Why do (many) sports teams lie about attendance?
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- Опубликовано: 9 июн 2024
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Chapters:
0:00 This is VERY common, widespread
3:48 Definition of 'ATTENDANCE'
4:28 Paid Attendance = Tickets Sold
6:45 Announced Attendance is worthless
8:22 Why can't we just have ACTUAL attendance?
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Until the 1990s, the NL would report attendance as actual people in the ballpark, actual turnstile count. The AL was tickets sold. Yes, the 2 leagues were different and even had their own umpiring crews and commissioners who were under the MLB commissioner before interleague play began.
Sellout =/= attendance either.
Announced attendance is the “trust me bro” of this whole thing lmfao
exactly
I have a few unique examples. The Final Four. Saturday Night when all 4 teams are being represented the domes are at capacity. However, the championship game is probably 75% full, because fans of the 2 teams that didn't advance go home. Since their tickets are often from corporations or the schools there are stipulations that they cannot resell the tickets. Also, I have been to college football games around Thanksgiving, the student sections are completely empty, this would account for thousands of empty seated that cannot be resold. This is not every situation, but some of the unique situations.
Nebraska Huskers football boosters have regularly baught up any unsold tickets to home games so they can continue their sellout streak claims even though the Football program has been in disrepair for quite some time now
I came to the comments to say this. I've been to many games over the last 6 years that are called "sellouts" with 20% of the stands empty.
They'll literally sell unsold seats to boosters for like $1.
The giants were great at announcing sellouts during their world series run. There were ALWAYS empty seats in upper left field but they announced a sellout because they had a so called sellout streak going
I recall back about 20 years ago, some Blackhawks games before Kane anf Toews arrived going to games where they announced like 10,000, but in reality was probably no more than like 6-7,000
Yup I remember. Same thing with the Sharks right now, weekday games have no more than 7,000 but announced attendance is usually around 11,000.
For 25 years, I was in charge of the light rail operations serving NFL and MLB venues. It was critical for us to have accurate attendance figures so we could effectively plan for future games. This was used to create a gate percentage ratio as we had hyper accurate ridership numbers. The NFL team was very transparent and gave me their actual turnstile numbers. I could tell as my number was different than what was in the paper the next day. The MLB franchise was the exact opposite. They guarded their numbers and told me that they couldn’t trust that the real numbers wouldn’t get to the press. Very frustrating as we moved A LOT of fans for them. 650,000 over 81 games when they opened their new ballpark years ago. 15-18,000 per game for NFL.
The most infamous one is WWF Wrestlemania 3 in 1987 at the Pontiac Silverdome. They always claimed 93,173. Yet later on in the past few years they’ve said it was actually about 78,000.
According to ESPN's "MLB Attendance Report - 2023", the A's average home attendance was the lowest in MLB (surprise!) at 10,275 with the Marlins second last at 14,355. Though ESPN doesn't tell us whether these figures are paid tickets or actual butts in seats, I would think paid tickets is more likely as it will almost certainly be higher since season ticket holders or others who bought tickets yet didn't go to the game are not in attendance, yet presumably everyone who is at the ballpark either bought the ticket themselves or someone bought it for them. Seriously, did the A's or Rays draw anywhere close to these numbers on average last season if you take a look at pictures of the stands during games...?
As someone who attended over 200 games at Citi Field during the first six seasons of its operation (2009-2014), the Mets mysteriously never provided a paid attendance total below 20K - 20,191…20,753…etc. - even as there were several weeknights when there were clearly barely more than 5,000 fans, if that many, in the ballpark.
Felt like an insult to any perceptive individual’s intelligence.
Teams have to lie about attendance to prevent relocation threats.
Or… they lie about numbers to facilitate relocation threats. I’ve seen that happen… possibly Columbus Crew with their previous owner.
Though you usually find other ways to suppress attendance… looking at John Fisher amongst many miscreant owners. There are many ways to tank franchises.
But you usually jack up attendance to try to increase the ad rates, as someone else here mentioned.
They always use paid attendance. Never the actual number of fans.
no, they always used "announced attendance" which is... whatever they feel inclined to announce.
@brodiebrazil I use to work at Petco Park and could tell when they inflated their numbers during their bad years.
My sister worked in ad Sales. The gate attendance was very important. If the venue doesn’t meet real eyeballs the rate rate falls
I have Edmonton Elks season tickets in the CFL and they would claim that 24,000 people were at the game, when you could clearly tell that it was like 15,000
I am offended by the term "Elks." They should change it to "Wokes." How about "Non-binary, gender-neutral, individuals"? So 2024 Canada.
@@purplesprigs I don't care for the name change either, but it's not getting changed back
You’re acting just the same as the people you don’t like. You’re no better than the wOkEs you hate. In fact, you might be worse considering you brought this up unprompted and it has NOTHING do with OP’s comment or the video.
@@purplesprigsMeanwhile our Oilers are celebrated and Alberta is proud of oil lol
That name change was designed to achieve 'all-inclusiveness' was it not? If that was, indeed, the case, then why have the Elks closed off the upper levels of their stadium?
How many of those who lobbied for the name change have become Elks season ticket holders? I'll bet the answer to that question is a big round circle!
I gave up when I was a kid, giving a dam about the attendance figures. Let’s face it.. teams learn from politicians… and they are notorious for making the numbers out to be what they want them to be… there is a joke in the accounting industry… a good accountant can make a major profit look like a major loss on paper… it’s pretty much what they are doing here.
It happens in every sport. Some clubs report checked tickets, that is people who actually came to the game, and others report tickets sold, that is the number of tickets that were sold before the match and on Matchday regardless of how many people actually came. Neither number is technically inaccurate.
The Brewers do a bunch of ticket giveaways through a grocery store and gas station chain. Like half of the upper deck is reserved for over 50 games. They've been good, but its a little hard to believe their numbers sometimes.
I think the day I figured out attendance was a lie was maybe about 15 years ago, I took my then 6 month old daughter to her first baseball game, it was a late season game between the Padres and Diamondbacks who were tied for last place in the division with less than 2 weeks to go in the regular season. It was a 12 noon start on Méxican Independence Day and if there was 2,000 fans total I’d be shocked, there was no traffic, parking issues in Downtown San Diego but the “official attendance” was 16,000?
A key reason I love going to A's games is that there are no lines for anything. If I want a hot dog, I can grab one between innings and be back in my seat without missing a pitch.
Then they close everything, and you’re stuck in line in the concourse.
What line?
Right Now!!! However that wasn’t the case when they were having their good years. Such as 2012-2014, 2018-2019, the lines stretched for blocks, the BART bridge was always packed, concession stands were always busy.
Yeah, when the Yanks, Bosox, Angels, or Giants were in town.
The St Cardinals definitely lied last season! “The best fans in MLB” saw their first losing season and didn’t show up to games in the 2nd half but the attendance numbers say otherwise.
I remember it was tickets sold and that included season ticket holders. It has always been that way for a long time. Attendance announced is more recent. Back before cable took over MLB's TV if the Dodgers sold 80% or better we could watch them on our local station Channel 5 KTLA.
I've noticed this most recently in NASCAR races. I've noticed how many older sponsors have left the sport. Food for thought.😮😊
YES! I agree! Attendance should be the number of people that are in the stadium, arena, etc. Tickets sold should be just that and not equal paid attendance. However, paid attendance could come into play when talking about media personnel, staff and whatnot that do not hold a ticket and would not pay to attend the game. But, I completely agree, give us the count of ticket holders (paying or non-paying) that are actually at the game.
It's interesting now-a-days with RUclips and Twitch (and I'm sure other sites) where you can see actual numbers of how many people are watching. With many shows, that used to be on cable TV, now on RUclips you can see what their audience numbers usually are every day. Most shows seem to be thrilled with their numbers, even when it seems like a smaller amount. We're so used to hearing, "millions of people are watching," when in reality it's in the 100,000s. From the announced attendance perspective, when I'm at a Brewer's game their announced attendance seems fairly reasonable. Maybe they're an outlier or I just don't know how to judge how many people are in the stadium?
The Giants lied for years just to keep their sold out streak alive even though there were many empty sections in left field. You'll see more empty seats this year while they'll announce 30k when it's actually in the low 20s
Brodie, love your show. You have the radio voice mann. 👍
I appreciate that! thanks for being here
Alternative facts on crowd size
20 months ago… I sought the right ticket for a Mariners game, looked via the league site, it looked like a particular holiday Saturday would be half full.
I get there… 10% to maybe 15% of their 47,000-seat ballpark was filled. I did end up looking at a couple sites shilling tickets for that game. The Mariners announced half full.
In other words, the brokers are propping up teams. In other words, John Fisher doesn’t give a rat’s posterior if Vegas hates him, because he’s going to make money in Vegas regardless. How f’d up is that?
When it comes to soccer matches outside of the United States, you can actually very well take the attendance number as is, and it’s probably factual. In many countries, you can’t purchase tickets in advance. In countries, like Argentina, for a vast majority of soccer games, you can’t purchase a ticket until you get to the stadium the day of the game and you have to wait in line to get it and then enter.
The 1974 World Football League reported game attendances of 60,000 even though they gave away 45,000 free tickets. This was done to fool potential ticket-buying fans that the product on-the-field was attractive and entice them to open up their wallets.
Back in the late 70’s my dad and older brother had Raiders season tickets I hated it because you couldn’t watch the Raiders on TV unless if it was a true sell out 🤦🏻
As a fan, I don't care about the attendance numbers. As far as I am concerned that is just ownership or the league trying impress the average sports fan and encourage them to come to games. If I have a ticket I have the choice of going or not going. If I was a team owner or some other party with a financial interest, I would be concerned about the revenue stream. Tickets sold, food and beverages, parking, etc. If any of those income streams are being adversely affected by low ticket sales or low attendance, then I would want to know why and what can be done about it. In all likely hood sports teams are fudging the numbers for some sort of perception they are trying to present to other parties for future financial purposes. Thanks.
They are making ticket prices higher by creating false scarcity
I'm going to sound like that old "Get off my Lawn" guy here, so I apologize, but I remember the good old days when the only ticket sales that happened, were done at the ticket booth at the stadium. You remember those days before the internet when, no matter how you perceive it, could have been better times. Just sayin'.
It’s all about corporate profits. Truth never enters the equation unless you’re a team/venue that sells out every game.
Awesome video. Also lie to increase the price of their tickets I imagine year-to-year. Make it seem like a false scarcity, and/or just dump their remaining seats on the 2ndary market to try and sell at even higher inflated rates.
Honestly, the teams better start being careful or dial it back or they'll have an Icarus effect that you touched on how now teams have to keep the lie going. Advertisers, sponsors, etc. may catch on and demand lower rates. Or worse... government intervention. And no one will like that.
nothing new. teams report tickets sold, not actual fans in the stands.
yes, your making to big of a deal!!!tickets sold!!
no matter how many people show up at Michigan Stadium, the announce attendance will always be 110,000+
Minor league baseball teams count everyone at the game. They include eveyone in attendance, everyone olaying and everyone working. Innother words, if you are inside the stadium, you get counted.
You forgot “and include all the free tickets they passed out that didn’t get used.”
Mind you, 15 years ago, it was easy to stand outside what was then PGE Park in Portland for Beavers baseball- at the time, you could easily see inside from 18th Avenue- and calculate what the reported attendance would be. When there were 24 people in the stands, (which would happen most April and May weeknights… and near the end, most weeknights), report about 1,100. 500 on weekends, call it 5,000. They’d probably draw 2-3,000 for Thirsty Thursday and fireworks nights and call it 7,000. The data rarely strayed from this. There were a lot of free tickets that floated around and didn’t get used.
Meanwhile, the turning point for Portland State football was to report 4,000 for a game in the same location 10 years ago, and the Oregonian columnist exposed that the actual count was 800. Gradually, PSU moved their games out to Hillsboro Stadium. They didn’t resort to free tickets. Some people just “formulate”… and hope that it protects ad rates AND ticket prices.
It's just one more thing we can't believe in this day and age.
We gotta go back to commentators making ballpark estimates
Teams just count ticket sales. The Angels have sold a lot of tickets each season but their crowds aren't very big. Arte Moreno only cares about how many tickets he sells. Everyone should stop buying season tickets.
three words = because they can -
With AI, these bogus figures can be easily debunked. All you need is fifth inning panoramas or still shots from the corners, apply a ~7% variation for people in the bathroom or on the concourse buying a beer or a hot dog, and let AI calculate the people to seat density. MLB has been "fudging" (to put it mildly) everything, and thumping their chests about how it's all proprietary information, and we aren't going to share it. You don't have to. Technology will bust your asses eventually. And I realize that all the leagues are guilty of the practice, but Baseball is far and away the worst, trying to survive gross mismanagement with a façade of lies. And this is true of your bookkeeping too. We fans aren't as stupid as you think we are. We'll figure it out...
Too many! The biggest liars in the NHL right now are the Sharks, Ducks, and Sabres.
Questioning the attendance numbers based on a picture of the crowd depends on when said picture was taken. A lot of people show up to events late and a lot of people leave early (particularly if a game starts getting lopsided), a picture taken too early or too late will underestimate the size of the actual crowd.
tickets sold vs asses in the seats. I dont blame the teams. you sell the tickets so you expect the people to come. Not a big deal to me.
Season ticket sales are counted, but(as has happened at many Giants games since the pandemic BS ended), many of those season ticket holders don't actually go to the games
If it is not a requirement or law, why bother announcing anything? Especially when we all know its total BS. "Better for people to assume one is a fool before opening thy mouth and removing all doubt". I guess it comes down to team ego.
Even front offices know that, sometimes, after a sellout streak dies, there sometimes comes a time when they do need to remind people that good seats are available.
That’s actually pretty easy to suss out. When franchises are selling out their games, they don’t buy media time to sell tickets, there’s no BOGO deals, they don’t have to spend money (on ads anyway) to make money. When they start advertising deals, you know they need a crowd.
Parsing nomenclature, ok. Much adu about nothing.