We can still do shrimp day, right?
Posted on 10/02/2022 5:20:07 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
The Cleveland Guardians have ridden a dominant pitching staff to a division title, their first since the 2018 season.
They’re also an exciting team to watch, with the youngest roster in Major League Baseball that averages just over 26 years old.
They’ve had an outstanding second half as well, going 42-24, which puts them just behind the Houston Astros for best record in the American League.
None of that has helped attract more fans Guardians home games.
This has been a season long issue in Cleveland, extending past attendance into struggles with local television ratings.
At the time, some defended the low attendance figures by saying they weren’t a particularly good team. In theory, that would go a long ways towards explaining the dramatic drop in support.
But it’s hard to play much better than 42-24, clinching your division with several weeks remaining in the season.
That success hasn’t helped matters much.
With six home games left, all against the Kansas City Royals, Cleveland ranks 25th in Major League Baseball in attendance, averaging just 16,819 fans per game:
This sits below even the Reds and Tigers; two moribund teams eliminated from postseason contention months ago. Not to mention the Chicago White Sox, who faded from contention early on.
While the average per game does represent an improvement over their midseason figures, it’s only been a slight increase.
As of late July, Cleveland was averaging 15,025 fans per game, meaning their push towards the playoffs in the second half has resulted in just an 11% increase in season attendance.
Compared to the 2019 season, even the 16,819 figure represents a 22% decrease, despite the 2019 team missing the playoffs entirely and finishing eight games behind the first-place Minnesota Twins.
It’s also well behind the over division winners; the Dodgers lead the league with nearly 48,000 fans per game, the Yankees rank third, Houston seventh, St. Louis second, with the Braves and Mets also in the top six.
While those are larger markets, outside of St. Louis, it’s still a tremendously poor showing for a team that exceeded expectations and easily won their division.
An important Sept. 19 game against the Twins drew just 12,168 fans. Even the most attended game of the series was just 24,449, far below Progressive Field’s capacity.
So if poor attendance isn’t due to poor performance, it certainly seems possible that fans are still upset about the name change enacted before the season.
The history and connection between the organization and fans was developed as the Cleveland Indians, which was mostly unceremoniously discarded when political pressure became too much for team ownership to handle.
There may be other possible explanations, but with many of the previous excuses; i.e. poor weather, or mediocre on-field play falling by the wayside, it seems one of the more likely reasons.
That said, with a home playoff series in Cleveland rapidly approaching, there should be more visible fan support shortly. The Guardians will host all three potential games of a Wild Card series against a to be determined opponent, with any of the possible matchups set up to create an exciting series.
But if even those games don’t sell out, it will raise even more questions about the future of fan support for the Guardians franchise.
No more tires manufactured in the city once known as the Rubber Capitol of the World.
I used to have a next door neighbor who watched baseball. He was an American Indian from Wisconsin, but was a big fan of the Cleveland Indians. I moved away, so I havent spoken to him in 5 years.
The sellout streak was incredible. That place rocked every single night. We won 25 in a row at home at one point.
We can still do shrimp day, right?
The stadium called. They’re all out of fans.
The gates, to keep people from going in, to see the game.
I refuse to call the North Dakota Sioux, the Fighting Hawks. I hate PC.
“Who in the heck are the Cleveland Guardians?”
exactly ... not surprising that interest is so low for such a new team no one has ever heard of ... esp. since it was named for the ultra-leftist Manchester Guardian newspaper in the UK ... what on earth were they thinking?
beats snow tire day
chief wahoo will never die!!
i remember when they were the fighting sioux love the watch their hockey games with UM-Duluth
I live 65 mi from cle and 65 from pitt smack in the middle.
last week the game was not broadcast here.
you had to pay amazon, what horseshit!!
browns blew it today, cant blame chubb
Anyway… all games we attended were PACKED. Fun crowds, too. We even went up to the top row of the bleachers to befriend the Indians’ unofficial drummer John Adams and his wife. Really nice couple. How far this organization has fallen. Really sad…
Overall, the National Hockey League (NHL) is still not very woke…
What a great tagline!! I was a huge Rush Limbaugh fan, but I don’t remember that fabulous line. I miss Rush SO much… 😥
Must be like a home security service
I still remember when Keith Huffer Christiansen, played for the Bulldogs. That goes back a long time. UMD was an independent hockey team at that time.
This isn’t unusual. They’ll pack the house during the playoffs.
They tried to get rid of the Tomahawk Chop. Back in the Jane Fonda days she would do a modified chop where her hand was parallel to the ground and she would move it up and down. Idea was to get people to adopt her new chop and drop the old one. After enough TV coverage of her antics her chop became an embarrassment and she gave up. Did make the real chop more popular than ever. So if Jane Fonda couldn’t stop it, what makes these modern anti chop morons that they can?
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