What’s Not Up With The Yankees Attendance This Season
Posted by Steve L. on August 10th, 2012 · Comments (18)
The attendance numbers in MLB as of this morning:
| Rk | Tm | 2011_Games | 2011_Attend | 2011_AttendpGm | 2012_Games | 2012_Attend | 2012_AttendpGm | Difference | DiffPerGame 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MIA | 54 | 963,435 | 17,841 | 54 | 1,533,897 | 28,406 | 570,462 | 10,564 |
| 2 | DET | 56 | 1,701,910 | 30,391 | 56 | 2,112,313 | 37,720 | 410,403 | 7,329 |
| 3 | WSN | 54 | 1,235,123 | 22,873 | 54 | 1,598,447 | 29,601 | 363,324 | 6,728 |
| 4 | TEX | 55 | 2,025,593 | 36,829 | 55 | 2,387,934 | 43,417 | 362,341 | 6,588 |
| 5 | TOR | 51 | 1,155,945 | 22,666 | 51 | 1,399,546 | 27,442 | 243,601 | 4,776 |
| 6 | LAD | 58 | 2,123,174 | 36,606 | 58 | 2,399,384 | 41,369 | 276,210 | 4,762 |
| 7 | BAL | 55 | 1,203,058 | 21,874 | 55 | 1,394,320 | 25,351 | 191,262 | 3,477 |
| 8 | ARI | 54 | 1,310,340 | 24,266 | 54 | 1,496,239 | 27,708 | 185,899 | 3,443 |
| 9 | STL | 57 | 2,165,485 | 37,991 | 57 | 2,358,309 | 41,374 | 192,824 | 3,383 |
| 10 | KCR | 53 | 1,055,897 | 19,923 | 53 | 1,225,692 | 23,126 | 169,795 | 3,204 |
| 11 | OAK | 60 | 1,123,913 | 18,732 | 60 | 1,238,928 | 20,649 | 115,015 | 1,917 |
| 12 | PIT | 53 | 1,295,625 | 24,446 | 53 | 1,367,372 | 25,799 | 71,747 | 1,354 |
| 13 | CIN | 56 | 1,562,321 | 27,899 | 56 | 1,634,793 | 29,193 | 72,472 | 1,294 |
| 14 | TBR | 59 | 1,140,277 | 19,327 | 59 | 1,213,768 | 20,572 | 73,491 | 1,246 |
| 15 | ATL | 58 | 1,658,730 | 28,599 | 58 | 1,707,187 | 29,434 | 48,457 | 835 |
| 16 | SDP | 57 | 1,462,516 | 25,658 | 57 | 1,491,485 | 26,166 | 28,969 | 508 |
| 17 | CHC | 52 | 1,915,348 | 36,834 | 52 | 1,931,534 | 37,145 | 16,186 | 311 |
| 18 | BOS | 63 | 2,375,091 | 37,700 | 63 | 2,369,789 | 37,616 | -5,302 | -84 |
| 19 | SFG | 55 | 2,301,792 | 41,851 | 55 | 2,294,865 | 41,725 | -6,927 | -126 |
| 20 | SEA | 54 | 1,238,428 | 22,934 | 54 | 1,226,365 | 22,710 | -12,063 | -223 |
| 21 | CHW | 55 | 1,372,889 | 24,962 | 55 | 1,340,235 | 24,368 | -32,654 | -594 |
| 22 | PHI | 56 | 2,547,152 | 45,485 | 56 | 2,492,876 | 44,516 | -54,276 | -969 |
| 23 | NYM | 55 | 1,657,973 | 30,145 | 55 | 1,600,427 | 29,099 | -57,546 | -1,046 |
| 24 | NYY | 56 | 2,496,400 | 44,579 | 56 | 2,424,705 | 43,298 | -71,695 | -1,280 |
| 25 | LAA | 52 | 2,031,136 | 39,060 | 52 | 1,951,316 | 37,525 | -79,820 | -1,535 |
| 26 | CLE | 56 | 1,225,388 | 21,882 | 56 | 1,137,326 | 20,309 | -88,062 | -1,573 |
| 27 | MIL | 59 | 2,164,671 | 36,689 | 59 | 2,064,491 | 34,991 | -100,180 | -1,698 |
| 28 | COL | 58 | 2,091,814 | 36,066 | 58 | 1,964,107 | 33,864 | -127,707 | -2,202 |
| 29 | MIN | 55 | 2,166,053 | 39,383 | 55 | 1,928,644 | 35,066 | -237,409 | -4,317 |
| 30 | HOU | 56 | 1,483,741 | 26,495 | 56 | 1,197,524 | 21,384 | -286,217 | -5,111 |
| total | 1672 | 50,251,218 | 30,055 | 1672 | 52,483,818 | 31,390 | 2,232,600 | 1,335 |
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On one hand, thirteen hundred less a game doesn’t seem like all that much. And, it’s rained in New York a lot this Spring and Summer. But, on the other hand, it has to be concerning, for the Yankees, to see less fans showing for games now that their new Stadium is four years old.
Then again, the Yankees also have the second highest per game number in their league. And, that’s impressive.
Something is weird here. The Yankees drew 2.49M fans last year and are at 2.42M right now? It would seem to me that even with a 1300/game decline, they’ll still end up right where they were last year.
More alarming to me is that the Angels signed the biggest prizes of the past offseason and are STILL losing attendance?
Angels are down and Dodgers are up.
Maybe Donnie Baseball is stealing the fans in LA?
And, the Marlins are proving that, if you built it, they may not come.
The Yanks aren’t going to finish too far off from these totals:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20110929&content_id=25386600&vkey=pr_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
I have absolutely no sympathy for the Yanks and any drop in attendance they are seeing, I wouldn’t mind one bit if they had a million+ drop in attendance. The cost to go to a game is just eff’ing crazy. Eff them!!!
Steve L. wrote:
They’re up 10,500 fans per game. Were you expecting something higher than a 59% increase from last season?
Garcia wrote:
I don’t have sympathy for the Yanks either but I wouldn’t go as far as “effing them” for setting prices where they’ve set them.
And, honestly, be careful what you wish for. A one million-plus drop in attendance would not be good for the team or the fans.
MJ Recanati wrote:
I meant to complete the thought but hit post too soon.
What I meant to add was that the prices they set were based on demand from the consumer. No one to blame for ticket prices but consumers themselves for agreeing to pay what they’ve been paying for the last decade-plus run of success-fueled inflation.
MJ Recanati wrote:
With the new park, I would suspect that the Marlins at least wanted to average 35K a game.
MJ Recanati wrote:
Actually, it would help the fans who want to attend games. Less demand for seats, less hassle getting into and out of the park, etc.
Steve L. wrote:
Might be true, but, the Yankees would complain about that and demand to relocate to another location.. highly unlikely Yes, but when YES network can demand guys like me to pay and additional 70 a month for the right to see the Yankees in my neck of the woods, losing a million people might not matter!..
Yankees aren’t moving any time soon in the next 50 years.
Steve L. wrote:
That kind of a precipitous drop in attendance would impact the fan experience in ways you’re greatly discounting.
Steve L. wrote:
Capacity is only 37,000. I highly doubt they realistically expected to host 95% of capacity every night.
OK, then, make it 31K.
MJ Recanati wrote:
How? In terms of seeing a team win?
The Yankees win a lot now. And, yet, plenty of times I go and see them lose. Lately, unless Sabathia is starting, you can’t go to a Yankees game and feel confident that you’re going to get a win.
If you only go to 5 or less Yankees games a year, which a lot of fans are forced to do now, you’re going to see some losses.
I can easily see +/- 3% being at least somewhat attributable to weather. Note the Metamucils are down just about as many people (but at a slightly larger % drop).
Stay in the race, keep winning and we’ll be right around flat with last year by the end of the season.
Also, I think we’ve got more home games remaining with the Botox than we had at this time last year. That’s a typically few more fannies than for your average game.
With respect to prices.. Yep they are high. But I’d also say you guys that live in the area take it for granted. I make one weekend trip a year to NYC and try to catch 3 games every time. Cheap? No. Worth it? You bet. Three cheers to the Astro’s moving to the AL!! After all these years of interleague play, the Yankees have made exactly 1 (count ‘em 1) trip to Houston, I’ll get to see a few more Yankee games in person every year now.
#15 wrote:
That’s one more than the Dodgers have made to Yankee Stadium.
@ MJ Recanati:
With respect to the attendance in Miami, like the old song goes, “there’s lots and lots of trouble in River City”. The residents of the city wanted nothing to do with a new stadium, but it got built on the taxpayers nickel anyhow. The old Marlins hit 3 million in their first season (1993), and dropped below 2 million the next season. There is nothing to suggest that the team isn’t headed in the same direction, this time with a new stadium and a 30 year lease in tow. Plainly speaking, it shouid never have been built. Both Florida teams are a box office bust for a variety of reasons, none of which have to do with the facility they play in. Now baseball has another weak market that will need to be subsidized well into the future, when contraction of both Florida teams made the most sense.