First, just the facts:
Rays' Attendance Figures
2008 |
2009 |
Change |
|
Average per game = |
22,259 |
23,147 |
+3.8% |
Total attendance = |
1,780,791 |
1,874,962 |
+5.0% |
Ranking (out of 30) = |
26 |
23 |
+3 |
The Recession
First, as you all probably know, the US has been going through a bit of a rough stretch recently, economically-speaking. This recession hit baseball pretty hard this season, with total attendance for all of major league baseball down around 7% from last year. For a look at how it specifically affected every team, take a look at this spreadsheet. You'll notice that the Rays were one of only 8 teams to increase attendance this season, and they had the 5th highest rate of attendance increase in all of baseball. At the same time, the Tampa-St. Pete metropolitan area has been hit extremely hard by the recession (11.3% current unemployment rate; MLB average = 9.6% unemployment rate).
Between 2008 and 2009, there is technically no direct correlation between a team's change in attendance and their city's unemployment rate, but I don't think anyone would argue that the decreased attendance around the league had nothing at all to do with the recession. The lack of a correlation is probably because there are many other factors at play which can influence attendance, like new stadiums, changes in competitiveness, Zack Grienke (really, why else would the Royals have increased attendance this year?), strength of the fanbase, etc. Despite the lack of correlation, having a high unemployment rate can't be a good sign for your team's attendance at games...
Mid-season Changes in Competitiveness
Up until around mid-August, the Rays were well within the hunt for the playoffs at only around 5 games back in the division and a couple back from the Wild Card; however, on August 12th, the Rays fell to 10 games back in the division and their playoff odds were severely diminished. Exactly one month from that day, the Rays were in the midst of that 11 game losing streak that dropped them to 20 games back from the division, eliminating any small glimmer of hope that may have been lurking. Take a look at what happened to our attendance per game average after these two dates:
Attendance/Game changes
(Quick note: this graph starts in mid-May, when our attendance/game average had leveled from its early season fluctuations.)
While these drops in attendance may have been a result of random variation over the course of the season (weekday games, poor competition, etc), we definitely dropped off quite steeply after falling out of contention. If we were in the thick of the Wild Card hunt, would we have drawn less than 20K/game against the Red Sox in early September? Even though it was a weekday series, I highly doubt it.
Pricing Changes
Despite the fact that we only increased attendance a small amount this year, our amount of revenue from the regular season most likely increased by a larger degree. How come?
Prices |
2008 |
2009 |
Percent Change |
Avg. Ticket |
17.23 |
18.35 |
6.5% |
Avg. Premium Ticket |
57.28 |
59.82 |
4.4% |
Beer |
5 |
8 |
60.0% |
Soft Drink |
3.75 |
5 |
33.3% |
Hot Dog |
3.25 |
5 |
53.8% |
Cap |
15 |
18 |
20.0% |
Notice I said regular season. Since we're not in the playoffs, our total team revenue will definitely decrease this year; however, as far as regular seasons go, we're making more than we did last year and probably more than we've made in any regular season in recent memory.
Wrap-Up
I don't have any agenda in presenting the information that I have; I merely wanted to show a couple of attendance-related points that I'd noticed. Yes, it stinks to have attendance as low as we did this - there's no real way around that - but it's very tough to tell what this means about the Tampa-St. Pete area going forward. There are indications that attendance should improve in the future, but then again, there are so many variables at play, it's tough to say with any certainty exactly what our attendance will look like next year. In a similar vein, it's also really tough to say what our attendance this year means for the Rays' payroll going forward. Feel free to interpret the data I've presented on your own and come to your own conclusions. Personally, I'm going to remain hesitantly optimistic about the future. If the economy improves by next season and we start off the year on a hot-streak...well, who knows?
** All data courtesy of Baseball-Reference and Team Marketing Reports.