Attendance Since 2000

Friday, February 24 2012 @ 12:39 AM EST

In the past 12 years the Jays have been, well, kind of trapped. 6 years of 3rd place, 1 in 2nd, 1 in 5th, and now 4 straight years of 4th place. During this time attendance has been as mediocre as the team. But when do those fans come out? What does it take to get a crowd? Would it be smart for the Jays to spend millions on stars to push them over 90 wins, push for a move to the AL Central (easier competition) or (financially) is it best to stick as is with the Yankees & Red Sox and perpetual 3rd/4th place finishes.

We will need a few charts here to summarize the raw data (973 home games, 23,470,473 in attendance, 24,122 on average).

Within 2 games of 1st place (ie: serious contention)

Month	Games	Attendance	Avg
April	62	1,399,162	22,567
May	31	715,875	23,093
June	19	439,409	23,127
July	9	217,726	24,192
August	0		--
September	0		--

Within 5 games of 1st place (ie: in eyeshot)

Month	Games	Attendance	Avg
April	108	2,334,462	21,615
May	100	2,209,613	22,096
June	55	1,294,779	23,541
July	27	672,487	24,907
August	4	100,090	25,023
September	3	72,610	24,203

Spot in standings	Games	Attendance	Avg
1	59	1,467,235	24,868
2	60	1,463,394	24,390
3	416	10,323,987	24,817
4	356	8,176,192	22,967
5	82	2,039,665	24,874

Opponent	Games	Attendance	Avg
ARI	3	67,374	22,458
ATL	6	140,548	23,425
BAL	109	2,337,413	21,444
BOS	108	2,955,805	27,369
CHC	6	192,995	32,166
CHW	48	1,070,658	22,305
CIN	6	139,808	23,301
CLE	43	957,625	22,270
COL	6	155,419	25,903
DET	45	1,028,910	22,865
FLA	6	119,115	19,853
HOU	3	56,459	18,820
KCR	44	960,859	21,838
LAA	53	1,105,671	20,862
LAD	6	123,210	20,535
MIL	3	73,359	24,453
MIN	43	996,713	23,179
MON	15	388,404	25,894
NYM	6	170,012	28,335
NYY	106	3,446,348	32,513
OAK	52	1,189,224	22,870
PHI	15	468,490	31,233
PIT	6	108,797	18,133
SEA	56	1,298,712	23,191
SFG	6	120,179	20,030
STL	6	123,774	20,629
TBR	108	2,402,031	22,241
TEX	50	1,070,389	21,408
WSN	9	202,172	22,464

Division	Games	Attendance	Avg
AL East	431	11,141,597	25,851
AL Central	223	5,014,765	22,488
AL West	211	4,663,996	22,104
NL East	57	1,488,741	26,118
NL Central	30	695,192	23,173
NL West	21	466,182	22,199

Day of Week	Games	Attendance	Avg
Sunday	157	4,347,622	27,692
Monday	88	1,980,301	22,503
Tuesday	145	3,274,809	22,585
Wednesday	152	3,280,565	21,583
Thursday	118	2,602,879	22,058
Friday	157	3,664,947	23,344
Saturday	156	4,319,350	27,688

Overall per Month

Month	Games	Attendance	Avg
April	124	2,615,354	21,092
May	176	3,752,865	21,323
June	159	3,730,852	23,464
July	145	3,807,769	26,260
August	158	4,333,320	27,426
September	170	4,071,613	23,951

A few surprises there. The Jays do the best for attendance when they are in LAST PLACE (!) with 6 more fans per game than when they are in first. Boy does that put the 'win and they will come' down the list a lot. Now, part of that is due to them being in first mainly in April, sometimes in May, and every few years in June/July which is the time frame the crowds start to show up and last place becomes a sad possibility while August never sees the Jays in 1st and that is the biggest crowd time.

Days of the week are about what one would expect, with weekends peaking and Wednesday being the hardest day to draw the fans.

But teams they play against? Wooboy do we see an effect. Yankees are easily the biggest draw at 32,513 while the Angels are the worst at 20,862 (Pirates and a few other NL'ers are lower but with sub-10 games it is hard to put much weight on it). The divisional story clearly shows the east is where it is at for the Jays. Either the NL or AL East are the only places Rogers will want to be. However, the NL East figures are biased due to the games against the Phillies (the Jays designated rival) and to a lesser degree the Expos (who no longer exist). Basically the NL East would be like the AL East in the end though - 2 teams that draw fans (Mets & Phillies) and 3 who draw flies (Washington, Atlanta, and Florida). I guess Rogers would like a super-division with Boston, NYY, NYM, and the Phillies - playoffs would be next to impossible but good crowds would be here for most games.

Clearly for attendance purposes there are 3 things that matter - summer games, weekend games and the Yankees. Everything else is secondary. However, I still suspect that a team that is winning in September would up that attendance significantly. Lets hope the Jays create the opportunity to either prove me right or wrong.

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https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20120217223914465