MLB Attendance Declining

Too many teams are like the corpse flower - they bloom once every 10 years, then all the draft picks they accumulated via tanking hit free agency and they stink for another eight to repeat the process.

 

Twelve MLB stadiums opened for the first time between 2000 and 2009. Those stadiums have reached the second phase now, where there aren't as many people going just because of the spectacle of the stadium. They want a winner, too, and if they can't have both, they're not going to pay the prices.

 

So does Atlanta.

 

Rotisserie baseball + cable/satellite packages + personal computers + postmodern analytics.

All of these things cut into local team fan loyalty.

And MLB, like every other form of entertainment, is competing with every other form of entertainment.

 

This October will mark 25 years since I watched a game first pitch to last out (Game 5, 1993 World Series).

 

If anyone had told me 20 years ago that I can't sit through an entire MLB game, I would have said they were nuts. Well, here we are.

 

For all the complaints about the pace and breaks of MLB games, the NFL is worse. Plus you have more drunken/brawling fans, worse weather and much higher ticket prices.

Forget all the political B.S. about the national anthem ... NFL attendance is due for a swift decline due to a poor fan experience.

 

I honestly don't understand why anyone goes to an NFL game. That sport is so much better on TV. Baseball, at least it's usually warm.

 

My all-time apologist, Michael Kay, on the profusion of high-priced empty seats in the new Yankee Stadium:

"The fans must be in the restaurant."

 

Any time I have seen the new Yankee Stadium on TV, which is of course a lot, I have never seen anyone in the seats behind home plate except scouts.

 

It is much too expensive.
Even as a lifetime sports fan, there is a certain point at which you just say 'I'm not willing to pay that much.'
Admission, parking and concessions are too much when taken in total.
Plus, many of us need to make a trip out of it. I live 3-to 4-hour one-way drive to nearest MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL venues. If I want to go see a sporting event, I'm lo0king at gas, additional meals, almost certainly a hotel stay, other incidental travel costs and killing most of two full days.

The older I get, the more I realize it's just not worth it.
Saw Yankees at Angels and the A's against ? about three-four year years ago. That is my last attendance at a pro sporting event, and I'm not sure when I'll go again.
And the game in Oakland was only because we were in the area for a wedding that weekend anyway.

 

And the idiot Marlins Man.