Mets Phony Attendance Numbers

Thanks to Metswalkoffs for tipping me off to this story I had missed. Filip Bondy must read the Mets Police (I take credit for everything) – he wrote a nice article about the phony attendance figures they announce. Over on the left scroll down the archives to April and you’ll see a few postings about that – as the mainstream media knows, bloggers are a bunch of kooks who never write anything meaningful, right?

Anyway a month later, Bondy writes:

The Mets have been adding pretend fans in tens of thousands, each and every night. At their last two games, announced attendances of 51,489 and 47,093 weren’t just exaggerations. They were dreamy fabrications.

I am not a stupid sportswriter. I know that these are supposed to be ticket sale numbers, not an exact turnstile count, and that there inevitably are some no-shows. But the Mets would require a 40% no-show rate to make this believable, and their crowd is working class. Very few Met fans are going to buy expensive tickets and then watch the game on television.

I was at these two games and personally witnessed entire, vast regions of the upper deck devoid of life. This is a stadium that seats 55,601. There were no more than 35,000 fans in the park on Monday, and no more than 25,000 on Tuesday.

A 40% no show rate would be incredible. The Mets Police are attending tonight’s game with camera in hand to do some research and will report on Friday. I hope to see Fred Wilpon there rooting on his Brooklyn Dodgers.

Tangent: when they first did Jackie Robinson night, why didn’t the Dodgers wear B hats at Shea. Fred would’ve loved it. I digress…back to attendancegate.

I do think there are a lot of fans who overbought tickets for whatever reason. Just yesterday I heard of three people who couldn’t give tickets away. In the upper deck I have overheard conversations about people stubhubbing tickets (hey scalping is official now!) or just “eating” tickets.

The weather has been awful and Shea’s not even that nice when it’s 85 and sunny. Of course a smart franchise would have built a retractable dome….

Hit metswalkoffs (and thanks for the heads up guys – bloggers unite!)
http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/