Cleveland outdrew us? Attendance down 13% so far

[Dick Allen]

Statistically, getting crushed early in April has had much more predictive validity, I'll let the statisticians or Hawk Harrelson explain with "you can't win a pennant in April but you can certainly lose one."

 

Since you want to belabour this point, KC is probably out of the AL Central Division race already because you said so, despite their 8-2 start.

For that matter, cross the Indians off too, because they've had a similarly bad stretch of one run losses and are sinking under .500.

 

Nice to know we only have to worry about the Tigers now.

And why did you use a chart that is 2 years old? I looked at last season's chart, in the AL Central the only place where it was cheaper to go to a game was Cleveland. They charged the same amount for beer in KC and a whole extra dollar for a hot dog. The Sox better grab San Antonio before the Royals do.

[he gone.]

Boo.

Close this attendance thread. Let another annoying attendance thread open after this series when we only draw 22,000 a night.

"Why can't this team draw" They have the most wins in baseball and only 22,000 show up?" "Most of those were Red Sox fans"

 

Listen, we aren't the Cubs. We don't have Wrigleyville. I met some friends out who were in from the burbs on Saturday in Wrigley with a postponed game. There were MULTIPLE bars that were at CAPACITY on a 45 degree, 100% raining day.

So don't talk about us not having fans. Those people go to Cubs games as an "event". You go to US Cellular on the same type of day and everything is dead.

 

 

Let school let out, if we are still playing good ball you'll see 22-27,000 on weekdays and 30-35,000 on weekends. And that's fine. I like being able to stretch out and sit in different seats throughout the game.

[Buehrle>Wood]

Guess we're back to this one. I don't get why it strikes such a nerve with sox fans. Or why it's such a sensitive issue people want to shout down people for merely bringing up this key problem that has plagued the franchise for awhile now.

[Jose Abreu]

Oh my god, it doesn't even matter anymore. Revenue is collected from different resources nowadays

[Buehrle>Wood]

Point proven

[OmarComing25]

Oh my god, it doesn't even matter anymore. Revenue is collected from different resources nowadays

+1, it's not nearly enough of a big deal to justify the constant b****ing about it, especially considering it's preaching to the choir here, we all likely go to as many games as we can.

[Jose Abreu]

+1, it's not nearly enough of a big deal to justify the constant b****ing about it, especially considering it's preaching to the choir here, we all likely go to as many games as we can.

Exactly. I'd love to go to every home game, but between school and work, I have to wait until June/July to start going to every series.

[bmags]

+1, it's not nearly enough of a big deal to justify the constant b****ing about it, especially considering it's preaching to the choir here, we all likely go to as many games as we can.

 

Seriously. "Hello sox fans that commit hours a day to talking about the white sox, why do people not care as much as us?"

 

It's not interesting. I'd love to go to a game like last night, filled with dedicated sox fans on the edge of their seats. But I've also had fun at games like July 3rd/4th with lots of kids having fun with their family. Both are great. Baseball is fun again, regardless.

[Buehrle>Wood]

And again and again. Theres more batching about talking about attendance than actual b****ing about the attendance at this point. If you don't find the topic interesting, cool. Not sure why you post. I think you care, it's just a weird sensitive issue for Sox fans. Why, I don't know.

 

I admittedly want better attendance for selfish reasons. The park is a lot more fun when it's filled, and I go to tons of games.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Buehrle>Wood

[Kyyle23]

And again and again. Theres more batching about talking about attendance than actual b****ing about the attendance at this point. If you don't find the topic interesting, cool. Not sure why you post. I think you care, it's just a weird sensitive issue for Sox fans. Why, I don't know.

 

I admittedly want better attendance for selfish reasons. The park is a lot more fun when it's filled, and I go to tons of games.

 

 

Now this is a funny thing for you to say

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?s=...t&p=3338732

[Buehrle>Wood]

Now this is a funny thing for you to say

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?s=...t&p=3338732

Woah woah woah. Talking about Hawk is one of my favorite things to do. I find it very interesting. I just find it awful people hate on him. I'll talk about him all day however. Not really sure what comparison you're going for.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Buehrle>Wood

[Kyyle23]

Woah woah woah. Talking about Hawk is one of my favorite things to do. I find it very interesting. I just find it awful people hate on him. I'll talk about him all day however. Not really sure what comparison you're going for.

 

The comparison that you are complaining that people are calling your thread awful, when you did the exact same thing

[Buehrle>Wood]

The comparison that you are complaining that people are calling your thread awful, when you did the exact same thing

You equated the word awful with uninteresting. Those are not synonyms.

[caulfield12]

Part of it goes along with that argument from Cubs fans that no matter whether the White Sox teams are better, they're drawing more attendance (which of course is 40% a component of regional tourism and the historic nature of the stadium, day baseball, Harry Caray, babes in bikinis, yuppies on mobile phones, etc.)

 

So there's that "White Sox fans are more blue collar argument" as well (according to ESPN's Greenberg, there's a split of about 5% more fans attending Cubs games possessing college degrees compared to the Sox), and then there's the prevailing stereotypes about the relative "danger-ness" of the area around USCF, which mostly goes back to the 70's and 1980's. Greg talks about this a lot, for example.

 

Part of it is/was frustration with the original botched design and implementation of the new stadium plan compared to the other new stadiums like Camden Yards that arrived soon thereafter, as well as the complaints about the slant or rake of the upper deck.

 

White Sox fans, over time, have gotten an "inferiority complex" about hearing these same arguments over and over again...and that's one of the reasons the threads are so polarizing, because the arguments are so predictable (and frustrating). Now you have the typical response that "well, stadium attendance is only 15-25% of typical revenue stream now for an MLB team, compared to the 40-60% it comprised in the past." And yet invariably, the local and national baseball media will note the low/er attendance in their game stories about Chicago and this will frustrate fans who ONLY want to focus on the positive start after three years of wandering blindly in the desert.

 

No matter how many times fans write threads about how "family friendly" the stadium is, how much better the experience is (especially on Sundays), how "much more affordable tickets and how many great deals/discounts are currently available," there's that casual fan who felt burned maybe by their experiences from 2007-2009 (much higher prices after the World Series) and then just became apathetic in general because of no playoffs since 2008 and terrible, painful to watch teams from 2013-2015...which nobody wants to talk about or relive either, not when the White Sox have the 2nd best record in baseball and you can legitimately speculate about the Cubs and White Sox in the World Series again for the first time in nearly a decade.

[greg775]

Part of it goes along with that argument from Cubs fans that no matter whether the White Sox teams are better, they're drawing more attendance (which of course is 40% a component of regional tourism and the historic nature of the stadium, day baseball, Harry Caray, babes in bikinis, yuppies on mobile phones, etc.)

 

So there's that "White Sox fans are more blue collar argument" as well (according to ESPN's Greenberg, there's a split of about 5% more fans attending Cubs games possessing college degrees compared to the Sox), and then there's the prevailing stereotypes about the relative "danger-ness" of the area around USCF, which mostly goes back to the 70's and 1980's. Greg talks about this a lot, for example.

 

Part of it is/was frustration with the original botched design and implementation of the new stadium plan compared to the other new stadiums like Camden Yards that arrived soon thereafter, as well as the complaints about the slant or rake of the upper deck.

 

White Sox fans, over time, have gotten an "inferiority complex" about hearing these same arguments over and over again...and that's one of the reasons the threads are so polarizing, because the arguments are so predictable (and frustrating). Now you have the typical response that "well, stadium attendance is only 15-25% of typical revenue stream now for an MLB team, compared to the 40-60% it comprised in the past." And yet invariably, the local and national baseball media will note the low/er attendance in their game stories about Chicago and this will frustrate fans who ONLY want to focus on the positive start after three years of wandering blindly in the desert.

 

No matter how many times fans write threads about how "family friendly" the stadium is, how much better the experience is (especially on Sundays), how "much more affordable tickets and how many great deals/discounts are currently available," there's that casual fan who felt burned maybe by their experiences from 2007-2009 (much higher prices after the World Series) and then just became apathetic in general because of no playoffs since 2008 and terrible, painful to watch teams from 2013-2015...which nobody wants to talk about or relive either, not when the White Sox have the 2nd best record in baseball and you can legitimately speculate about the Cubs and White Sox in the World Series again for the first time in nearly a decade.

 

Basically the White Sox have some disadvantages, but now I think it all boils down to winning. Not many people are going to drive to 35th and Shields, not exactly a tourist destination or a fun destination, to pay 20-30 bucks to park and watch a baseball game. However, if you win win win, they will come. I've changed my mind on that cause of the Royals. They had 35,000 for a Wednesday day game today after 32000 last night. Five or six years ago they would have had 8,000 to 15,000 last night and today. I never thought I'd see it, but right now, KC basically sells out every game cause of last season and the season before. If you win, people will pay anything, do anything, go anywhere. Whether that means the fans will catch the winning fever in June and start packing the Cell or wait til next year after the WS victory remains to be seen. And virtually every fan who goes to Royals games has some sort of Royals attire. Hat, jacket if it's cold, T shirt, jersey.

Edited May 4, 2016 by greg775

[caulfield12]

Basically the White Sox have some disadvantages, but now I think it all boils down to winning. Not many people are going to drive to 35th and Shields, not exactly a tourist destination or a fun destination, to pay 20-30 bucks to park and watch a baseball game. However, if you win win win, they will come. I've changed my mind on that cause of the Royals. They had 35,000 for a Wednesday day game today after 32000 last night. Five or six years ago they would have had 8,000 to 15,000 last night and today. I never thought I'd see it, but right now, KC basically sells out every game cause of last season and the season before. If you win, people will pay anything, do anything, go anywhere. Whether that means the fans will catch the winning fever in June and start packing the Cell or wait til next year after the WS victory remains to be seen. And virtually every fan who goes to Royals games has some sort of Royals attire. Hat, jacket if it's cold, T shirt, jersey.

 

 

It was Kids' Day. Someone said it looked like 9000 buses in the parking lot...so not sure how many of those seats were comped or discounted, but it was a huge attendance turnout, as you mentioned.

 

Even those types of events, if the White Sox gave the tickets away to local schools in their neighborhood and the south/southwestern area of the city....they might fill up some random sections of the upper deck but it wouldn't just be a massive wave of kids like you get when you're in two World Series in a row and won one. That brings about excitement from the parents and teachers/administrators as much as the students themselves to "not miss out" on the opportunity to skip a school day and participate in something cool.

 

Winning is COOL. And being associated with that even from a detached fan standpoint is COOL to young kids. And, in KC, the fans really do feel as if they've become part of the team in a sense, a not inconsiderable home field advantage in tight games.

 

 

 

One of the biggest gripes about White Sox games is "it's not a destination location in terms of fun/eating/drinking/entertainment." Well, the two huge parking lots at Kauffman/Arrowhead are the complete opposite of Wrigleyville...it's sterile and antiseptic and suburban and all concrete, but it's somehow become cool again to even tailgate and "pre-party" for Royals games. It used to be just the Chiefs for 8-10 home games per year, or a little bit on weekends for Royals or Wizards/KC football club games, but now it's something EVERYONE wants to be associated with and tailgating has become a "new baseball tradition" there because of the attendance surge.

Edited May 4, 2016 by caulfield12

[southsider2k5]

Part of it goes along with that argument from Cubs fans that no matter whether the White Sox teams are better, they're drawing more attendance (which of course is 40% a component of regional tourism and the historic nature of the stadium, day baseball, Harry Caray, babes in bikinis, yuppies on mobile phones, etc.)

 

So there's that "White Sox fans are more blue collar argument" as well (according to ESPN's Greenberg, there's a split of about 5% more fans attending Cubs games possessing college degrees compared to the Sox), and then there's the prevailing stereotypes about the relative "danger-ness" of the area around USCF, which mostly goes back to the 70's and 1980's. Greg talks about this a lot, for example.

 

Part of it is/was frustration with the original botched design and implementation of the new stadium plan compared to the other new stadiums like Camden Yards that arrived soon thereafter, as well as the complaints about the slant or rake of the upper deck.

White Sox fans, over time, have gotten an "inferiority complex" about hearing these same arguments over and over again...and that's one of the reasons the threads are so polarizing, because the arguments are so predictable (and frustrating). Now you have the typical response that "well, stadium attendance is only 15-25% of typical revenue stream now for an MLB team, compared to the 40-60% it comprised in the past." And yet invariably, the local and national baseball media will note the low/er attendance in their game stories about Chicago and this will frustrate fans who ONLY want to focus on the positive start after three years of wandering blindly in the desert.

 

No matter how many times fans write threads about how "family friendly" the stadium is, how much better the experience is (especially on Sundays), how "much more affordable tickets and how many great deals/discounts are currently available," there's that casual fan who felt burned maybe by their experiences from 2007-2009 (much higher prices after the World Series) and then just became apathetic in general because of no playoffs since 2008 and terrible, painful to watch teams from 2013-2015...which nobody wants to talk about or relive either, not when the White Sox have the 2nd best record in baseball and you can legitimately speculate about the Cubs and White Sox in the World Series again for the first time in nearly a decade.

 

Too many Sox fans want to have it both ways. They want to complain about attendance and blame everything under the sun for it, but they also don't want anyone to mention attendance to Sox Fans, otherwise how dare they do it.

 

[caulfield12]

I don't blame attendance for the White Sox problem, it's simply a symptom of not winning or getting to the playoffs.

 

They've done a lousy job in terms of talent evaluation (there are exceptions obviously, like Abreu, Sale and Eaton) over the last half decade or so.

 

When you do that, and you have a bottom third (currently) farm system, you have almost no margin for error financially, and that's where the attendance is a legitimate area of concern and consternation.

 

If everything goes perfectly, like in 2005, you can get by with a mid-tier or even third quartile payroll. However, to consistently compete at that level and retain your best young players as well as attracting free agents, you have to possess the resources to do so.

 

 

Part of it's holding onto young players too long (Beckham/Viciedo/Flowers), the other element is not realizing when to cut bait with veterans (Ramirez/DeAza) and then you have a whole slew of players like Gillaspie who really weren't major league starters, at least not on contending teams. Hahn did a terrible job two years ago in the FA market (other than Robertson), but he's 50% redeemed himself with Lawrie, Latos, Jackson, Avila, Navarro and Austin Jackson completely changing the complexion of the team in a positive way for the first time since 2012. In some ways, you can argue being financially stretched forces you into less risky "value" transactions...which can often be a good thing (look at the Red Sox with Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez). On the other hand, you're often left with no chair to sit down in when the big market teams have swooped in and paid premium prices on free agents.

 

Kudos, also, for some of the new players taking so many more walks than we've seen previously with Sox teams...that's been one other major positive effect of the transition away from DeAza/Viciedo/Ramirez. Higher OBP.

 

 

 

Now, BACK TO ATTENDANCE when the number for tonight is announced...

Edited May 5, 2016 by caulfield12

[greg775]

It was Kids' Day. Someone said it looked like 9000 buses in the parking lot...so not sure how many of those seats were comped or discounted, but it was a huge attendance turnout, as you mentioned.

 

Even those types of events, if the White Sox gave the tickets away to local schools in their neighborhood and the south/southwestern area of the city....they might fill up some random sections of the upper deck but it wouldn't just be a massive wave of kids like you get when you're in two World Series in a row and won one. That brings about excitement from the parents and teachers/administrators as much as the students themselves to "not miss out" on the opportunity to skip a school day and participate in something cool.

 

Winning is COOL. And being associated with that even from a detached fan standpoint is COOL to young kids. And, in KC, the fans really do feel as if they've become part of the team in a sense, a not inconsiderable home field advantage in tight games.

 

 

 

One of the biggest gripes about White Sox games is "it's not a destination location in terms of fun/eating/drinking/entertainment." Well, the two huge parking lots at Kauffman/Arrowhead are the complete opposite of Wrigleyville...it's sterile and antiseptic and suburban and all concrete, but it's somehow become cool again to even tailgate and "pre-party" for Royals games. It used to be just the Chiefs for 8-10 home games per year, or a little bit on weekends for Royals or Wizards/KC football club games, but now it's something EVERYONE wants to be associated with and tailgating has become a "new baseball tradition" there because of the attendance surge.

 

You speak the truth.

 

[Buehrle>Wood]

What's the number tonight caufield?

[caulfield12]

14,383, down from last night, somewhat surprising for an ESPN National game after they'd won convincingly the night before. Guess it was the cold weather this time.

 

 

But over 50,000 Red Sox fans in the Chicago region will claim to have attended Big Papi's heroic game...

[fathom]

Why would the game being on ESPN equate to more fans? Like I said earlier, it was freezing today.

[caulfield12]

Maybe I'm the only one, but I always thought it was cool to go to games that were being live broadcast nationally.

 

When I was in university, I was always super-excited when ESPN or ABC would carry the Iowa games.

 

Of course, nowadays having the game on tv is just an excuse NOT to attend, but back in the 80's/early 90's it was still a bigger event.

 

 

I even remember one time getting locked out of Carver Hawkeye Arena in 1989 and Dick Vitale was also stuck....so we had a nice conversation for five minutes or so. I think they were playing Michigan, which was a huge game (not sure if that's the year they won it all on the Rumeal Robinson free throws)...and I was "tutoring" Roy Marble, so I always got to sit behind the bench. Dick Vitale WAS college basketball back then.

 

Now, I guess the cable and pay and satellite tv universe is so diluted, having a game on ESPN doesn't matter to anyone but Brooks Boyer and the marketing department...

Edited May 5, 2016 by caulfield12

[Kyyle23]

Maybe I'm the only one, but I always thought it was cool to go to games that were being live broadcast nationally.

 

When I was in university, I was always super-excited when ESPN or ABC would carry the Iowa games.

 

Of course, nowadays having the game on tv is just an excuse NOT to attend, but back in the 80's/early 90's it was still a bigger event.

 

 

I even remember one time getting locked out of Carver Hawkeye Arena in 1989 and Dick Vitale was also stuck....so we had a nice conversation for five minutes or so. I think they were playing Michigan, which was a huge game (not sure if that's the year they won it all on the Rumeal Robinson free throws)...and I was "tutoring" Roy Marble, so I always got to sit behind the bench. Dick Vitale WAS college basketball back then.

 

Now, I guess the cable and pay and satellite tv universe is so diluted, having a game on ESPN doesn't matter to anyone but Brooks Boyer and the marketing department...

 

Oh yea, sitting outside in 40 degree weather because it is a nationally televised game is totally the same as going to see a nationally televised basketball game

[Y2Jimmy0]

Basically the White Sox have some disadvantages, but now I think it all boils down to winning. Not many people are going to drive to 35th and Shields, not exactly a tourist destination or a fun destination, to pay 20-30 bucks to park and watch a baseball game. However, if you win win win, they will come. I've changed my mind on that cause of the Royals. They had 35,000 for a Wednesday day game today after 32000 last night. Five or six years ago they would have had 8,000 to 15,000 last night and today. I never thought I'd see it, but right now, KC basically sells out every game cause of last season and the season before. If you win, people will pay anything, do anything, go anywhere. Whether that means the fans will catch the winning fever in June and start packing the Cell or wait til next year after the WS victory remains to be seen. And virtually every fan who goes to Royals games has some sort of Royals attire. Hat, jacket if it's cold, T shirt, jersey.

 

 

35th and Shileds is fine. Parking is $20. I'm going Saturday Night for Sale bobble heads and Sale pitching. I'm paying for good seats but I can sit in the UD for $12. That's a steal. It has nothing to do with winning. They are the best team in the AL but its cold, there's nothing to do, it's expensive, they're not for real, it's in a bad neighborhood, blah, blah, blah. The majority of this fan base was pissed that they didn't sign Cespedes but then only put 12,000 in the park for a 1st place team in May. It's a joke.