White Sox attendance issues? (Marine, Rio: home, school, voucher)

[pnwguy2]

Yes, it is cold. Yes, the White Sox are not projected to be contenders. But this is pretty amazing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb...239?li=BBnb7Kz

[pvande55]

On a snowy day when the Cubs were also scheduled to play? Not too surprising.

[fusillirob1983]

The game was originally scheduled as a night game and over the weekend they rescheduled it for the afternoon thinking it would be too cold at night. When it was rescheduled for the afternoon, the Sox offered a voucher for fans to attend a game at a later day except for the Sox-Cubs series. Then it snowed in the morning and game time temperature was 35 degrees. The Cubs game was canceled, so if one was paying attention to news on Monday morning, it's likely people who still had tickets were waiting to see if the Sox would also cancel or what weather would be like at game time.


Context helps, or just say Sux attendance lol derp amirite?

[Steve&Adam]

Originally Posted by pvande55

On a snowy day when the Cubs were also scheduled to play?

Also not helping, was the Cubs' home opener that day garnering about 99.9% of the media coverage that day. To ardent fans, that shouldn't matter, but to the casual fan it might appear there was only one game in town that day. I say this not as a sports fan, but as a longtime media observer. The Channel 7 news is particularly bad about this but keep in mind they are a Cubs broadcast partner also.

[chet everett]

Baseball in general is not attracting the audience it once was. The White Sox had terrible attendance last year -- https://www.statista.com/statistics/...teams-in-2010/

While the odds of World Series are still a long shot according the book makers, the overall team outlook is much improved -- https://www.oddsshark.com/mlb/mlb-od...series-futures

The interesting thing is that the Sox have consciously been engaged in a "rebuilding" the team with players that ought to see a major boost in performance based on trends. This article, despite the headlines about the Phillies, Astros, and Cubs, actually addresses how rebuilding is mostly a good thing in the current MLB, and given the ranking of "improvements through rebuilding" the White Sox are due for some success -- https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...win-like-them/

[personone]

Originally Posted by pvande55

On a snowy day when the Cubs were also scheduled to play? Not too surprising.

Even given those circumstances, you would never expect a figure as low as they reported for any major league team. Let alone, a team in the 3rd largest city in the country. We've have bad weather here all the time, and the Cubs and Sox have played on the same day before, and there has never been attendance as low as they reported.

This is the lowest MLB attendance figure since, ironically, the Sox were in Baltimore to play the Orioles and there was an attendance of zero (0) because the Orioles closed their stadium to the public during the Baltimore Riots.

[Steve&Adam]

I'm not sure why this is such an issue. If most or all of the no-shows took the vouchers and will attend games later in the season, its a win-win for everyone. I know I sure would have.

[jdiddy]

Originally Posted by pnwguy2

Yes, it is cold. Yes, the White Sox are not projected to be contenders. But this is pretty amazing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb...239?li=BBnb7Kz

I'm amazed that many opted to go to the game to be honest, rather than use a voucher for a game later in the year when it will actually be enjoyable to be outside. It's one thing to watch the Bears in December, its another to freeze your ass off to watch baseball in April, especially between two teams who are likely to hang around last place most of the year.

[doodlemagic]

While this was obviously somewhat of a fluke, cold weather, early in the season, etc, I feel like sports as a whole are losing their audience.

Younger kids as well as millenials don't seem to have as much of an interest, older adults tend to think athletes these days are whiny overpaid babies, I know this is football but the whole kneeling and politics sports are getting involved with these days are all factors turning people off.

I remember when I was a kid we lived sports, we collected cards, watched games, after school we'd play pickup football or baseketball or baseball games. Kids these days don't do that and I think to some effect that kills off some interest as well.

Every year across the country you'll hear teams doing wierd little things to raise attendance, oftentimes in cities that aren't really sports cities but I remember the Mariners were doing some kind of all you can eat hot dogs included with your tickets a few years back.

All this said this is nothing new, bad teams have always struggled with attendance, I recently watched a couple intersting documentaries about attendance gimmicks that went awry such as the killing disco night at commisky back in the late 70s or early 80s as well as 10 cent beer night in clevland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohvjLTZnH48

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1CP1751wJA

[personone]

Originally Posted by doodlemagic

While this was obviously somewhat of a fluke, cold weather, early in the season, etc, I feel like sports as a whole are losing their audience.

Younger kids as well as millenials don't seem to have as much of an interest, older adults tend to think athletes these days are whiny overpaid babies, I know this is football but the whole kneeling and politics sports are getting involved with these days are all factors turning people off.

I remember when I was a kid we lived sports, we collected cards, watched games, after school we'd play pickup football or baseketball or baseball games. Kids these days don't do that and I think to some effect that kills off some interest as well.

Every year across the country you'll hear teams doing wierd little things to raise attendance, oftentimes in cities that aren't really sports cities but I remember the Mariners were doing some kind of all you can eat hot dogs included with your tickets a few years back.

All this said this is nothing new, bad teams have always struggled with attendance, I recently watched a couple intersting documentaries about attendance gimmicks that went awry such as the killing disco night at commisky back in the late 70s or early 80s as well as 10 cent beer night in clevland


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohvjLTZnH48


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1CP1751wJA

You are correct. For years, the NFL has had dwindling attendance, especially in cold weather cities. Most people have realized with the instant access to games that everyone has now; they can just watch games in the comfort of their home and not have to deal with expensive tickets, traffic, parking, extreme weather, crowds, or pricey food. The NFL has been blacking out local games for years if they don't sell enough tickets. That is why Stubhub does so well and the professional leagues have no problem with it. As long as they can unload the tickets (even if it is at lower prices), at least the seats will be filled.