Worst Opening Night crowd in over ten years

DMZ · April 3, 2006 at 7:37 pm · Filed Under Mariners 

1995 – 34,656
1996 – 57,467
1997 – 57,586
1998 – 57,822
1999 – 51,656
2000 – 45,552
2001 – 45,911
2002 – 46,036
2003 – 45,931
2004 – 46,142
2005 – 46,249

2006 – 45,515

Comments

78 Responses to “Worst Opening Night crowd in over ten years”

  1. Jack Howland on April 4th, 2006 10:44 am

    #48 – The real measure here should be demand for tickets. Up until perhaps last year, previous Opening Days sold out well in advance, which indicated a demand exceeding supply. Without the seating capacity restriction, the M’s would have sold more 46,000 tickets in those years.

    This is exactly the point! For all we know, opening day ticket demand could have exceeded 100K at some point in time. We don’t really know the demand loss because we have nothing to base it on when the event is sold out. It is incorrect to say that the difference in lack of interest is simply a handful of seats when you look at it this way.

  2. Nick on April 4th, 2006 10:47 am

    Imagine if you have sex with your wife, and then she says, “That’s the worst sex we’ve had in over ten years.” In the morning, you check the sex-o-meter that you keep bedside and find that 1) she’s including a five-year period when your member was approximatley 25% larger (i.e., a “Kingdome”) and 2) that while last night’s performance was actually rated lower than any other in the past 7 years, it’s only 0.85% less than the mean performance over the same period.

    You might think the use of the adjective “worst,” while factually true, was an unnecessary (or perhaps hurtful) overstatement, right?

  3. tangotiger on April 4th, 2006 11:01 am

    My Andruw Jones example in post #44 is the same thing as what Derek did. The *headline* is what made the presentation poor. It’s spin.

    I completely agree that it’s *demand* that should be measured, and that if you sellout, it’s different if you sellout with 20,000 waiting and with 2 people waiting. Saying that you didn’t sellout, while in previous years saying you’d have tons of people waiting, is highly statistically significant. *That* would be a great story.

    For a non-Seattle fan, I have no idea what the headline is supposed to represent, other than what it represents: a true mole hill statement that was given mountain status.

  4. West Coast King on April 4th, 2006 11:03 am

    2002 – 46,306

    2005 – 46,249

    2006 – 45,515

    How interesting? These numbers say that the Mariners had more people on Opening Day last year then in 2002, the year after they won 116 games. Wow! Those signings of Sexson and Beltre must have been really exciting to fans after the M’s lost 90 plus games in 2004. I was there last year, and the crowd was pretty pumped. And the two homers by Sexson only helped fuel the fire. Too bad it didn’t last past the first game.

    I was there yesterday, and the crowd was just dead. Maybe it was the lack of sunshine and home run power early on by the Mariners, which was different then the year before. The crowd got going after K-Jo’s blast, but it was all over after the M’s had the bases loaded with no outs and couldn’t score a run. The home run in the ninth by Petagine was shocking. I think fans were more stunned then excited. Most people figured it was over after the Angels took the lead in the ninth. Hopefully, the Petagine homer will encourage fans to stick around. But probably since the M’s lost anyways, it’s going to take more to change the morale of the fans.

    I also noticed the unusally long lines for souveniors, food, and the bathrooms (some of which were out of order). It just seemed like the staff was unprepared. Add that to the fact that it was $5 for garlic fries and $6 for pizza, and I didn’t spend a dime in the ballpark. I had no desire to fight the crowds in the Team Store after the game, but I’m pretty sure it was a nightmare in there as well.

    Hopefully annoying things like this won’t continue to fester in the ballpark.

  5. Nick on April 4th, 2006 11:04 am

    What makes it disingenuous is that it would have been just as “factual” to say “Opening Night Crowd Just About the Same Usual.” Worst = hyperbole when the variance is so tiny.

    Admit the error and move on.

  6. Jack Howland on April 4th, 2006 11:09 am

    54 – The Mariners added seating capacity since 2002.

    55 – Weren’t you the guy who implied that we shouldn’t bring Guadado into the game in the 9th yesterday because we needed him to save the game?

  7. Rain Delay » M’s drop opener to Halo’s, 5-4 on April 4th, 2006 11:14 am

    […] Yesterdays home opener, was not a sell-out. The USS Mariner is reporting that last nights attendance was the Worst Opening Night in 10 years with 45,515 through the gate. […]

  8. West Coast King on April 4th, 2006 11:14 am

    54 – The Mariners added seating capacity since 2002.

    Let me correct myself first. The numbers should be 46,036 fans in 2002 and 46,259 fans in 2005. I guess I didn’t think about the extra seating capacity. If the M’s had it back in 2002, I’m sure they would have had more fans on Opening Day then in 2005.

  9. wabbles on April 4th, 2006 11:17 am

    Anyway, my original comment still stands. Statistical nuances aside, this does not bode well for the team. And I remember Opening Day 1977.

  10. DMZ on April 4th, 2006 11:21 am

    Worst is a factual statement, just like “first”. If you want to argue there should be a qualifier, or whatever, that’s your thing, but it was the worst in a long time.

    I still don’t understand why there’s this assumption that I was trying to imply something, much less that there’s a deceptive connotation implied. There’s nothing there except dates and numbers.

  11. pdb on April 4th, 2006 11:26 am

    People. Take a deep breath, and repeat after me.

    It was a list of attendances.
    It was a list of numbers.
    It was nothing more than that.

    The headline was a factual statement based on the list of numbers; any inference there is brought to the table by the reader, not the writer. It is true to say that yesterday’s attendance was the “worst” in 10 years, based on the information in the post itself.

    Can we please move on to something, y’know, important now?

  12. pdb on April 4th, 2006 11:26 am

    yeah, what DMZ said.

  13. tangotiger on April 4th, 2006 11:39 am

    pdb: some people are enjoying this party. You can leave if you like, but why tell us the party is over? Do I need to quote Belushi?

    DMZ: The complete lack of text surrounding the numbers, other than the headline and the bold line (which was surrounded by extra space) was a scream “look at me!”. As presented, it’s nothing but a mole hill. Perhaps we are making a mountain of it, but given the context of the rest of the wonderful site, the expectation is that a mole hill would never be presented here.

    Accompanying text, like “we didn’t sell out, while in other years we’d be turning back 10,000 people at the gate” would tie-in with the headline.

    I stand by my Andruw Jones example as being equivalent to the lead-in. The lead-in is nothing but a trivial factual headline and list that is given incredible prominence on a highly visited and respected site.

    Again, who would claim a .300, .310, .301, .303, .299 line represents anything at all of significance? Factual does not mean clear.

  14. DMZ on April 4th, 2006 11:42 am

    We present mole hills all the time here. I wrote a whole post about a fricking’ Bugs Bunny cartoon.

  15. tangotiger on April 4th, 2006 11:56 am

    That was a mountain!

    Derek, you seem to be wearing the wrong glasses. That post will live longer than some people’s lives. You turned coal into diamond with that one.

  16. Grizz on April 4th, 2006 12:00 pm

    Derek’s previous post stated:

    There was some context for the “Worst” headline.

    Unfortunately, unless Jeffrey Wigand now works in the M’s ticket office, any sort of data concerning the actual demand for Opening Day tickets over recent years will remain out of the public eye. Sort of like UZR.

  17. Grizz on April 4th, 2006 12:02 pm

    Derek’s previous post stated:

    Announced attendance was 45,515. The Mariners didn’t sell out. I can’t remember the last time that happened.

    There was some context for the “Worst” headline.

    Unfortunately, unless Jeffrey Wigand now works in the M’s ticket office, any sort of data concerning the actual demand for Opening Day tickets over recent years will remain out of the public eye. Sort of like UZR.

  18. Karen on April 4th, 2006 12:06 pm

    West Coast King said:
    April 4th, 2006 at 11:03 am
    […]I was there last year, and the crowd was pretty pumped. And the two homers by Sexson only helped fuel the fire. Too bad it didn’t last past the first game.

    I was there yesterday, and the crowd was just dead.

    I’ve seen this comment a lot on various other message boards, particularly from Red Sox and Yankee fans. They don’t seem to understand that the typical Mariners fan doesn’t froth at the mouth, scream incessantly all game long, or spontaneously jump up and do a happy dance in the aisle. Rarely seen, Mariners-colors face or body paint…

    We just sit and sip our Starbucks coffee, watch the game, and try to chat with our neighbors over the constant din of the PA system. And if the team actually does something worthy of excitement, we DO show excitement.

    No wonder the crowd was dead most of the time last night… 😉

  19. beckya57 on April 4th, 2006 12:42 pm

    I’m hoping this is an omen. I’ve been saying for the last several years, as long as M’s fans turn out in droves for a lousy team, the owners will save money and give them a lousy team. (See Cubs, Chicago.) If attendance finally crashes this year, maybe ownership will get the message and start recruiting better players.

  20. Evan on April 4th, 2006 12:50 pm

    Factual does not mean clear.

    No more than unclear means disingenuous.

    If I say that the attendance was the worst in 10 years, that’s all I’ve said. I’ve told you nothing about the size of the variance or the significance of the reduction.

    Inference is always the fault of the inferrer.

  21. MedicineHat on April 4th, 2006 1:09 pm

    Boycott afte one game? No, I didn’t say that, or infer it….lol. What I said was, one of the onyl ways fans have to show their displeasure of the product is not to go. Some fans show it after one game, I guess. Some after 5 years, in the case of the Cubs, they don’t show it. They keep accepting a bad product. Probably for the reasons you mention….good atmosphere and entertainment. Me, I’m not entertained by bad baseball. That’s what the Mariners have given us over the past year, year to two years. I’ll go when Felix pitches to see good pitching. I’ll go when the good clubs come to town to see good baseball. I won’t go to most games, though. Not until the product they put on the field on a day to day basis improves to “playoff contention caliber.”
    The Mariners are not playoff contention caliber…and I didn’t just figure that out after one game.

  22. msb on April 4th, 2006 1:25 pm

    I’m hoping this is an omen. I’ve been saying for the last several years, as long as M’s fans turn out in droves for a lousy team, the owners will save money and give them a lousy team. (See Cubs, Chicago.) If attendance finally crashes this year, maybe ownership will get the message and start recruiting better players.

    that is two separate issues. They spend money, they don’t always spend money on ‘better players’

  23. tangotiger on April 4th, 2006 1:30 pm

    Evan, it was poorly presented by Derek and poorly interpreted by some of us.

    Derek is a gifted writer, and I (as I’m sure many others did) took his presentation (the headline, the bolding, etc) with the lack of commentary as a commentary.

  24. zzyzx on April 4th, 2006 1:45 pm

    Karen – I’ve attended quite a few M’s games over the years including every opening day since 96. The crowd was dead.

    DMZ – did you influence the Bugs Bunny clip being shown on the DiamondVisiony thing?

  25. Karen on April 4th, 2006 3:25 pm

    I guess that would be “deader than normal”, eh, zzyzx? 😉

  26. Dave in Palo Alto on April 4th, 2006 4:32 pm

    WINNER! Greatest disparity between number of posts and worth of commentary.

  27. Dave in Palo Alto on April 4th, 2006 4:33 pm

    I.e., commentary contained within the posts.

  28. dw on April 4th, 2006 5:42 pm

    WINNER! Greatest disparity between number of posts and worth of commentary.

    Think of it as a Turn Back The Clock thread, back to the days of the Usenet and low signal-to-noise.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.