and divisional races — including some who made their rebuilding intentions clear in the offseason following poor 2017 showings — are the ones with the biggest negative swings in attendance.
American League East cellar dwellers Toronto and Baltimore have seen huge drop-offs, with the Blue Jays a major leagueworst, down 424,840 on the season (28.7 percent decrease) and 11,180 per game. Meanwhile the Orioles, sporting baseball’s worst record at 20-50 and on pace to easily lose 100-plus games, have seen attendance fall 28.4 percent to the tune of 7,956 per game.
And after the offseason fire sale of a multitude of stars by Derek Jeter and the Marlins’ new ownership group, Miami has the worst attendance in all of baseball and the biggest drop-off in the National League from 2017 at 359,006, or a staggering 49.9 percent decrease.
Rockies starter Chad Bettis said the difference is consistently palpable in ballparks in which its inhabitants are struggling.
“I’ve noticed,” Bettis said. “You pay attention a little bit more and then all of a sudden you find yourself being like, ‘Oh, this is kind of a light crowd on a Friday night or Saturday night.'”
But, beyond the competitive aspect, why the continual drop in crowds?
Is it pace-of-play related with the average game being three hours, four minutes? It it an issue of money considering that — per Team Marketing Report’s Fan Cost Index — the average cost of a non-premium ticket grew 2.7 percent to $32.44 in 2018, while the average cost for a family of four to attend a game is $230.64? Has the reign of baseball’s “three true outcomes” — the walk, strikeout and home run, and specifically the later two — cheapened the game for too many?
Or, more simply, is the decline due to the increasing means by which fans can watch from the comfort of their recliner?
“I don’t know if (money) is the reason why, or if it’s just because there’s so many TV deals and streaming that people can just stay at home and watch,” Bettis said. “I think that plays into it.”
People are still turning out to watch the Rockies, though, despite a dismal 11-19 home record and a June swoon that’s dropped them from first to fourth place in the division in a matter of weeks. Coors Field, as columnist Mark Kiszla recently opined, remains as seductive as ever despite those hometown woes.
“This is a different case, because Coors Field is a beautiful, great ballpark in the middle of the city where there is a bunch of stuff to do,” Gonzalez pointed out. “If you come to the stadium, there’s a lot of things to enjoy more than just baseball games — beautiful views, The Rooftop. It’s a nice, relaxing place and people will come here and enjoy it no matter what.”
Those other mid- or small-market cities with sputtering or, at best, inconsistent clubs could only be so lucky as the Rockies, who over the past dozen seasons have consistently ranked in the top half of the National League in attendance despite just three postseason showings in that time.
This year, Colorado is one of 12 major league teams that have seen an attendance increase of 7,148, or 238 more fans per game. That’s largely a credit to LoDo’s influence, the easy-going, party feel of which has seeped into The Rooftop and throughout Coors Field, a stadium now more of a beacon for social butterflies and family outings than a true baseball cathedral.
“I don’t think any city likes to have a bad team — that’s the bottom line in most places when it comes to attendance,” Gonzalez said. “If you have a bad team, people are going to be like, ‘I’m tired of this (crap). I don’t want to watch this team.’ Sometimes they say that here, but they keep coming out.”
Footnotes.
Brandon Nimmo, a product of the Rocky Mountains out of Cheyenne, Wyo., played left field and hit a leadoff insider-the-park homer for the Mets off Tyler Anderson in the first inning. The Cheyenne East High School star became the first first-round draft pick out of the state of Wyoming when New York selected him No. 13 overall in 2011. The 25-year-old is hitting .274 with 10 homers.