Monday, April 4, 2011
Indians Attendance at Record-Breaking Lows
Posted by Vince Grzegorek on Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 4:21 PM
After an Opening Day sellout, the Tribe played to the two smallest crowds in Jacobs Field history over the weekend. 9,853 showed up Saturday, which was a new low since The Jake opened in 1994. And then only 8,726 came through the turnstiles Sunday (well, not exactly, that's just paid attendance), setting a new, lower low.
The Tribe finished the 2010 season ranked last in attendance, netting just for 1,394,812 the year (17,435 per game). Could they go lower in 2011? Crain's seems to think so.
In term's of the Why — both in where the Indians fit into the hierarchy of Cleveland sports and how fans view the team — the easy, rote answers of cheap owner, trading away name players, etc., are all tired at this point, and as Let's Go Tribe points out, missing the real reason.
I think it has something to do with anger — and not anger at the cartoon villain made out of a club owner, but rather anger at being deliberately, systematically screwed. You see, it's one thing to have terrible owners — those old Indians, Cubs and Red Sox all had that — and it's one thing to endure a bizarre sequence of events suggesting nothing less than a curse handed down by the baseball gods — ditto, and doubly so. It's quite another thing, however, to face the realization that maybe we really are screwed in a more fundamental way. That it has something to do with the economics of baseball, the economics of Cleveland, and the economics of the world.For all the vitriol directed specifically at the Dolan family, and for all the fog of confusion perpetrated on fans by talk radio and writers like Hoynes, at bottom, I think fans have that sinking and quite correct feeling that no change of ownership is going to improve the situation. That no new stadium is going to fill the coffers and fund an All-Star at every position. That no Curt Schilling mantra or timely Dave Roberts steal is going to come along and make this particular problem all go away. That a mere "curse" would be better than what we've actually got.
It's easier to say that the owners are cheap and the management is stupid. That's a far more comforting thought than the truth — that the humiliation of trading Sabathia and Lee in consecutive seasons was the only sane, intelligent choice for ownership or management — which is far more angering than the fiction. Blaming Dolan is easier than abandoning all hope.
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Comments (2)
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Thanks god people actually realize what should have beed done a long time ago! Hopefully this is the start of what is to come, and hopefully continue! Stay away from that crap making them idiots richer with a crappy product on the field! And get over the comeback with "well they supply a lot of jobs" crap, its all crap, stop paying for that crappy product and make them invest more in us, with a better product on the field as we invested in them for too long with crap returns on our money/investment...and yes we will come, we have been there through the good bad and the worst times, but enough is enough!
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This is BS. I understand the "economics" of baseball and understand why the Indians could not keep Sabathia, or go after big name free agents, and I didn't expect them to. Where I find fault goes back to the 2007 season. They had the opportunity to trade for Mark Teixeira, basically rent him for the stretch-run, but would not pull the trigger because they over-valued players like Ryan Garko. Then after flirting with playoff success, Shapiro promises to "open the purse strings," as new revenue from STO, among other things, would allow them to increase payroll. But instead they scrape the bottom of the free-agent pool for players like Jason Michaels and Trot Nixon. Since then there has been a systematic campaign of lying to the fans, covering up Hafner's injury for two-plus seasons, for example. And lets not forget the horrible trades, especially the Cliff Lee deal. There was no need to trade Lee when they did, as he had one more year left on his contract at only $9 mil, a bargain for a pitcher of his caliber, yet he was "too expensive" for the Indians. Mark Shapiro has successfully tanked the Indians twice since the new ownership has taken over, but somehow he gets a PROMOTION?! Does that make any sense? I also must mention how the Indians have continued to raise ticket prices and prices at the concession stands, while also reducing portion size. I no longer support the team I grew up on because they nickle-and-dime their fans, and quite obviously do not appreciate us. Yeah, the economy is bad here in Cleveland, as it is in most cities across the country. That just means the Indians job of competing for our limited dollars is that much harder, which means they need to give the fans a pretty good reason to show up. But if the team was successful the fans would attend, look at the Cavs (with LBJ) and the Browns (without the wins). However, the Indians just want to cry poor, and blame their misfortune on the economy. Personally, I will not support this team again until Mark Shapiro is no longer affiliated with the organization.
