Post by LVfan on Jul 20, 2024 13:41:51 GMT -8
Athletics Attendance in Oakland 1968 - 2024 (mid-season)
Several of us in Las Vegas, all baseball fans looking forward to the A’s moving here, have been concerned about the Bay Area traditional and social media coverage. Almost all is negative towards the ownership team, covering up the business and political climate, crime, or attempts of the team to get a stadium in the Bay Area for over 20 years. We believe, however, the main factor impacting the team in Oakland is the inability of the Bay Area market (#10 media market) to support 2 teams, especially impacting the A’s as most fans in the market are Giants fans. The only other markets to host 2 MLB teams are the top 3, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The poor attendance at A’s games in Oakland over many decades clearly points to the market, rather than the stadium condition, the team performance, or the ownership.
Our concern in Las Vegas is the attempt especially via national media to unfairly impact attitudes here. We thought citing specific statistics would support the case about the problem being the market without denigrating the current fans, passionate but too few in number.
Average attendance compared to the American League teams:
From baseball-almanac.com, in all the years in Oakland, the attendance has been below American League average for each year except for 9 years. Even in 1974, their 3-peat year, attendance was next to worst in the American League.
Attendance ranking compared to all MLB teams:
From baseball-reference.com are individual tables by year which were collected into a spreadsheet. Here are a few takeaways from the spreadsheet:
The A’s were never in 1st or 2nd place. They were in 3rd place 1 time, 4th place 1 time, 5th place 2 times
They were in last place 8 times, next to last place 5 times.
6 times in top 10 (11%)
42 times in lowest 10 (75%)
Several of us in Las Vegas, all baseball fans looking forward to the A’s moving here, have been concerned about the Bay Area traditional and social media coverage. Almost all is negative towards the ownership team, covering up the business and political climate, crime, or attempts of the team to get a stadium in the Bay Area for over 20 years. We believe, however, the main factor impacting the team in Oakland is the inability of the Bay Area market (#10 media market) to support 2 teams, especially impacting the A’s as most fans in the market are Giants fans. The only other markets to host 2 MLB teams are the top 3, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The poor attendance at A’s games in Oakland over many decades clearly points to the market, rather than the stadium condition, the team performance, or the ownership.
Our concern in Las Vegas is the attempt especially via national media to unfairly impact attitudes here. We thought citing specific statistics would support the case about the problem being the market without denigrating the current fans, passionate but too few in number.
Average attendance compared to the American League teams:
From baseball-almanac.com, in all the years in Oakland, the attendance has been below American League average for each year except for 9 years. Even in 1974, their 3-peat year, attendance was next to worst in the American League.
Attendance ranking compared to all MLB teams:
From baseball-reference.com are individual tables by year which were collected into a spreadsheet. Here are a few takeaways from the spreadsheet:
The A’s were never in 1st or 2nd place. They were in 3rd place 1 time, 4th place 1 time, 5th place 2 times
They were in last place 8 times, next to last place 5 times.
6 times in top 10 (11%)
42 times in lowest 10 (75%)
