The Wizard of Viz’s latest effort got me wondering about attendance, but in my own twisted way I asked the question backward—as in, which BBA teams travel well. In other words, which BBA teams draw the best on the road?
We get raw attendance odd StatsPlus, but there’s no way to see this elsewise.
Except…
I realized…
I’ve got my box-score/gamelogs script…and that script pulls attendance by each game, and also lists home and visiting teams. It wouldn’t be hard to do a simple sorting on visitor. So, of course, I did it. The results—listed below in ranked order of top attendance of visiting teams—are interesting, because of course they are.
| Team | Home | Visitor | HOME RANK | VISITOR RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boise Spuds | 2,333,156.00 | 3,505,964.00 | 28 | 1 |
| Bikini Krill | 1,822,095.00 | 3,388,017.00 | 30 | 2 |
| Montreal Blazers | 3,528,211.00 | 3,318,420.00 | 9 | 3 |
| San Fernando Bears | 3,125,584.00 | 3,300,597.00 | 17 | 4 |
| Brooklyn Robins | 1,909,654.00 | 3,265,350.00 | 29 | 5 |
| Calgary Pioneers | 3,877,699.00 | 3,234,192.00 | 6 | 6 |
| Madison Wolves | 1,771,474.00 | 3,233,655.00 | 31 | 7 |
| Jacksonville Zombies | 3,916,355.00 | 3,216,621.00 | 4 | 8 |
| Austin Shredders | 2,904,282.00 | 3,212,329.00 | 22 | 9 |
| Cape Fear Swamp Foxes | 3,151,942.00 | 3,208,515.00 | 15 | 10 |
| Hawaii Tropics | 2,948,700.00 | 3,203,360.00 | 21 | 11 |
| Nashville Bluebirds | 4,468,847.00 | 3,183,717.00 | 2 | 12 |
| Atlantic City Gamblers | 3,193,706.00 | 3,164,210.00 | 14 | 13 |
| Long Beach Surfers | 3,148,581.00 | 3,145,829.00 | 16 | 14 |
| Yellow Springs Nine | 2,952,244.00 | 3,128,602.00 | 20 | 15 |
| Rocky Mountain Oysters | 2,864,061.00 | 3,108,959.00 | 23 | 16 |
| New Orleans Crawdads | 2,709,215.00 | 3,107,659.00 | 25 | 17 |
| Portland Lumberjacks | 3,223,787.00 | 3,089,015.00 | 12 | 18 |
| San Antonio Outlaws | 2,710,640.00 | 3,086,561.00 | 24 | 19 |
| Mexico City Aztecs | 3,055,691.00 | 3,061,688.00 | 19 | 20 |
| Las Vegas Hustlers | 3,556,688.00 | 3,020,617.00 | 8 | 21 |
| Chicago Black Sox | 1,531,191.00 | 3,006,015.00 | 32 | 22 |
| Twin Cities River Monsters | 4,034,079.00 | 2,965,086.00 | 3 | 23 |
| Charlotte Flyers | 3,909,822.00 | 2,961,368.00 | 5 | 24 |
| Charm City Jimmies | 3,612,871.00 | 2,959,129.00 | 7 | 25 |
| Vancouver Mounties | 3,514,143.00 | 2,942,186.00 | 10 | 26 |
| Louisville Sluggers | 2,659,768.00 | 2,937,353.00 | 26 | 27 |
| Des Moines Kernels | 3,222,791.00 | 2,918,818.00 | 13 | 28 |
| Phoenix Talons | 3,092,430.00 | 2,894,841.00 | 18 | 29 |
| Sacramento Mad Popes | 4,613,606.00 | 2,880,335.00 | 1 | 30 |
| Omaha Cyclones | 3,410,672.00 | 2,861,219.00 | 11 | 31 |
| Valencia Stars | 2,566,764.00 | 2,830,522.00 | 27 | 32 |
| Grand Total | 99,340,749.00 | 99,340,749.00 |
Who would have had Boise as the top draw in the league? Or Bikini second? I will say that Bikini has a crapton of popular players, so does that make a difference on the road?
I don’t know. Maybe it does.
Perhaps this suggests national popularity draws on the road and local popularity draws at home? I’ve never thought of that, but it makes some degree of sense. I’d probably code something like that into the game if I thought of it, anyway. Doing a scan of a few teams doesn’t suggest that’s a large influence, but that’s just a scan.
Montreal and San Fernando third and fourth make some degree of sense.
A Look Through the Rest
Sacramento and Nashville, on the other hand, are #1 and #2 at home draws, but #30 and #12 on the road. Chicago draws like crap at home (#32), but does better on the road (#22).
It makes sense that poorer teams with poor home draws would be better on the road simply because they are playing better teams who are attracting more fans than they normally would. This suggests I need to do some additional work if I want to really follow this up.
In other words, this little cut has been interesting and fun, but I think that to do a real study I need to ask the question differently. My brain is spinning now, spinning so fast I assume you can hear the rattle. Yes. I think I can do that. Maybe. The right question (I think, but I’ll lay out here in case someone has better ideas) is to calculate the average attendance at each ballpark, and then compare the average attendance of each visiting team at each ballpark, and see which way a team’s appearance moves the needle.
Yes. This is a fun table, but I think that would be better.
Better still to adjust by day of the week—which we know adjusts attendance, too, and which I could do. With a little time, anyway. That could be fun.
Until then I think Boise and Bikini fans can look at this data and pretend to be self-important, which, of course, is the whole purpose of fandom, now, isn’t it?
. We do like our outdoors.
