The Orioles Attendance Last Night Was......Not Great, But At Least The Crowd Saw This Team Tie A Record
Soooo last night Baltimore got a little leftover weather from Hurricane Florence, not much, some rain, a bit of wind, but thats about it. Not torrential downpours, but enough rain to push the start time back to 7:30. I turned the game on and they were showing the National Anthem, not sure why they did that, but during the song they were showing pictures of the crowd. I literally counted five (5) people in the center field seats. Five. This is one of the best sports buildings in the world, and no one wanted to me see it.
I understand that the Orioles are a below average team, some people would even call them “stinky”, so I’m not sure why I was so surprised that there was absolutely nobody at the game last night. I’m not sure why people would want to come out and see a team that is 43-107 in the rain, but that crowd as terrible. Baltimore Sun reporter, Eduardo Encina tweeted out that the announced crowd was 8,198. That is the announced crowd, not actual people in the stadium, because that number isn’t even close. At least those fans in attendance got to see this team tie the 1987 Orioles for most losses in a season with 107, save those ticket stubs, those will be worth something.
I saw this picture from last week too, the attendance for that game was listed at 10,480. If that is 10K, than last night’s game was under 1K, and I actually think it was. I talked to someone who works in the warehouse, and she said 20 minutes after first pitch they made an announcement that said fans could sit ANYWHERE they wanted. Normally they’ll let you do that later in the game if no one is there, but this was 20 minutes after first pitch. In a season full of embarrassing moments, this is another one. I understand that people don’t want to come watch a team with guys they don’t know. But this was happening when Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop, Kevin Gausman, and guys people WANTED to watch were playing. I mean, look at their listed attendance for the homestand they are on.
See that game with 23,266, the Orioles had a promo giveaway, a nice sweatshirt. They were giving them out to the first 35,000 people. When I saw that number I was HOWLING. Everyone knew they wrest getting 35K to a game this late in the season. Laughable. Before last night’s game the Orioles were 24th in attendance according to ESPN.Com, but we know they lie. IT says Camden Yards is home to an average of 20,363 for their home games. HA. 20K, nah fam.
This got me thinking. On nights like tonight and even the entire month of September, why would the Orioles, or any team struggling to get more than 10K in their stadium not sell tickets at discounted rates? I went to an Army-Navy baseball game at Camden Yards in March, it was $10 to sit anywhere in the stadium. Why not do something like that? That will at least draw people in. I mean tickets are going on SeatGeek (promo code: Take) for $7 a few rows from the field, do SOMETHING to at least make it look like people are there. A $10 sit anywhere ticket would be great. I would make me more inclined to head down there on a crappy night like last night and watch, because there are stadiums where $10 can’t get you a beer, here it will get you a seat next to a scout.
These are what games look like when there is a 3 hour rain delay and the game starts at like 11:58, not at 7:30 at night on a Monday. Baltimore has never been great with attendance, even when they were in the playoff hunt, but this is just insane to me.
I fully believe the Orioles should do a ticket package that offers all September home games for like $80 or something like that. You want to get the kids out there, college students, and just plain cheap people, do that. It’s almost like Peter Angeles and the sons would rather have 40,000 empty seats than have 35,000 empty ones. I mean, there was a home run hit into center field last night and some nerd sprinted from 4 sections over and got it without anyone else even in the screen. Offer cheap seats and discounted booze so we can watch this dumpster fire and not pay a stupid amount.
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Only a handful of games left, and I’ll be at a few, theres a decent chance I catch a ball or 5, hell, may even get an at-bat. Oh yeah, they lost 5-0 last night too. Awesome.
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