Well, you got your cool billionaire and your first place team, and Mets attendance is DOWN per Axios.
They are comparing the numbers to 2019, so pre-pandemic.
According to publicly available data delivered by Baseball Reference, 70% of MLB clubs (21 out of 30) have experienced a decline this season and attendance at a league level is down 6% (through Sunday July 17). “If MLB as a whole is down about 6% in tickets sold, that equates to roughly eight million less people going to games,” Lou DePaoli (managing director executive search and team consulting, General Sports Worldwide) said. “That is concerning.”
If Lou’s name is familiar to you he used to the be the CRO of the Mets.
But Lou thinks the Mets do a good job.
“You have to make it about entertainment, so that when you come to a game there is a lot for people to enjoy above and beyond the game,” DePaoli said. The San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves and New York Mets were among the teams he mentioned doing a good job of marketing their games as more than just a game. It is not a coincidence that all three experienced H1 gains over 2019 (up 28.77%, 17.43% and 5.27%, respectively).
So there ya have it. Baseball is back baby!! People love baseball!!
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Did you see the All Star Game ratings were down again? Here’s my take…
For 30 years people like me complained out late starts. And it didn’t matter (to baseball) because Cal Ripken hid the sins. Then McGwire hid the sins. Then the Yankees Dynasty hid the sins. Then Bonds hid the sins.
But along the way, the elder millennials and now Gen-Z came of age…..with little attachment to baseball. My college age son didn’t even know the ASG was on Tuesday until I mentioned it, and he blew it off saying he could name three players. And this is a kid I brought to 15 games a year last decade.
The damage is done. Baseball is like the climate emergency. You can write articles about “well it is summer, of course it is hot!” and you can write about how 6 million (or 7.5 or whatever it was) was great for the ASG because it won the night!
Plus there’s a pandemic and a recession and 8 million other excuses. There always seems to be an excuse.
Baseball IS dying. The baseball mafia is always saying how it is not, but it IS. Will it be gone by 2030? Nope.
But it will lose a lot to fans as Generation X dies…and join boxing and horse racing as sports that used to be huge…..and then it will die off with the elder millennials.
Like the climate emergency, this is 2080’s problem, so why should you or Manfred or Steve Cohen care? Squeeze what you can while you still can. Ads on uniforms! Great! Let’s market Mike Trout for yet another year, this time that will work!
Baseball is back baby…except for the obvious declining numbers and interest. As long as your short term revenue is up….kick the can and let someone else deal with it.
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Anyway, you got rid of the Wilpons. Steve spent the money. The Mets are in first place. So what’s the excise this time? Maybe it’s just that people are no longer interested in baseball. Count me in on that.
