On Saturday I sat in section 130. This was the crowd during the game.
For today’s game I sat in my regular Value Deck seat in section 317. This was the crowd as the A’s took the field just before first pitch.
The announced paid crowd was 9,193, easily the smallest crowd of the season so far. The actual number of in-house attendees may have been as few as half that number. The unusual wraparound series configuration and the 12:35 getaway day start time both conspired to depress attendance for today’s tilt. It also didn’t help that unlike the previous three games in the series, there were zero promotional ties or giveaways for this game.
I fear that this upcoming Cleveland series will also fare poorly in terms of attendance. A friend from NYC is in town on business this week, and I got two $2 seats for Wednesday’s game. The game was not on my original schedule, and I have no idea if we’ll actually be able to go. Still, it was just a $4 expenditure at the box office, so no big deal, right? (Note: Plenty of $2 tickets remain for Wednesday night.) That absurdly high availability and cheapness of A’s tickets is a double-edged sword. It’s great for those of us who want to go at a moment’s notice. It’s not great for the A’s and it definitely doesn’t impress MLB.
As much as I want a beautiful new ballpark for the A’s, I’ll miss the “no big deal” accessibility of the A’s and the Coliseum right now. Actually, no I won’t. As amusing as it was to hear Grant Balfour swear (yeah, everyone heard it) after missing his spot on yet another pitch, I’d rather have a bigger crowd. And frankly, we shouldn’t need bobbleheads to get people to come out – many of whom only show up to get the swag and leave.
One thing I saw in the stands gave me a little hope. An (East) Indian man and his young son sat a row below me. They were immigrants. The son was wearing a rugby shirt. The kid loved baseball. His dad was doing his best to stay interested. The kid watched every pitch and was with the wedding-white-clad warriors the whole way. After Godzilla’s walkoff blast, I ran down the aisle and high-fived the father and son and everyone else within reach, which wasn’t a big deal because there were only eight people in the vicinity. I don’t know how the boy started loving the game, I just love how he and has were trying. Despite the lack of a crowd or a roster full of stars, we got a new fan. Hopefully for life. Hopefully, a lot more just like him soon.
newballpark.org 
This is such a bummer. I had family out there today, including my 10-month old godson sitting in the value deck, dressed in full A’s gear. I would have been there too if it wasn’t the first day back from Spring Break. But I listened to a lot on the radio, and I was also bummed by the absolute lack of any crowd noise with Balfour’s big strike out in the 10th, it sounded so dead. If pro-Oaklanders are serious about this team, it has to be supported on Tuesday night and Monday afternoon, not just Saturday and Sunday. You are spot-on ML, glad you are talking about this. As a die-hard A’s fan, it feels like I spend as much time looking at the attendance as I do the boxscore. And that sucks.
I was in 130 also on Saturday, row 22. It was great to see so many people. Have you done any analysis of the schedule to determine if the attendance is really up this year, or if it’s due to a front heavy mix of popular opponents, promotions, and scheduled days?
@daveybaby – I was more relieved than anything about Balfour getting out of the jam. The crowd was trying during a bunch of two-strike counts, maybe not the last one so much. Like you, I look forward to the day I don’t have to worry about attendance anymore.
@LS – Damn! I was two rows away! I need to work on syncing up with others better at the ballpark. I’m really bad at that. As far as attendance goes, the increases are probably most attributable to FSE (full season equivalent) sales. Today’s game was on the 14-game weekday day game package, which I would think is not one of the more popular plans. For today, fewer advance sales + no walkups = 9,139.
I was in section 216 on Saturday and 217 on Sunday. The CoFro and gold jerseys were awesome on Sunday. Rickey was in a luxury box right behind me on Saturday. Good times, save for the score on Saturday, indeed.
the media yesterday had a field day with the attenance. like they spent as much time making fun of the few people there rather than how it was as good of a game as you could get.
whenever the a’s get a new park, be it sj or oak, at least we won’t be hearing about 8 or 9 thousand during a given weekday or weeknight game as been the case for years. a new park may not always be sold out but the attendance won’t be as bad it we’ve seen many times thru out the years, both when the a’s are good or bad.
Yes; yesterday’s crowd was terrible. But where were the long missives in the last week or so when other teams – notably the Pirates – also had terrible crowds?
How come no one on this board calls for the Pirates, Jay, Royals or Indians to move?
Frankly, given the circumstances, it’s a wonder anybody shows up.
A’s observer.
Easy answer: Pirates, Royals, and Indians have modern/upgraded ballparks. Jays may be wanting a new ballpark in the near future. Bottom line this is an A’S NEW BALLPARK website located in the Bay Area; why should we talk Pirates or Jays?
I was at Saturday’s game, and quite frankly I was a little disappointed with the attendance. For a game where they were giving away a Henderson bobblehead and playing a division rival I would have expected a crowd of at least 30K.
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We can use the Coliseum as an excuse for the low attendance, but I think it goes beyond that. For whatever the reason, there just doesn’t seem to be that passion in the “fanbase”. There were four major league baseball games played this weekend at the Coliseum between two pretty good baseball teams. Yet, it took a bobblehead promotion to draw 25K for one of those games. For the other three games we averaged round 14.5K.
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If you love your team, if you love baseball, you’d go to a game whether it’s played at the Coliseum, VC or Diridon. For that East Indian kid and his dad, they probably know nothing about the TR dispute, or about Haas, and Schott or even Wolff. For them, it was a great day because they got to spend it together watching a baseball game, and that is what it should be all about.
@fc: I expected 30k too. Even if this stadium were a ‘gem’ it’s still located in a bad spot to ‘keep the party going.’ It needs to be downtown near bars and restaurants and clubs and other things to do. These are the things that would get the casual fan and tag-a-longs coming to see the A’s instead of going over to SF. Then those fans might become better fans and come to more games. You can’t support a team on the hardcore fans alone. We’ve all been through the spiel before. Regular non-partisan folk don’t have any incentive to come to the A’s over the WS winning Giants, unless they have a friend with built-in favoritism or can’t purchase Giants tickets. It isn’t the passion of the fanbase, it’s the size of the fanbase that is the problem.
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@ML: What camera/program do you use to stitch those panoramas together? Those look awesome.
@LS – iPhone 4 and the AutoStitch app. Once you get the hang of lining up the photos as you take them, stitching them into a panorama is pretty simple.
@ML- That East Indian kid used to be me at Giants games in the shivering cold with my Dad, Mom, and little brother who could care less about baseball….Of course this was at Candlestick in the early 1990s.
The reason why we were there? My immigrant parents were too cheap to take me to basketball or football at that time…..True story.
Although I look back and laugh now! 🙂
I just downloaded that app. Holy moly, it does a great job. I might have to take a walk down to the water at lunch and snap some pics.
Saw Friday’s game (Sec. 217), and Saturday’s (Sec.220). Cute little bobblehead doll with the dirt on Rickey, but hate the Kingsford Capital Mngmt. logo on it. They’re selling for $30-40 on Ebay/Craigslist. I guess having the ticket stub may ad a few bucks value to it. How about having the ticket stub back on May1st, 1991 when he broke the record? I was there and I got the stub saved with many other big games over the years, but would never sell it or the bobblehead doll.
I remember Bill Kings bobblehead doll going for $60 right after the game and tripling after his death 3 years later. Have two of those and would never sell.
To Tony D:
because the pro San Jose contingent on this board always – repeat always – brings up any low attendance A’s game as a reason for moving the A’s to San Jose.
Fans in any other market would not even show up at this level if told the team is not going to be there in the long-term.
The core issue/question was that low attendance is not relegated to the A’s. The A’s used to have decent to good attendance but I”m sure you know that.
Actually, A’s Observer didn’t nail anything (but whatever). As an SJ partisan, I’ve never been one to harp on low attendance in Oakland. And besides, I’ve driven up to/taken BART many times to watch the A’s in Oakland. My issue has always been which municipality can get a stadium deal done; land acquisitions, corporate financing, political/civic support, etc etc. And let’s be real; SJ and OAK are in the same market, so don’t give us this stuff about fans not showing up because they’re leaving for another market (again, San Jose, BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA..not COSTA RICA). I’ll just leave it at that.
@A’s observer–nice post, nailed it.
A’s Observer… Define decent and good. I am not being snarky, just want to understand your perspective.
To Jeffrey: 2.9 million (in the pre Mt. Davis Coliseum) – I think that’s good.
Decent – attendance was decent to good in the Schott-Hoffman years (and again, that was with an ownership group threatening to move).
My fundament point: the A’s have drawn REMARKABLY well considering the unbelievable circumstances that the fans have had to endure for – what – 15 years? Constant threats to move, etc.
Tony D – I don’t know how long you’ve been in the Bay Area – and it’s none of my business – but there are intangible differences between Oakland and San Jose. (There really are differences and I don’t mean just the average per capita salary).
JK- USA – Thanks for your comment; the bottom line is that there simply isn’t an objective and just as importantly subject review of A’s attendance.
If there was an ownership group committed to Oakland, a stadium whose best seats weren’t off limits, more day games, more marketing to students and East Bay firms and more promotions that capitalize on the quirky nostalgia that is the HOT, the A’s would draw just fine.
The analysis has to go beyond numbers.
I respect everyone’s opinion regarding San Jose; I just don’t agree with it.
Oakland – believe it or not – has the more upside in the long term when it comes to support of the A’s.
@Jeffrey–i’ll talk attendance figs with you all day and night. Average, medium, median, Finley era, Haas era, Schottman era, Wolff/Fisher era, etc…
How many teams in the last 50 years went from 3800/game (1979) to 23k (1981, a strike year too) in two short years? That’s a 600% increase. Haas’ worst year (1.175 mill) was better than Finley’s best year (1.075 mill).They never finished last in attendance under Haas, but have several times under Finley, Schottman and Wolff.
In the 5 playoff years under Finley, the A’s were at 7.6 out of 12 AL teams in attendance.
In the 5 Haas playoff years, the A’s were 3.8 out of 14 teams.
In the 5 playoff years under Schottman (4) and Wolff (1), the A’s were 8.8 out of 14 teams.
Really? You are decrying a lack of objectivity when you are using a single year out of 43 as an example of “good” attendance? And you have a subjective reasoning for what “decent” is? Also, when you have to throw in multiple qualifiers to excuse objectively bad attendance, you are being incredibly subjective (ie, commitment to Oakland, stadium whose best seats are off limits, more day games, etc).
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What data is it that you have that says “More day games means better attendance?” Please share if you do.
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Best seats? I think my Plaza Level Infield (Section 217 is my favorite so far) are the best seats in the whole stadium, but I imagine if I sat in Diamond Level my opinion would change. Of course, this is all subjective.
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Objectivity: in 7 of 43 seasons since the A’s moved to Oakland they have had attendance that was above MLB median. Every other year, including multiple playoff and even World Series winning seasons, the A’s have been worse at the gate than at least half of the league.
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Objectively, you could say “Great” is top five. “Good” is the rest of the top 10. “Decent” is the rest of the top 15. “Just Okay” is the rest of the top 20. “Bad” is the rest of the top 25. Horrible is the other five teams. Do you disagree with that?
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And sure, you can rationalize away a team falling into one of those buckets in a season. Heck, even over a few seasons. But when the rationalizations span multiple decades, every ownership group the team has ever had and multiple playoff seasons… It begins to stretch the idea that the analysis is truly objective.
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And, by the way, the rationalizations cut both ways. Read the Blue Ribbon Panel report on competitive balance. In the Early 90’s, the A’s bled money in order to draw big crowds. And not just like teams today who spend 60% of their revenue on payroll and don’t make a profit, in 1995 the A’s spent $33M on payroll with revenues of $35M. If it takes an unsustainable business model to draw crowds (not that they did in 1995 despite the crazy spending)… What’s the point? The Haas family had a negative return when all was said and done (4.2%).
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Oakland has two advantages the way I see it: 1. The team has been there for 43 years. Familiarity breeds contentment (to use a cliche) 2. The mass transit options to the city have a larger reach and more frequent arrivals (BART v. Caltrain/VTA Light Rail). What would you add to that? Are those really larger benefits than the greater corporate base/higher median income in the South Bay? Or, to put it another way, what are the “objective” reasons you had to make your last statement. The “-believe it or not-” is, I assume, backed up by a metric tonne of facts….
JK- Cherry pick whatever you want. That is the very definition of “subjective.”
@Jeffrey–i love Plaza level 217 to 220. I like the aisle seats in row 4 or 5, so no rail blocks the view and easy access to the stairs to the concessions. Truly a bargain for $26 compared to AT&T, which would cost 3 times as much for similar seats. $26 will get you 3rd deck outfield in SF, but only on a weekday against a crappy team.
Me thinks Jeffrey just schooled a few of the pro- Oakland boys on the attendance issue….again–give it a few more weeks and they will be right back at it- And the 3rd deck seats are the best in the house? Really….
@GoA’s–No, it’s Plaza Level, or 2nd deck for the A’s that cost $26 that are great seats. The G’s 3rd deck in the outfield are about that price, but aren’t as good of seats.
BTW, Jeffrey didn’t school me anything I don’t already know. We all know the A’s attendance probs for the last 43 years, and we know what good ownership and not carpetbagging whiners can do for attendance.
BTW2, to cherry pick some more, how many teams in the last 100 years have gone from 307k to 2.9 mill, or a 945% increase attendance in 11 years time?
@jk I find it hilarious that you keep comparing bad years of A’s attendance to pathetic years of A’s attendance and holding that out as some kind of evidence that Oakland is a good baseball market. “Sure, our attendance sucks, but not as bad as it used to suck, which proves it’s really good.” Um, the proper benchmark, really, is other teams attendance, not your own.
And the whole 945% thing – yes, when you have a miserably low base to begin with, eye-popping percentage increases become possible. But 23K is hardly world-beating, and two years later, attendance was back under 16K. The fact that ANY MLB team could draw as low as 307K – shortly after winning multiple World Series titles – tells you everything you need to know about Oakland’s attendance potential. Furthermore, you persistently ignore the fact that Haas’ attendance drop was also precipitous on the back end of his tenure – a 55% percent drop in five years, no matter how much he loved the community.
JK- It is true that the A’s had excellent growth from the beginning of the post Finely era to the high point of the Haas era… How’d did it go after that? I mean, up to the end of the Haas era?
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Cherry picking exposes giant holes. In the last season the Haas Family owned the team, they drew 1.17M (16k and change per game). That is less than they drew in the second season (1.3M and 23k and change per game) that the Haas family owned the team. Oddly, enough, both of those were season affected by strikes. So, I guess it is true, Life is a circle. Per game average attendance from 1990 to 1995 went 35k, 33k, 30k, 25k, 21k, 16k… That is a clear pattern of decline.
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You can’t look at just the high points and pretend to be objective or authoritative on the subject.
“and we know what good ownership and not carpetbagging whiners can do for attendance.”
Sure: Good owner (Haas): 55% percent decrease in five years. Carpetbagging whiner (Schott): Steady attendance increases over his entire tenure.
Score one for the carpetbagging whiners.
That is really cherry picking considering no team in the last 50 years had their attendance crater to as low as 307k. As far as I can tell, the next lowest was Minnesota at 469k in 1981. They drew 3m 7 years later.
Attendance data bickering is useless, both there are lies, damn lies and statistics however what evidence can you bring me that San Jose will be the answer to the attendance “problem”
@djr- obviously there is no level of proof that can’t be debated but what we do know as facts is that there is a willingness to invest $500M in a privately funded ballpark in San Jose and to my knowledge that commitment doesn’t exist for Oakland- so bottom line “proof” of what may or may not happen in SJ relative to attendance is irrelevant- what is relevant is what the ownership group is willing to do based upon their assessment of both markets
d jr, not sure I understand what you are saying in regards to lies/bickering… The question isn’t “What proof is there that San Jose will be better from an attendance perspective?” The question is “Should we expect a new stadium in Oakland to make a meaningful, sustainable change to the revenue challenge (of which, attendance is just one portion)?”
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The San Jose argument is clear. A new stadium can be privately financed between presales of premium tickets to corporations, sponsorship packages and naming rights plus a loan. The corporations buying the premium ticket packages also go a long way towards ensuring the seats are full.
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The Oakland argument, is that there are 35 companies who will buy luxury boxes. It will take more than that to fix the revenue situation. I am pretty sure there is more to an Oakland plan, though none of it has really been laid out publicly.
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There are examples of new stadiums resulting in good, long bursts of improved attendance (San Francisco, Cleveland, San Diego). There are examples of new stadiums not really making a meaningful change (Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh). You can argue that Oakland is similar to all five of those examples in some way.
No. The San Jose Argument is not “clear” you bring up 40 years of attendance in oakland and label it as “bad” there is no reason to believe that san jose isn’t different that the 5 examples in any way. Will A’s games be the hot silicon valley networking event if the stadium is 5 years old and the A’s are posting losing records? Corporate sales tend to be the ultimate bandwagon fans.
@ML–thank you for removing some of the crap from earlier. I didn’t start that one.
djr, clearly… You have an opinion. That’s your right.
@djr- if your suggesting that SJ will be as bad as Oakland has been for the past 40 years than the conclusion that most logical minds would come to is that it makes no sense to have 2 teams in the bay area–and somewhere in all of this I am sure that scenario is being played out…much to the delight of Neukom and the gints–bottom line if you cant fund a privately built ballpark in Oakland and SJ doesnt happen than we all know what is next…
“The San Jose argument is clear. A new stadium can be privately financed between presales of premium tickets to corporations, sponsorship packages and naming rights plus a loan. The corporations buying the premium ticket packages also go a long way towards ensuring the seats are full. The Oakland argument, is that there are 35 companies who will buy luxury boxes. It will take more than that to fix the revenue situation. I am pretty sure there is more to an Oakland plan, though none of it has really been laid out publicly.”
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A few observations:
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1. Neither one of these arguments is very compelling, which is why MLB continues to back burner this whole issue. Corporate commitments are important, but corporations aren’t going to sustain those commitments over the long run unless it makes financial sense for them. Civic pride won’t cut it. Bud Selig’s track record strongly suggests that what he cares about is market demographics and above all local government financial support. Whether he eventually gets that in Oakland or San Jose doesn’t matter, although a tie goes Oakland because it avoids the T-rights mess.
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2. Every team’s attendance is at its worst in April after Opening Day. It gets better when school gets out. Save the handwringing until July.
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3. Historically A’s attendance has been mediocre-to-awful by the rest of MLB’s standards. That was equally true of the Giants at Candlestick, by the way, although they generally had much stronger TV/radio ratings and could argue that the ballpark artificially depressed attendance.
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4. The A’s will eventually get a new ballpark, almost certainly in the Bay Area. When they do, whether it is located in Oakland, Fremont, San Jose, or anywhere else, attendance will jump dramatically . All the worries about the team moving to Vegas or Portland or Saturn will be put to rest forever.
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5. For a whole lot of reasons, the A’s will always be a distant second to the Giants in popularity. That’s not particularly anything to worry about, since the Bay Area has enough people and money to keep the A’s financially successful even as second fiddle.
@Simon- if your premise is that a ballpark in the Bay Area will be paid for with public money–good luck–the odds of that happening are much less than the A’s leaving for another location–outside of the Bay Area–and assuming SJ is locked out, without a feasible plan to build and privately finance a ballpark in Oakland the team will absolutely have no choice but to leave.
While attendance might pick up once school is out drawing 9-10k a game during this time is abysmal by all standards
and completely disagree with statement 5—a ballpark in SJ opens many doors for the A’s franchise to more effectively compete against the gints–assuming what is today will be what is the future makes no sense—
Simon… How was AT&T Park paid for?
The circular arguments continue …
Love the story about the Indian Boy.
@ML – FWIW – not that it makes much of a difference but, according to Baseball Reference, the season attendance totals for the 14 home games is 272,446 for an average of 19,460. You indicate 18,737. The totals they show are 36067, 15088, 22292, 11129, 21853, 16265, 16460, 25230, 29045, 17226, 27285, 15178, 9193, and 10135. Which are the actual figures? Thx.
@Columbo – I goofed up the spreadsheet and didn’t notice the error until you pointed it out the discrepancy. Thanks for catching that.
So where does the A’s attendance rank, right now?
@A’s observer – Going into today’s game the A’s were 24th in MLB in average attendance.
Hey All, Greetings from sunny San Diego. Go A’s!
@A’s observer–Attendance is down all over the league by over 3%. 20 of the 30 teams are down from last year. I can’t believe how bad Cleveland is (14,275), and they’re like unbeatable at home. Poor weather across the USA has hurt, so we’ll see how summer does.
Here’s a great link to the comparisons from this year to last year.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/current_attendance.shtml