Down 6.6% from a year ago. SU says consider possible reasons:
- Rainy and cold weather this year. Many rainouts or games played in miserable conditions.
- Chase Headley being DFA’d. Surely, this is a factor.
- Shifts: SU says this is a big deal. Hitters don’t care and still go for their home runs. But it takes away a lot of offense.
- Some bad, bad teams. Kansas City, Miami – no doubt not drawing anyone either on the road or at home.
- So many strikeouts. Hard to watch. No action.
- Giancarlo Stanton. Sorry, I am in the mode of blaming him for everything.
Other reasons? We already know the Millennials can’t sit through a 3-hour game. Plus people prefer to watch on their 60-inch hi def TV.
What do you think?
Sports Update Intergalactic 
Will not miss a chance to complain about Millenials and Stanton. Also agree on the weather and would add something about the cost of attending a game. (Took my son and some friends to a game and had to drop $60 on water. Twice.) Perhaps ticket and concession prices will drop once there are gambling kiosks in the stadiums. And while the experience of watching a game at a stadium has declined (opinion), the experience of watching a game at home has gotten better and better (fact).
Still, Baseball has taken the obvious path of trying to dumb the game down to appeal to a modern audience. They’ve tried speeding things up and emphasize the stuff that works best in 5 second video clips. They emphasize homerun calls and blazing fastballs. Then the fans arrive expecting to see 450ft homeruns and 100 mph pitches. But baseball is still baseball (even without trips to the mound and intentional walks) and the fan may be underwhelmed by the lack of action. Baseball should always look for ways to improve but it should also look to educate the fans so that they appreciate the complete game…and not just the bat flips and homerun trots.
In American League you already have 9-10 teams eliminated so there is that. Also, prices are ridiculous and if our company is any indication, corporations have cut back on tickets. As long as I have the big screen TV, I am good!
See Joe Posnanski’s article in MLB.com today about my favorite player of all time (behind Mickey Mantle) Mike Trout (who is Mickey reincarnated without the drinking problem and injured knees). I have said he is best I have ever seen and this article sets him as best ever (Ruth excluded of course)