2023 MLB Thread; Say Hey, Charlie Hustle: Rest In Power, Willie. RIP, Pete.

[tmay407]

It’s really weird, I looked at 2021 stats when Texas was finally able to open their “brand spanking new ballpark” to the public (post-COVID) and they were 5th in the MLB in attendance. Must be an error in the stats.

Oh, and Oakland was still bottom 2 in attendance by a pretty wide margin.

 

[Coupé It]

 

[Benny Hinn]

This **** is getting out of hand now.

He’s not going to Detroit.

These dudes posting for clicks now Arte wouldn't do this if his life depended on it

 

[cedric ceballos]

I am a little confused as to why you chose those two games to try to argue that attendance is a problem.

You chose a random Tuesday night Diamondbacks game against one of the worst teams in all of baseball. They had a good team come into town a few days later for a weekend series and you know what the series drew? An average of 32k+.

And then you chose a random Wednesday Rangers game against the A's? Those two teams didn't win as many games combined as the Dodgers did. That's as s**t of a matchup as possible. That new stadium smell can only mask the stench of that matchup so much.

And it's a well documented fact that attendance across the league was upin 2023 (another reason its confusing why you picked a 2022 game). A nearly 10% attendance boost is a pretty big number. Attendance hadnt been this high in 7 years.

Because a lot of times these owners push the talking point about how they need a new stadium in order to draw fans. As if a new stadium is supposed to magically get fans to overlook the crap on field product. There was some Rangers games from this past season where they were drawing less than 20k. I could pick games with better attendance. But there’s more games with bad attendance for alot of these teams.

The Rangers and Orioles are an exception in that attendance picked up as the season progressed. But there’s some early season games where the ballparks were empty. Moreso the Orioles. Weekend series are inevitably going to have more fans, but some of these teams are struggling to draw against good teams as well on most weeknights.

But all that being said. All I’m trying to point out is that attendance issues aren’t just an isolated Oakland thing and that aside from being able to successfully get a new ballpark, a lot of these teams aren’t much different than Oakland. It’s about a good 1/3 of MLB teams who have attendance issues in some capacity.

 

[cedric ceballos]

It’s really weird, I looked at 2021 stats when Texas was finally able to open their “brand spanking new ballpark” to the public (post-COVID) and they were 5th in the MLB in attendance. Must be an error in the stats.

Oh, and Oakland was still bottom 2 in attendance by a pretty wide margin.

Oh I know it was a bit of a reach. I was expecting that counterpoint from someone because the Rangers did draw well in 2021 in terms of tickets sold. But let’s be real. The place looked empty on most nights later in 2021 and for good chunks of 2022. I didn’t necessarily mind though. Was getting those Balconies speakeasy seats for $80-100 for a various weeknight games once they were out of contention in 2022.

 

[g-time]

Those early season games usually have lower attendance during the week. School is still going on and most families aren’t going in the middle of the week beginning of the season. That’s why when you head into the summer months, attendance usually picks up as the season progresses as well.

 

[Nike Jordan]

The A's are going to move to a city where the WNBA team is more popular than them.

 

[raider5]

The Rangers averaged over 31k/game this year and the Diamondbacks averaged over 24k/game…compared to the A’s in dead last at just over 10k. Next closest was 4,100 more than that. But yea, flex your selective stats from previous years.

The Rangers ran over 3MM fans for something like 3 or 4 seasons straight back in the early 10s (spanning those two WS seasons) when they were playing in an outdoor stadium with temps getting into the 110s for half of the home games.

It’s almost like you don’t realize there’s already an entire year (or really years) worth of data readily available to draw off of to show the lack of fan support.

i honestly dont know the answer to this, but isn’t viewership of baseball down? i think i read a 5-10% decrease in World Series viewership.

That would have me more concerned for the longevity of baseball. I don’t know if the current ownership in MLB and Manfred are more worried about the present than they are about the future.

 

[migu420]

Noone questions as to WHY fan support for the fisher athletics has dwindled, and blame it on the customers, instead of the business. This whole thing was orchestrated to ensure the mlb has some sort of power over the cities they inhabit, thereby increasing their chances of longevity. How dare the customers of a business choose to not invest in a product more than the business owners! If you want to call out incoming revenue, as a point to why they don't spend money on resigning layers, you can point to the athletics ownership treatment of the minor league players. They don't want to spend/invest money, and its so obvious that any other argument is kinda moot. Who knows, maybe if they did, it would be easier to get people to attend games? GENIUS!

 

[Bantz Lord T]

I feel for Oakland fans and I understand ownership has been terrible but ya’ll didn’t show up even when the team was good…

Don’t sugarcoat it, man. These are all the seasons they were competitive in the last 20 years. Most of these were playoff runs, too. A lot of them division wins. To win 97 wins back to back seasons and finish 24th/27th is embarrassing. 2 years of great baseball. Fans didn’t show up. Over 20 seasons, they’ve shown us that they just don’t support the team no matter what. 3 playoff home games a year don’t make up for that

96 wins, 18th in attendance
91 wins, 19th in attendance
88 wins, 19th in attendance
93 wins, 23rd in attendance
94 wins, 27th in attendance
96 wins, 23rd in attendance
88 wins, 24th in attendance
97 wins, 27th in attendance
97 wins, 24th in attendance
86 wins, 29th in attendance

 

[migu420]

The team was good because they invested in analytics to maximize the value of cheap players. Once those players were recognized as solid players, they ended up on other teams. ALL OF THEM, every single all star. For the past 20 years, they've not invested money into the team, just to save money. Noone can even count the last 2 years, when it was more than obvious to anyone who follows the A's, or anyone who watches baseball what they were doing. They just ran out of luck on cheap players, and analytics has caught up to them.

 

[Bantz Lord T]

The team was good because they invested in analytics to maximize the value of cheap players. Once those players were recognized as solid players, they ended up on other teams. ALL OF THEM, every single all star. For the past 20 years, they've not invested money into the team, just to save money. Noone can even count the last 2 years, when it was more than obvious to anyone who follows the A's, or anyone who watches baseball. They just ran out of luck on cheap players, and analytics has caught up to them.

Ok but those teams were still good. A few of those teams almost won 100 games yet couldn’t put people in the stands. What else does the team need to do to get your interest?

All I’m hearing is excuses and finger pointing. Sounds to me like the people and city of Oakland didn’t hold up their end of the bargain either.

 

[N41D]

IDC what the ownership situation is - you can’t just flat out not show up and then be upset when a team moves.

Oakland’s lost two teams in 5 years. It ain’t just on team ownership, man.

 

[migu420]

All it took was investing a little into a product. What your saying is even though they trade all your favorite players, let the stadium run into disrepair, and then raise prices, we should be happy cause they were a scrappy team? Oh, but then they trade the players that made them a scrappy team, year after year. My family did go to a bunch of games, so im not sure what excuses there are for others. The reason we aren't anymore should be blatantly obvious, lol.

 

[g-time]

They invested little and traded away guys because fans still didn’t come out like they should when the product was good. I feel for the diehards that routinely showed up, I really do. But it’s on the fans as much as ownership. They played equal parts.

 

[N41D]

“We didn’t go to games because they didn’t invest”

But when they were damn good folks still didn’t go.

Who cares HOW they got good? They were good for a good stretch. And people still didn’t go.

 

[Benny Hinn]

That stadium is dump though. It's no coincidence that the 2 teams the city lost played at that dump.

See the current Sacramento Kings for what happens when you have an owner who is willing to spend and get a new arena. Arco arena was a dump in the middle of nowhere. Now they got the whole city behind them. Plus the Beam was genius marketing.

 

[migu420]

When the warriors played in Oakland, they sold tickets. But investing in a product, like any business, pays dividends. They've built something nice over there, the whole area. That connecting tunnel to old town is cool, kinda helps captures the soul and culture of the area. Wpulda been cool to have that in Jack London square. At least they can still have the funding for the infrastructure.

 

[651akathepaul]

I know retro has been hot for a while, but here's your reminder to grab A's gear while you can. Cop a shirt or 2 for nostalgia.

Edit: ironically, I guess the profit goes to the **** ownership, but extenuating circumstances, I suppose.

 

[Dark Brandon]

Ok but those teams were still good. A few of those teams almost won 100 games yet couldn’t put people in the stands. What else does the team need to do to get your interest?

All I’m hearing is excuses and finger pointing. Sounds to me like the people and city of Oakland didn’t hold up their end of the bargain either.

A’s brass claimed they wanted Howard Terminal, which would have been ideal because it’s waterfront and much closer to downtown than the coliseum which is basically next to the airport. Oakland officials said ok but we want affordable homes built near the stadium. That’s where, supposedly, the negotiations broke down because A’s brass wanted to build a shopping plaza and not affordable homes.

City of Oakland came to the table, wanted to negotiate and work with the team. It’s the team that negotiated in bad faith by making all the demands and not wanting to concede anything.

 

[GreenNGold89]

They invested little and traded away guys because fans still didn’t come out like they should when the product was good. I feel for the diehards that routinely showed up, I really do. But it’s on the fans as much as ownership. They played equal parts.

We blaming the fans for them trading players? Yeah alright.

If we blaming fans, sounds like the Marlins, TB, Baltimore, Pit, KC, Cleveland, Detroit, White Sox, and others should all be relocating too.

Oakland raised over $400 million to get the ballpark done for the A's. The raiders and A's situations are very different, but y'all stick to your ESPN headliners.

 

[xxpizzo]

Did not want to see him goto Atl

 

[g-time]

If you can’t understand what I, Bantz Lord T and others have been saying in regards to the A’s, that’s on you and maybe you’re part of the bigger issue

 

[tupac003]

 

[migu420]

The theme seems to be we shouldve gone no matter what. I think the big disconnect between real As fans amd everyone else is the fact we've gone through decades of seeing our favorite players traded to save a buck, all of them. My first As experience was when Ricky left for NY, I remember when he came back was one of my favorite baseball moments. That and seeing the Ecoli-seum packed with the tarps off in 2013 with my kids and my parents and vogts walkoff.