1994: The year I stopped caring about baseball.
I watch baseball more than ever now after playing in the 80s and 90s.
Same thing will happen in the NFL. I’m going to attend more PGA events, most of the players and the league support American values.
Its like football. Was an avid fan for many years, nothing crazy mind you but now it just seems like a tremendous waste of time when I can be out doing other more important things and enjoying life.
Getting too expensive to attend. Parking $$, high priced tickets if you don’t want out in nosebleed right outfield, $20 hamburger, $10 coke.
I had the definite sense after 1994 that the strike was a bridge too far and alienated many fans and that the alienation would be long term, or permanent. Looks like that’s holding true.
I don’t watch baseball because of some long-ago strike. I don’t watch baseball because it’s slow, and dull. Speed it up guys, or you have lost me forever.
I wonder how much local tv coverage has impacted the attendance.
The strike was 25 years ago. The bigger issues are things like the length of the games and the problems small market teams have competing with the rich teams.
I know I'm dating myself but it used to cost $1.75 for a bleacher seat at Fenway Park. I used to go there on my paper route money. For another 50 cents, you got a "grandstand pass" which allowed you to leave the bleachers and enter the grandstand where you could grab any empty seat available (or stand in the back). I usually ended up in the rows right behind the Red Sox dugout by the end of the game as many businessmen would be out of there by the 7th inning. Especially if the Sox were losing, which was common in those days.
I did it up right too. I always purchased the scorecard, which came with a #2 sharpened pencil, and I'd properly score the game, paying attention to every pitch.
In those days, they sold beer right in the stands and they never checked IDs. In fact, the kids selling it was close to my age. So I acquired a taste for beer at Fenway as well. I think it was $1.25 back then.
The only time I go to ball games now is when the company is paying for it. My company has luxury booths in most of the parks around the country but it's not the same. We have to schmooze clients in those luxury boxes and nobody pays much attention to the action on the field.
Last time I want to a MLB ballgame on my dime was around 15 years ago. Even back then, it set me back over $500 taking my wife and two sons. What with the parking, the tickets, the food and the beverages. Adds up quick.
Basically MLB is a corporate thing now.
I do go to minor league games on a regular basis. Was up in Pawtucket a few weeks ago to see a AAA game. That's the way MLB baseball used to be.
The downsizing of stadiums wasn’t a reaction to declining attendance, but an understanding they had overbuilt.
Many of those replaced stadiums were DUAL USE< which was the norm in the 60s and 70s... but football might draw 100k to watch 8 home games a year, baseball would NEVER fill those stadiums in 81 home games.
So, there is a implied cause and effect that they shrunk stadiums because of declining attendance, when in fact, it had many man factors.
As to lower priced tickets? I wish, the Pittsburgh Pirates have stunk up the joint for what 23 out of the last 25 years? or something... but the 2 years they made a wildcard game made them think they can charge $20 bucks or more for the cheap seats to watch one of the most craptastic teams in baseball play....
They have only been above 500 4 times in the last 27 years... and they sure as hell won’t be even close to it this year.
About the only thing good you can say about them this year, is, hey, at least they aren’t the Orioles.
Attendance dropped from 2.5 Million in their best year in the last 27 (2015), to less than 1.5 Million last year... (An interesting side note, they had nearly the same attendance record in their WORST year 2001 where they didn’t even get to 400 but had 2.4 Million in the seats, why? because they opened the new stadium, as they did their BEST year)... and their attendance will likely be around the same as last year.
Yet the cheapest seats were jacked up from under $10 to just under $20 not counting the fees in that brief period they topped 500 a season.. and haven’t come back down in any capacity since.
Owners don’t care... thanks to profit sharing they make 10s of millions a year fielding a joke team... and they aren’t going to change, until MLB forces them to. They will spend the absolute minimum they are required to by their obligations on talent, and pocket everything else.
But that hasn’t caused them to drop their ticket prices one bit that I can see.
What’s ridiculous is the Rangers are already replacing the Stadium they built in 1994.
Hoping that this is not deviant from the topic, but I have not been to an NHL game in quite some time. Can not stand the loud music and sound effects and other things for the ADD crowd that they obviously cater to. And I dare say it is the same thing for MLB and NFL as well.
The last MLB game I attended featured Gaylor Perry on the mound for Seattle, and Carl Yastrzemski in the outfield for the Red Sox at the Kingdome. It’s been a while.
On top of that, younger people don't have the same interests as previous generations. They are less likely to buy houses or cars and need instant gratification. They're not interested in wasting time watching baseball in a stadium.
The decline of ticket sales in some sports is inevitable besides, the customer experience is better elsewhere than the stadium. (I know, lots of disagreement from people on that, but I used to go to a lot of college footballs games back in the day. Today, no thanks, better on TV, at a watch party, a sports bar or at home).
Just my two pesos...
I have always like going to our local minor baseball team when it was the braves. Once in a blue moon we will make the trip to see the Braves. That trip cost a lot for gas, parking, tickets and food...
We like our local hockey team too, we go to about 8 games every year.. Seven more weeks.
I’m fine with baseball flying under the radar and getting smaller. I hope they don’t mess with it too much. I’m fine with autozone or whatever they will call an automated strike zone—as long as it is the zone described in the rules. They haven’t called that in decades.
Freegards
I’ve not noticed any MLB teams folding up operations in one city and moving to a new city so I’d say the league is pretty financially secure.