We all know that not much can be gleaned from the three-game series against the Marlins. We see that there is stuff to worry about and stuff to be hopeful about. We knew that four days ago. I won’t speculate much about the team’s prospects until we have gone at least twice through the rotation.
I am a little puzzled, however, by the way in which several reporters and bloggers have made a point of noting that there were only 26,000 fans in attendance on Thursday night. The smallest crowd in the stadium’s history!
Surely, this isn’t a surprise. Although we don’t know the figures, it has to be obvious to everyone that season ticket sales must have been way down. The Mets drew more than 4 million in the last year of Shea and everyone thought they were in good shape for 2009. Ine the first year of the new smaller stadium, many people must have bought season tickets for 2009, fearing that if they didn’t they wouldn’t be able to get into the park. Well, we all know what happened.
Everybody knows that you don’t need to buy season tickets this year, and so this year we’re not going to have the situation we had all of last year, where there was an announced attendance of 40,000 and only twenty something thousand in the park. There’s always a drop-off after a bad year, just as there is always an increase after a good year. I feel pretty confident saying that even if the Mets have a good year this year, they won’t draw three million. And I predict that unless the season gets really exciting, most weekday games will be in the 25,000 – 30,000 range. This fact will not put renewed pressure on ownership. They already know that it is going to be this way. The pressure is already there.
As I’ve said before, I have a certain liking for smaller crowds of true enthusiasts. This is what I expect to find this year, as I go to the stadium with my $10 StubHub special. Too bad they don’t sell parking spaces on StubHub. Still, I like it even better when there are big crowds of enthusiasts, and I hope to see that someday soon. And you know what I really like? Yeah, you know. I like a crowd of 55,300 enthusiasts in the largest city in the US. That’s what I really like and will never see again.
In the meantime, enjoy the cozy little crowds. It doesn’t mean anything that you don’t already know about.
