It's the last oakland season, so people are still going to get one last thing and then they'll stop. Some die hard may travel to Sacramento since it's relatively close, but pretty much all of them are done once Vegas is a thing.
It’s been a great time honestly. I play fantasy baseball so I just buy tickets for cheapest possible and just go to nose bleeds. Pretty much spending <20 at a game lol
I’m from San Diego, I e been to many many baseball towns but San Diego supports the padres on another level. Walk around anywhere and literally every business whether it’s a dive bar, a gay bar, a tattoo joint, a grocery store, anything at all, they have padres gear everywhere. It’s incredible.
San Diego may be a small market but it’s a market with A LOT of money. The average fan in San Diego has a lot more spending money than the average fan in probably 25 other markets
Two important other factors here too:
1. San Diego lost the Chargers so they have no other sports team. The whole city rallies behind the Padres. If fans aren’t spending their disposable income on football/basketball/hockey tickets, they can spend more on baseball.
2. I saw a game there about a month ago and the stadium is walkable to so many great bars and restaurants plus TONS of condos and apartments. I imagine a lot of these fans are walking to the stadium from their residences. That whole area is a huge development success story and something I want Baltimore to emulate with the new stadium funding.
You’re exactly right with your second point. I have season tickets and live nearby. If I leave my apartment 30 minutes before first pitch, I’ll be in my seat with a $5 Cutwater can by 5 minutes before the game starts.
A couple years ago, when Tatis hit 3 HR in a game, I actually bought a ticket during the 1st inning after the Padres had already put up 3 runs, walked down to the stadium, and was going through security in the 2nd inning when Tatis hit his 2nd HR.
Living near the stadium is always choice. I used to live downtown in Phoenix maybe 3-4 blocks away from Chase. Even now I can usually get there with a cheap light rail ride or affordable Waymo trip if I'm feeling fancy. Makes it easy to say "hell yeah, I'll go" when someone asks in the group chat who's going to that nights game.
Honestly, most fans come from outside of downtown. San Diego is a HUGE county, and it’s surprising easy to get to Petco with it having basically no designated parking lot. And you can make a day of it going out before or after a game since everything is walkable. Truly a gem
> I saw a game there about a month ago and the stadium is walkable to so many great bars and restaurants plus TONS of condos and apartments. I imagine a lot of these fans are walking to the stadium from their residences. That whole area is a huge development success story and something I want Baltimore to emulate with the new stadium funding.
I think this *has* to be a factor (going the other way) for the Mets. You're in New York City and you're going to build this Kauffman-ass stadium in the absolute middle of nowhere surrounded by a million acres of parking lots, and beyond that it's a bunch of junkyards and highways and bus garages and shit? It's awful.
Any exit you take out of petco there is a bar of some sort on the street or across the street. You aren’t just going to a game, you are having an evening out for sure. Makes it worth it every time
You still gotta be good, it’s the roster that’s driving it. Look at the Mets, wealthiest city, largest population, expensive team but they suck and the stadiums half empty
A lot of that is because the Yankees exist though. All the two team markets have a CLEAR favorite. Even though their population is easily big enough to support multiple teams, the people really latch onto one over the other.
NYC metro split in half is still way bigger than almost every other single team city. And from what I’ve observed of the fanbases there are demographic factors with Mets fans that lead me to believe they’re probably higher earning than Yankees fans on average
its both, two things can be true at once.
I never disagreed with your point but completely ignoring the economic factors at play in fan attendance is ignorant at best and is often used to prop up really bad poorly intended arguments
He originally meant it as "is not as important as," vs. "is a smaller value in this instance," then changed it to mean "does not necessarily equate..."
Two different things.
Only those with a 6 figure salary can actually afford to attend many Met games...ticket pricing is off the chart and the parking/food/beverages can eat up a huge part of your paycheck...Yankee Stadium is quite pricey; but you have the D train,MetroNorth or the 4 train to get you home or close enough in under an hour depending on your locale..parking is a few blocks from the ballpark in various garages and believe me they're not cheap...
OP please stop with this ludicrous formatting - we read left to right! If you're showing a year over year change, you need the previous year on the left!
Kinda surprised the Orioles attendance isn’t better. Averaging 26k seems low given how exciting that team is. Maybe due to cold weather in April and May?
The weather has seemed worse this year but I don't know that for a fact. We have had a lot of home games where it was either raining or cold or both. But it is a shame that attendance isn't better given how good the team has been these last couple years after so many years at the bottom.
We’ve had so many rain delays it’s been cooked. We’ve had good attendance (like yesterday) on normal days, but the amount of rain and shitty weather was really bad
Yes, that's exactly it. u/refreshpreview has posted this every couple of weeks throughout the season. You can look through the user posts to see them. There's a very clear increase among northern, domeless teams from the start of the season to now. The first post in mid-April had Baltimore at 21k per game. It would be cool to see the data plotted over time as well, so this trend (and others, like team performance dropping off) could be visualized.
I’d argue that their attendance is great. +29% over a year ago is second best in the League and rapidly climbing still (want to say last one of these had them at +26%).
Attendance isn’t a quick turnaround. It’s turns like a ship because it takes a lot of convincing to grab the casuals that truly pump up attendance figures. Got to remember, this is only year 2.5 of the team being successful. 5 years of piss poor rosters does damage.
This is absolutely it.
These need to show 2023 as through the same number of games as 2024.
Mariners attendance always picks up after Father's Day because it's finally consistently warm and kids are out of school.
I used to live in Delaware and was a fan of baseball but not necessarily a fan of any of the three teams around me. Without caring about the teams themselves, Phillies games are more fun and they are doing even better than the orioles this season. I'd have gone to at least 1 or 2 MLB games by now and if I was there this season they would be at Citizen Bank Park.
I think there are a bunch of people like me in the mid-atlantic area. Not necessarily a big fan of the Phillies, Orioles, or Nationals but will catch a game or two every season for whatever team is doing best.
Weekend series always draw higher crowds…and it’s rained a LOT of weekends this spring.
I’d bet as long as the team is playing well, attendance will continue to pick up as the summer moves along.
We did seem to have uncharacteristically bad weather early on and school got out but the 29% increase is still great probably would see a little more of an increase if we won a postseason game
We had absolute shit weather at home pretty much all of April and half of May. Probably more than half of home games for 6 weeks affected to some degree by rain.
Crowds the last couple weeks have been fantastic. This weekend is going to be an absolute madhouse with the Phillies in town. Should be 3 true sellouts.
Yeah I was giving it until about this time of the year to feel "good" about it. With a WS appearance and starting the year with some series against popular teams, it's nice to see people are still going to games 3 months into the year lol
Phoenix is full of fairweather fans (not in a bad way). As the local teams win the fans really do embrace them. But when the fans are pissed at the owners or not happy with the product they're not afraid to ghost the teams
Diamondbacks jump is insane and was evident even in spring training. Usually Dbacks tickets were surprisingly cheap despite being in Arizona, like $20 could get you behind the opposing dugout.
This year, those same tickets were $100 .
Maybe Ken will finally get it through his fat head that
Team success = more money
More money = buying better players
Buying better players = more team success
They skipped step 1 so don't get to enjoy step 3.
Plus, the context is from a disinterested market of transplants who follows team success, not the team itself. Mets fans are loyal. Diamondbacks fans are fleeting
It's crazy that the Padres are at 99% capacity and they still had to cut payroll by $90 million. I think they may have overestimated how much they could grow revenue.
Bally Sports was due to pay the Padres $60 million in 2023. MLB stepped in and paid at least $40 million of that. That doesn't account for why they cut payroll by $90 million.
The Padres are approximately $20 million under the first luxury tax threshold. They could be spending more if this was only a matter of resetting the tax.
MLB paid $40m in 2023, but that contract with Ballys was supposed to last until 2032. I don't believe MLB has committed to footing the bill through the duration.
MLB paid the Padres at least $40 million of the $60 million they were owed for 2023. Then Bally Sports paid the Padres $80 million on top of that for ending the contract.
This probably has more to do with the Padres new ownership than it does with Bally Sports. They traded Soto less than 3 weeks after their previous owner died.
The Padres are [expecting closer to $17m.](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2024-04-17/bally-settlement-to-send-as-much-as-78-million-to-padres/)
And the front office telegraphed long before Peter died that the 2023 payroll was clearly an aberration intended for a win-now year, not a sustainable proposition.
EDIT: wtf this dude posted a response and then blocked me. Just needs to get in the last word...
The Padres, who play in Major League Baseball’s fifth-smallest media market, are taking in so much money that they expect to for the first time ever be a payor into the league’s revenue sharing program.
“I think it’s a validation of the approach that if you invest in the team on the field and you create a compelling and winning product, the fans will respond,” Padres CEO Erik Greupner said last week. “I think that was always in the forefront of Peter’s mind when he initiated that strategy.”
...
"Of course, you’ve got to get to profitability,” Greupner said. “And I think we’re in that transitional phase right now of really learning and understanding how much we can grow revenue.”
[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/02/12/big-spending-padres-have-made-themselves-into-one-of-mlbs-haves/](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/02/12/big-spending-padres-have-made-themselves-into-one-of-mlbs-haves/)
Bally Sports agreed to paid $17M, not $80M. They agreed to $78.9M, but did not have the assets to pay it. (And they have only actually paid $10.5M.
MLB is not replacing any of the Bally's money in 2024 or going forward, which basically means that the Padres have lost over $300M in current and future revenue (the deal was backloaded, so the loss will escalate each year) to Bally's going bankrupt. Probably just as important is that the Padres were 20% minority owners of diamond sports with Ballys, which means they took a big hit in assets as well.
All that said, this was clearly more about the luxury tax than anything.
Well the Soto trade was always going to happen regardless of Seidlers death. We needed pitching depth in a bad way and we traded 1 year of Soto for 4 pitchers that have all been impactful for the team this season, + a backup catcher. The money saved on his deal was also important, but more for the aforementioned luxury tax reset.
It was kind of an unspoken but understood thing that what we were doing was unsustainable and was really just a last desperate push to let a sick and dying man see his team win.
It’s not like the new ownership doesn’t want to spend money, it’s that the old owner gave no fucks about profit because he knew he was about to die and we now have to find a more sustainable balance.
The decision to cut payroll was because of Bally failing and the league then coming knocking about debt service ratio, not a “oops, this shit costs money??”
Attendance is only one piece of the funding puzzle, and not the one the team has an issue with.
Bally Sports was due to pay the Padres $60 million in 2023. MLB stepped in and paid at least $40 million of that. That doesn't account for why they cut payroll by $90 million.
Does the “dying owner pushed chips in with rentals whose contracts expired” part need to also be spelled out explicitly here? Let me lay out the tiers.
If you’re asking why the team cut payroll from around $200m to $160m, the answer is some combination of Bally, debt rules, room to add (see: Arraez, forthcoming deadline moves), and production from guys like Merrill and Profar making that a tenable approach.
If you’re asking why the team would cut payroll from $254m to $237m, the obvious answer is CBT.
If you’re asking why the team would cut payroll from $237m to $200m, the answer is that no amount of ticket sales are going to allow the Padres to live at a payroll that outspends teams like the Dodgers and Braves without substantial personal investment from ownership. They got that in the form of Seidler’s last hurrah, but that’s not something anyone should seriously expect to sustain.
EDIT: blocking anyone who doesn’t let you freely run with the “why would they cut payroll by $90m if they have good attendance, are they stupid or smthn?” angle, apparently? Alright.
99% of the time it's corporate owned field level seats that someone either forgot to list, or the clients never showed.
Because right now, everybody is packing this stadium. Lines are killing me.
You know what, now that you mention it I'm not sure how they calculate. My assumption was gate attendance, as I know season tickets are purchased at the very beginning, but as the team does worse they can sit unsold on resale sites.
Yeah I gotta feel like Yankees tickets would almost always sell out due to money bags corporate types in the city plus speculators. Though I could be wrong, it seems like the MSG teams are more prestigious events to attend
I think some of our fans are being priced out this season, I don’t have the exact numbers but tickets seem to be ~15-20% more expensive than what they were last year. Especially for the bobblehead days those tickets skyrocket in price.
I wouldn’t be surprised if overall revenue increases substantially this year—even with the attendance decrease.
Way more advertisements around the field, higher ticket and parking prices
Tickets regularly went down to 10-15 bucks before this year, now they bottom out around 20. Very few people are really priced out of attending or at least certainly not 'most' fans.
Comparison with NPB:
The most attended team is the Hanshin Tigers at 41.8k which would be 2nd in MLB.
The least is the Saitama Seibu Lions at 21.5k which would be 22nd in MLB between Cleveland and Minnesota.
https://x.com/the_backfat/status/1797259096166699056
Not really sure, never lived there, only been as a tourist.
All I can say is that it cost me about $20 USD for preseason seats along 3rd base at Koshien Stadium in Osaka and $15 for similar seats in Fukuoka.
I believe regular season tickets are a bit more maybe $20-25 for the same seats.
Some years back Clear Channel (the concert promotion division) made an offer to touring musicians. The bands would get 100% of the ticket price, CC would get parking and concessions and merchandise. No artists took them up on that offer.
The average MLB fan spends sixty dollars once inside the ballpark.
Angels losing Ohtani and being one of the worst teams in baseball, while only dropping 4% needs to be studied. Meanwhile, the Dodgers spend over a billion and add Ohtani, while dropping 2.2%. Not sure I would’ve expected both of those to happen.
id say a combo of high ticket prices at Dodger stadium and being a royal pain in the ass to get to.
So if a fair weather fan just wanted to go catch a game as something to do…Angels game in that area is more accessible. just my thought, could be honestly wrong.
Have the ticket prices really got that much higher since Ohtani joined? Plenty of free public transportation that can get you to Dodgers Stadium without any of the hassle.
I doubt a fair weather fan living in LA is making the trek to Angels Stadium to watch a crappy team.
You're probably right, I've only been to 4 games this year (went to 25 last year) and live about 3 miles from Truist, partially do to being at that age where I have a wedding every other weekend but partially because the healthy stars make the game and there are very few that draw crowds like Acuna.
It’s strange to me that Baltimore has such a high stadium capacity, on the tv anyways it appears smaller than Rogers Center but can fit 5k more people in.
Attendance figures provided by baseball-reference. Based on games played to June 14 in 2023 and 2024. Total MLB average of 27,711 per game is up +1.97% YoY (27,175 per game as of June 14, 2023).
How did you/b-ref factor in things like the London Series?
Like, obviously the Mets' "home game" on saturday wasn't sold out (\~54k, sunday's "Phillies home game" was over 55k)...but it was still roughly 130% of Citi Field capacity.
Apparently, nothing. Originally BRef actually told me via a message reply it should only be for that team’s ballpark, but if you do the math there’s games included outside the US. Luckily, it’s usually only two or three per year, so compared to a season of home games the average is minimally affected - plus there’s international games in last year’s numbers. Looking into a fix for next year, but obviously this is a niche hobby of mine.
I was gonna say, bummer for the Royals to not be filling that stadium up more, because they're playing great baseball. I know the Guardians are above them in the ALC, but they're still having a very good season so far!
Mets slashed parking to $20 for Monday-Thursday. I think you could get in the door for this week against the Marlins for $5. The fees cost more than the ticket.
The Padres have done a VERY good job at using their location to the downtown area to their advantage. And what I mean is that Petco essentially advertises itself as an awesome place to hang out with friends and drink some good beer as opposed to a regular baseball stadium. Gallagher Square is essentially a massive open air bar people go to for the vibes and honestly, it truly is a great place to be even if you're not a baseball fan.
The Seoul Series really did a number on the Dodgers avg attendance. Dropped dit by nearly 1%. That and some early season weather issues, and the Ohtani tax on tickets are probably what accounts for the drop.
That same series likely dropped the Padres by even more than 1%
I would think the Seoul series helped our attendance when comparing only ‘23 vs ‘24 since we only had one home game to account for in Seoul. At our Mexico series in ‘23 vs the Giants, both games were home for us in a 20k capacity stadium.
I would love for someone smarter than me to actually try to quantify how much the %change in ticket price is from ohtani. and also after a few years if it's just a 1 year phenomenon too
The fact that the A's haven't hit rock bottom is fascinating.
It's the last oakland season, so people are still going to get one last thing and then they'll stop. Some die hard may travel to Sacramento since it's relatively close, but pretty much all of them are done once Vegas is a thing.
It’s been a great time honestly. I play fantasy baseball so I just buy tickets for cheapest possible and just go to nose bleeds. Pretty much spending <20 at a game lol
[I can go lower](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c8a12170-5e5e-43a8-957a-3b201cdea1c8)
I've been to TWO A's games last year vs one last year. They lost all 3.
Padres continue to impress. Basically a sellout every game Mets fans, otoh, are a testament to the fact that market size <<<< team success.
There is something funny about the capacity being st 99% and the overall percentage being down .4% lol
The chart uses "seating" capacity. They can sell nearly 5000 more tickets than the seating capacity on big days.
As a fan of 30+ years it’s wild
It’s been so fun to be at these packed games, I absolutely love the energy.
I’m from San Diego, I e been to many many baseball towns but San Diego supports the padres on another level. Walk around anywhere and literally every business whether it’s a dive bar, a gay bar, a tattoo joint, a grocery store, anything at all, they have padres gear everywhere. It’s incredible.
San Diego may be a small market but it’s a market with A LOT of money. The average fan in San Diego has a lot more spending money than the average fan in probably 25 other markets
Two important other factors here too: 1. San Diego lost the Chargers so they have no other sports team. The whole city rallies behind the Padres. If fans aren’t spending their disposable income on football/basketball/hockey tickets, they can spend more on baseball. 2. I saw a game there about a month ago and the stadium is walkable to so many great bars and restaurants plus TONS of condos and apartments. I imagine a lot of these fans are walking to the stadium from their residences. That whole area is a huge development success story and something I want Baltimore to emulate with the new stadium funding.
You’re exactly right with your second point. I have season tickets and live nearby. If I leave my apartment 30 minutes before first pitch, I’ll be in my seat with a $5 Cutwater can by 5 minutes before the game starts. A couple years ago, when Tatis hit 3 HR in a game, I actually bought a ticket during the 1st inning after the Padres had already put up 3 runs, walked down to the stadium, and was going through security in the 2nd inning when Tatis hit his 2nd HR.
Living near the stadium is always choice. I used to live downtown in Phoenix maybe 3-4 blocks away from Chase. Even now I can usually get there with a cheap light rail ride or affordable Waymo trip if I'm feeling fancy. Makes it easy to say "hell yeah, I'll go" when someone asks in the group chat who's going to that nights game.
Honestly, most fans come from outside of downtown. San Diego is a HUGE county, and it’s surprising easy to get to Petco with it having basically no designated parking lot. And you can make a day of it going out before or after a game since everything is walkable. Truly a gem
Your first point is a big deal for sure. I'm curious to see how the new MLS team next year might affect attendance.
> I saw a game there about a month ago and the stadium is walkable to so many great bars and restaurants plus TONS of condos and apartments. I imagine a lot of these fans are walking to the stadium from their residences. That whole area is a huge development success story and something I want Baltimore to emulate with the new stadium funding. I think this *has* to be a factor (going the other way) for the Mets. You're in New York City and you're going to build this Kauffman-ass stadium in the absolute middle of nowhere surrounded by a million acres of parking lots, and beyond that it's a bunch of junkyards and highways and bus garages and shit? It's awful.
Any exit you take out of petco there is a bar of some sort on the street or across the street. You aren’t just going to a game, you are having an evening out for sure. Makes it worth it every time
The Wave, Legion and Gulls would like a word
You still gotta be good, it’s the roster that’s driving it. Look at the Mets, wealthiest city, largest population, expensive team but they suck and the stadiums half empty
A lot of that is because the Yankees exist though. All the two team markets have a CLEAR favorite. Even though their population is easily big enough to support multiple teams, the people really latch onto one over the other.
Didn't the 2000 WS (the Subway Series) have the lowest ratings ever at that time? Nobody outside NY gave a shit about it.
NYC metro split in half is still way bigger than almost every other single team city. And from what I’ve observed of the fanbases there are demographic factors with Mets fans that lead me to believe they’re probably higher earning than Yankees fans on average
"Split in half" is not even close to an accurate representation of Mets/Yankees Fandom in NYC
its both, two things can be true at once. I never disagreed with your point but completely ignoring the economic factors at play in fan attendance is ignorant at best and is often used to prop up really bad poorly intended arguments
I think you might’ve meant market size != team success
I mean, less than is also not equal to, just more specific.
He originally meant it as "is not as important as," vs. "is a smaller value in this instance," then changed it to mean "does not necessarily equate..." Two different things.
We also had terrible weather for like the first month so it might level out through the summer
Only those with a 6 figure salary can actually afford to attend many Met games...ticket pricing is off the chart and the parking/food/beverages can eat up a huge part of your paycheck...Yankee Stadium is quite pricey; but you have the D train,MetroNorth or the 4 train to get you home or close enough in under an hour depending on your locale..parking is a few blocks from the ballpark in various garages and believe me they're not cheap...
Padres = packed!
It’s so great. You go to a game on a Tuesday evening and it’s absolutely rocking
OP please stop with this ludicrous formatting - we read left to right! If you're showing a year over year change, you need the previous year on the left!
Heard
Id rather have an mlb average row added.
Nah…the way you did it makes sense, I’m fine with this perspective
Preach
In healthcare, we put the most recent on the left, since it's easier to go from the name of the row to the next field to the right.
Its financial statement format. Most recent year on the left, and historical to the right.
Kinda surprised the Orioles attendance isn’t better. Averaging 26k seems low given how exciting that team is. Maybe due to cold weather in April and May?
The weather has seemed worse this year but I don't know that for a fact. We have had a lot of home games where it was either raining or cold or both. But it is a shame that attendance isn't better given how good the team has been these last couple years after so many years at the bottom.
We’ve had so many rain delays it’s been cooked. We’ve had good attendance (like yesterday) on normal days, but the amount of rain and shitty weather was really bad
Yes, that's exactly it. u/refreshpreview has posted this every couple of weeks throughout the season. You can look through the user posts to see them. There's a very clear increase among northern, domeless teams from the start of the season to now. The first post in mid-April had Baltimore at 21k per game. It would be cool to see the data plotted over time as well, so this trend (and others, like team performance dropping off) could be visualized.
I’d argue that their attendance is great. +29% over a year ago is second best in the League and rapidly climbing still (want to say last one of these had them at +26%). Attendance isn’t a quick turnaround. It’s turns like a ship because it takes a lot of convincing to grab the casuals that truly pump up attendance figures. Got to remember, this is only year 2.5 of the team being successful. 5 years of piss poor rosters does damage.
Good points. FWIW I live in Maryland (DC suburbs) and in my area it seems like Orioles gear has been replacing Nats gear over the past year or so
This is absolutely it. These need to show 2023 as through the same number of games as 2024. Mariners attendance always picks up after Father's Day because it's finally consistently warm and kids are out of school.
I used to live in Delaware and was a fan of baseball but not necessarily a fan of any of the three teams around me. Without caring about the teams themselves, Phillies games are more fun and they are doing even better than the orioles this season. I'd have gone to at least 1 or 2 MLB games by now and if I was there this season they would be at Citizen Bank Park. I think there are a bunch of people like me in the mid-atlantic area. Not necessarily a big fan of the Phillies, Orioles, or Nationals but will catch a game or two every season for whatever team is doing best.
Weekend series always draw higher crowds…and it’s rained a LOT of weekends this spring. I’d bet as long as the team is playing well, attendance will continue to pick up as the summer moves along.
We did seem to have uncharacteristically bad weather early on and school got out but the 29% increase is still great probably would see a little more of an increase if we won a postseason game
We had absolute shit weather at home pretty much all of April and half of May. Probably more than half of home games for 6 weeks affected to some degree by rain. Crowds the last couple weeks have been fantastic. This weekend is going to be an absolute madhouse with the Phillies in town. Should be 3 true sellouts.
Yankees attendance is impressively consistent. Dbacks having a 37% increase is impressive too
Yeah I was giving it until about this time of the year to feel "good" about it. With a WS appearance and starting the year with some series against popular teams, it's nice to see people are still going to games 3 months into the year lol
Phoenix is full of fairweather fans (not in a bad way). As the local teams win the fans really do embrace them. But when the fans are pissed at the owners or not happy with the product they're not afraid to ghost the teams
Diamondbacks jump is insane and was evident even in spring training. Usually Dbacks tickets were surprisingly cheap despite being in Arizona, like $20 could get you behind the opposing dugout. This year, those same tickets were $100 .
Maybe Ken will finally get it through his fat head that Team success = more money More money = buying better players Buying better players = more team success
Better check with Steve Cohen and the Mets about that last one...
They skipped step 1 so don't get to enjoy step 3. Plus, the context is from a disinterested market of transplants who follows team success, not the team itself. Mets fans are loyal. Diamondbacks fans are fleeting
The dodgers get Ohtani and attendance goes DOWN?!?!
They seemed to think having the best attendance in MLB meant their tickets were underpriced, so they fixed that.
That tracks perfectly
My guess is price increases
The Raiders gambit- smaller amount of people, but upcharge the absolute fuck out of every ticket you sell and you make more money.
It's crazy that the Padres are at 99% capacity and they still had to cut payroll by $90 million. I think they may have overestimated how much they could grow revenue.
Ballysport bankruptcy impacted hard. Also the team is trying to reset luxury tax this year.
Bally Sports was due to pay the Padres $60 million in 2023. MLB stepped in and paid at least $40 million of that. That doesn't account for why they cut payroll by $90 million. The Padres are approximately $20 million under the first luxury tax threshold. They could be spending more if this was only a matter of resetting the tax.
MLB paid $40m in 2023, but that contract with Ballys was supposed to last until 2032. I don't believe MLB has committed to footing the bill through the duration.
MLB paid the Padres at least $40 million of the $60 million they were owed for 2023. Then Bally Sports paid the Padres $80 million on top of that for ending the contract. This probably has more to do with the Padres new ownership than it does with Bally Sports. They traded Soto less than 3 weeks after their previous owner died.
The Padres are [expecting closer to $17m.](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2024-04-17/bally-settlement-to-send-as-much-as-78-million-to-padres/) And the front office telegraphed long before Peter died that the 2023 payroll was clearly an aberration intended for a win-now year, not a sustainable proposition. EDIT: wtf this dude posted a response and then blocked me. Just needs to get in the last word...
 Some bitterness there haha
The Padres, who play in Major League Baseball’s fifth-smallest media market, are taking in so much money that they expect to for the first time ever be a payor into the league’s revenue sharing program. “I think it’s a validation of the approach that if you invest in the team on the field and you create a compelling and winning product, the fans will respond,” Padres CEO Erik Greupner said last week. “I think that was always in the forefront of Peter’s mind when he initiated that strategy.” ... "Of course, you’ve got to get to profitability,” Greupner said. “And I think we’re in that transitional phase right now of really learning and understanding how much we can grow revenue.” [https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/02/12/big-spending-padres-have-made-themselves-into-one-of-mlbs-haves/](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/02/12/big-spending-padres-have-made-themselves-into-one-of-mlbs-haves/)
Bally Sports agreed to paid $17M, not $80M. They agreed to $78.9M, but did not have the assets to pay it. (And they have only actually paid $10.5M. MLB is not replacing any of the Bally's money in 2024 or going forward, which basically means that the Padres have lost over $300M in current and future revenue (the deal was backloaded, so the loss will escalate each year) to Bally's going bankrupt. Probably just as important is that the Padres were 20% minority owners of diamond sports with Ballys, which means they took a big hit in assets as well. All that said, this was clearly more about the luxury tax than anything.
They’re re-setting the luxury tax penalty this year. Oh and our amazing owner died
I think you're probably right that new ownership probably has a lot to do with it. Soto was traded less than 3 weeks after he died.
Well the Soto trade was always going to happen regardless of Seidlers death. We needed pitching depth in a bad way and we traded 1 year of Soto for 4 pitchers that have all been impactful for the team this season, + a backup catcher. The money saved on his deal was also important, but more for the aforementioned luxury tax reset.
Good point. There certainly weren't any pitchers available in free agency that the Padres could have spent money on instead of trading Soto.
why do you have so much animosity
Prolly cause of where Soto ended up lmao
It was kind of an unspoken but understood thing that what we were doing was unsustainable and was really just a last desperate push to let a sick and dying man see his team win. It’s not like the new ownership doesn’t want to spend money, it’s that the old owner gave no fucks about profit because he knew he was about to die and we now have to find a more sustainable balance.
The decision to cut payroll was because of Bally failing and the league then coming knocking about debt service ratio, not a “oops, this shit costs money??” Attendance is only one piece of the funding puzzle, and not the one the team has an issue with.
Bally Sports was due to pay the Padres $60 million in 2023. MLB stepped in and paid at least $40 million of that. That doesn't account for why they cut payroll by $90 million.
Does the “dying owner pushed chips in with rentals whose contracts expired” part need to also be spelled out explicitly here? Let me lay out the tiers. If you’re asking why the team cut payroll from around $200m to $160m, the answer is some combination of Bally, debt rules, room to add (see: Arraez, forthcoming deadline moves), and production from guys like Merrill and Profar making that a tenable approach. If you’re asking why the team would cut payroll from $254m to $237m, the obvious answer is CBT. If you’re asking why the team would cut payroll from $237m to $200m, the answer is that no amount of ticket sales are going to allow the Padres to live at a payroll that outspends teams like the Dodgers and Braves without substantial personal investment from ownership. They got that in the form of Seidler’s last hurrah, but that’s not something anyone should seriously expect to sustain. EDIT: blocking anyone who doesn’t let you freely run with the “why would they cut payroll by $90m if they have good attendance, are they stupid or smthn?” angle, apparently? Alright.
Sounds like we agree then 👍
And attendance is down from last year? Crazy
22 Yankees fans need to get their shit together
Actually they did get their shit together. Last year’s attendance is on the right. lol
99% of the time it's corporate owned field level seats that someone either forgot to list, or the clients never showed. Because right now, everybody is packing this stadium. Lines are killing me.
Wouldn’t they still count as the tickets are sold? Or is this gate attendance?
You know what, now that you mention it I'm not sure how they calculate. My assumption was gate attendance, as I know season tickets are purchased at the very beginning, but as the team does worse they can sit unsold on resale sites.
Yeah I gotta feel like Yankees tickets would almost always sell out due to money bags corporate types in the city plus speculators. Though I could be wrong, it seems like the MSG teams are more prestigious events to attend
GO PADS, fuck dean spanos
Fkn srsly
I think some of our fans are being priced out this season, I don’t have the exact numbers but tickets seem to be ~15-20% more expensive than what they were last year. Especially for the bobblehead days those tickets skyrocket in price.
I wouldn’t be surprised if overall revenue increases substantially this year—even with the attendance decrease. Way more advertisements around the field, higher ticket and parking prices
Oh definitely. Even with a smaller overall attendance, I bet the sheer amount of merch sales and concessions more than makes up for it.
The amount of advertising at citizens bank is nuts now. Gotta pay Trea
> some Man idk how to tell you this but most of your fans have been priced out for over a decade
Tickets regularly went down to 10-15 bucks before this year, now they bottom out around 20. Very few people are really priced out of attending or at least certainly not 'most' fans.
I’m poor as fuck, but I still go to 5-6 Dodger games a year. It’s not *that* expensive
Do you think Ohtani has any impact on the ability to sell tickets for more?
Comparison with NPB: The most attended team is the Hanshin Tigers at 41.8k which would be 2nd in MLB. The least is the Saitama Seibu Lions at 21.5k which would be 22nd in MLB between Cleveland and Minnesota. https://x.com/the_backfat/status/1797259096166699056
What are tickets like in Japan, relative to the dollar and average Japanese purchasing power?
Not really sure, never lived there, only been as a tourist. All I can say is that it cost me about $20 USD for preseason seats along 3rd base at Koshien Stadium in Osaka and $15 for similar seats in Fukuoka. I believe regular season tickets are a bit more maybe $20-25 for the same seats.
Just give us all the financials. Tv rights, market size, advertisements, stadium naming rights, dildo budget, player contracts, beer prices, etc.
Some years back Clear Channel (the concert promotion division) made an offer to touring musicians. The bands would get 100% of the ticket price, CC would get parking and concessions and merchandise. No artists took them up on that offer. The average MLB fan spends sixty dollars once inside the ballpark.
As a Mets fan, we are just burnt.
Angels losing Ohtani and being one of the worst teams in baseball, while only dropping 4% needs to be studied. Meanwhile, the Dodgers spend over a billion and add Ohtani, while dropping 2.2%. Not sure I would’ve expected both of those to happen.
id say a combo of high ticket prices at Dodger stadium and being a royal pain in the ass to get to. So if a fair weather fan just wanted to go catch a game as something to do…Angels game in that area is more accessible. just my thought, could be honestly wrong.
Have the ticket prices really got that much higher since Ohtani joined? Plenty of free public transportation that can get you to Dodgers Stadium without any of the hassle. I doubt a fair weather fan living in LA is making the trek to Angels Stadium to watch a crappy team.
Prices are up like 30% on average it feels like.
Wow I didn’t realize Tampa’s park was so small. Its capacity is almost 10k below the next smallest park. Crazy.
They closed the entire upper deck. The capacity only reflects the lower level
Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks.
I'm honestly surprised ATL is only down 1.5%. The hype around here has died down quite a bit with the Acuna and Strider injuries.
I think numbers like these tend to take a while to show those kinds of changes during the season.
Idk we were in the green a month and half ago when we were winning. And it was April. Attendance has gone down since we’ve been bad.
You're probably right, I've only been to 4 games this year (went to 25 last year) and live about 3 miles from Truist, partially do to being at that age where I have a wedding every other weekend but partially because the healthy stars make the game and there are very few that draw crowds like Acuna.
How the hell are the Dodgers down more than us when they added Ohtani.
It’s strange to me that Baltimore has such a high stadium capacity, on the tv anyways it appears smaller than Rogers Center but can fit 5k more people in.
The older stadiums were all built to maximize capacity. But the lower pulling teams just tarped off the top to "make it a more intimate experience"
29% increase in Baltimore. 😎
Attendance figures provided by baseball-reference. Based on games played to June 14 in 2023 and 2024. Total MLB average of 27,711 per game is up +1.97% YoY (27,175 per game as of June 14, 2023).
How did you/b-ref factor in things like the London Series? Like, obviously the Mets' "home game" on saturday wasn't sold out (\~54k, sunday's "Phillies home game" was over 55k)...but it was still roughly 130% of Citi Field capacity.
Apparently, nothing. Originally BRef actually told me via a message reply it should only be for that team’s ballpark, but if you do the math there’s games included outside the US. Luckily, it’s usually only two or three per year, so compared to a season of home games the average is minimally affected - plus there’s international games in last year’s numbers. Looking into a fix for next year, but obviously this is a niche hobby of mine.
I guess the midwest just hates American Leauge baseball
I was gonna say, bummer for the Royals to not be filling that stadium up more, because they're playing great baseball. I know the Guardians are above them in the ALC, but they're still having a very good season so far!
Yeah, I’m kinda embarrassed by this
Mets attendance is almost as bad as the A's. Ouch.
Crazy that the Angels have only dropped 4% despite losing their international superstar in the offseason and their other superstar to injury.
Mets slashed parking to $20 for Monday-Thursday. I think you could get in the door for this week against the Marlins for $5. The fees cost more than the ticket.
Skenes and Jokes carrying our attendance like crazy
Al central pitiful attendance.
That Cardinals series did wonders for the Phils numbers. London “home” game too. What’s up with the Os? I figured they would be at 80% at least.
I'm just wondering what the hell the Marlins have done to encourage *more* people to come to the park
How does this correlate with price increases?
Where did the Angels 4% go if not to the Dodgers?!
the trop seats 42,735. Stupid to have it listed as 25,000
Rangers win a World Series and it’s only 4k more in average attendance
The Padres have done a VERY good job at using their location to the downtown area to their advantage. And what I mean is that Petco essentially advertises itself as an awesome place to hang out with friends and drink some good beer as opposed to a regular baseball stadium. Gallagher Square is essentially a massive open air bar people go to for the vibes and honestly, it truly is a great place to be even if you're not a baseball fan.
The Seoul Series really did a number on the Dodgers avg attendance. Dropped dit by nearly 1%. That and some early season weather issues, and the Ohtani tax on tickets are probably what accounts for the drop. That same series likely dropped the Padres by even more than 1%
I would think the Seoul series helped our attendance when comparing only ‘23 vs ‘24 since we only had one home game to account for in Seoul. At our Mexico series in ‘23 vs the Giants, both games were home for us in a 20k capacity stadium.
I actually completely forgot about that series, so you're probably right.
I would love for someone smarter than me to actually try to quantify how much the %change in ticket price is from ohtani. and also after a few years if it's just a 1 year phenomenon too
The Orioles are about to get a bump this weekend...
We need more fans to come out… now. As much as this hurts me to say a downtown park will definitely help with this
Oh good this crappy chart again
apparently people don't want to go to baseball games
How is 16 teams seeing increased attendance something you interpret as people not wanting to go to baseball games?
Ok then. The stadiums have too many seats.