What Happens to Attendance After a New Ballpark is Built?

Very cool.

One useful addition would be (though not sure if it makes too much clutter) would be if you included winning percentage as a third line so we could see if that correlates with attendance better than having a new ballpark. I’m guessing it does, but seeing it visually like this would be awesome.

Team revenue is much better for these types of comparisons.

Also, consider that both New York teams and the Cards moved into smaller ballparks than their previous homes, which would naturally create an attendance dropoff but actually translated into higher revenues (until Fred Wilpon started mismanaging the Mets).

Cost City or state/private Namng right yrs/ amount
NYM 900 54%/46 20/200
Cincy 325 86%/14 30/75
Mil 400 73%17 20/40
Pitt 262 83%/17 20/30
SD 450 70%/30 22/60
StLouis 344 12%/88 20/?
DC 611 100%/0

And – generally speaking – teams that spend more have better records. I think that’s pretty clear by the charts.

So the question is whether or not a new stadium leads to bigger payrolls in the first few years after the opening of a stadium.

The Brewers, Phillies, Nationals, Yankees, and Twins all did increase their payroll and attendance has followed up, up, up.

But I think more information is needed because with a new stadium comes increased cost, whether it be financing or what have you.

Not every team increased their payrolls. In fact, it looks like those that didn’t increase their payrolls didn’t see a long-lasting attendance jump.

I never have and never will be a believer in the " IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME" nonsense.

A very large amount, if not a majority of economists will tell you that by and large, stadiums tend to be more of an economic bust for a host city, rather than a boom.

That being said, I remember going to follow my A’s as any addict does. So I went to Cleveland last year. Wonderful stadium, great area, nice part of down town.

Oh yea, that’s right, it was the one stadium that was more empty than Oakland last year. That’s right, the same team that is what, second in the league for sell out records was totally empty. At the end of the day, the people in Cleveland were not going to watch that product.

I think the team needs to be built first, worry about the stadium later, at least in this economy.

I hear ya pal, trust me, I do. It is in no way personal, but there are alot of fans I talk to, including friends and family, who talk about the stadium as if that is what we need to win the pennant.

One of the difficulties in playing with charts here is that many of these situations aren’t correlative.

The A’s will be moving to a semi-new city in which most of the big spenders, the Silicon Valley companies, are strongly Giants fans. That means that it’s possible that even though proximity to the A’s stadium will be better, many of those companies will continue to buy more seats at China Basin than at Wolff Grotto (though Neukom’s fear that the Giants will lose a huge amount of Silicon Valley revenue is still in play). Will San Jose embrace the A’s? Will the Peninsula embrace the A’s? Probably not at first though of course the next generation would.

It’s a small park, the smallest in the country, and Wolff intends for it to be very expensive to attend. This is a park for the elites, not the masses. How will that impact park-goers in San Jose if they have to pay $50-100 for any seat in the house, particularly if Silicon Valley isn’t as generous as Wolff hopes?

The best example of how a team can starve when the money’s there remains the New York Mets. A new stadium, to be sure, but a lousy team. You have to put a good team on the field, and keep a good team on the field. Or, barring that, as with the Giants, keep a superstar around just in case…. Billy Beane’s teams are built on boring players, sad to say. Lawyer Ball may (or may not) be effective, but it’s endless and it’s dull. Bob Geren was the epitome of the Billy Beane era, a dull manager for a dull team.

The end of the PED era, moral scolds notwithstanding, has resulted in duller baseball all around, by the way. Players are retiring earlier, home runs are down, averages are down, fastballs are slower, superstars are fewer and further between. How this impacts baseball in the long run is unknown, because the end of the PED era coincided with an economic downturn, but juice definitely had an impact on interest. Hard to say how that will translate into a new San Jose ballpark, but it could. (Or maybe not, if you look at attendance in Minnesota, for example).

I think a new ballpark is a necessity because the Coliseum is crumbling, and if the only way a park can exist in the Bay Area is in San Jose, then a move to San Jose is required. But there are so many variables here…

where is the coliseum actually crumbling? aside from mt davis and too much foul territory, what is bad about it? the location is ideal, tickets are cheap, beer and bathroom lines are short, the field is terrific.
i dont have anything nice to say about san jose.

errr built in the 1960’s i mean

…on the graphics, Dan. Really helps to visualize your point in a matter of seconds.

the will (still) suck

Anyplace would draw more year after year for the A’s. Whether it be Oakland or Barstow the attendance will go up. This may not be true for all teams and/or sports, but for the Athletics it is true. New stadium = increase runs, better seats, a new energy, and more attendance. Fans go to see a team play but when the team has a nice/new stadium they go for both, just look at the Giants going from the Stick to AT&T. People go to that stadium who think the bases are run clockwise.