Sox Scoops 40.88: "Attendance Trends Examined"

[HoosierVic]

Chicago Sports Online

The Black Sox, back in Chicago after a 20-year absence, have drawn 1,118,670 fans to their new stadium so far this seasons, with an average attendance of 33,899 per game. That means the team has sold roughly 97 percent of the available seats for its 33 home games through mid-June.

The only perceptible dips in attendance came when out-of-division rivals visited: crowds dropped below 34,000 only 5 times, and each of those games involved Pacific Division teams.

Weekday games have drawn just as well as weekend contests so far. In fact, the biggest crowd of the season - even bigger than opening day - was a Wednesday series opener against Nashville, which drew 34,955 fans. So far, at least, whether the team is on a winning or losing streak hasn't affected attendance, either.

If the Sox keep drawing at this rate, they would be on pace for a season attendance of more than 2.7 million. That's not close to the team's all-time attendance record of 4,572,497 - set in 2014 - but the new Black Sox Park is considerably smaller than its old stadium. Even if every game at Sox park was a complete sellout, the team could only draw 2,835,000.

Chicago Sports Online will update these charts periodically to keep track of how the Sox are drawing as the season progresses.

Black Sox April Attendance

Date	Day of Week	Opponent	W/L	Attendance
04/01/40	Sunday	California	W	34,940
04/02/40	Monday	California	L	34,877
04/03/40	Tuesday	Louisville	L	34,896
04/04/40	Wednesday	Louisville	L	34,955
04/05/40	Thursday	Louisville	L	34,849
04/18/40	Wednesday	Long Beach	L	27,610
04/19/40	Thursday	Long Beach	L	28,592
04/20/40	Friday	Twin Cities	W	34,857
04/21/40	Saturday	Twin Cities	W	34,777
04/22/40	Sunday	Twin Cities	W	34,618
04/23/40	Monday	Twin Cities	W	34,896

Black Sox May Attendance

Date	Day of Week	Opponent	W/L	Attendance
05/02/40	Wednesday	San Fernando	W	34,649
05/03/40	Thursday	San Fernando	W	32,911
05/04/40	Friday	Vancouver	W	34,763
05/05/40	Saturday	Vancouver	L	34,759
05/06/40	Sunday	Vancouver	L	34,778
05/07/40	Monday	Vancouver	L	34,813
05/11/40	Friday	Yellow Springs	L	34,787
05/12/40	Saturday	Yellow Springs	W	34,779
05/13/40	Sunday	Yellow Springs	L	34,862
05/14/40	Monday	Yellow Springs	L	33,416
05/15/40	Tuesday	Nashville	L	34,624
05/16/40	Wednesday	Nashville	W	34,069
05/17/40	Thursday	Nashville	W	34,839
05/30/40	Wednesday	Valencia	W	29,487
05/31/40	Thursday	Valencia	W	28,170

Black Sox June Attendance

Date	Day of Week	Opponent	W/L	Attendance
06/02/40	Saturday	Des Moines (GM 1)	L	34,740
06/02/40	Saturday	Des Moines (GM 2)	W	34,742
06/03/40	Sunday	Des Moines	L	34,674
06/04/40	Monday	Des Moines	W	34,844
06/05/40	Tuesday	Twin Cities	L	34,669
06/06/40	Wednesday	Twin Cities	W	34,729
06/07/40	Thursday	Twin Cities	L	34,699

[7teen]

Long Beach wasn't a big draw early and Valencia later and 2 random people decided to catch game 2 vs Des Moines and not game 1.

I'm not sure there is much correlation in anything but it's definitely interesting to look at. My attendance has stayed up after my review pretty much undermining any thoughts as to whether Day of the Week or the Opponent has any impact.

[HoosierVic]

Yeah, I was wondering about days of the week and winning or losing streaks - not much stood out, just the opponents. Might go back and see if a top starting pitcher affects attendance at all. But you’re right - interesting to look at!

[7teen]

Yeah, I was wondering about days of the week and winning or losing streaks - not much stood out, just the opponents. Might go back and see if a top starting pitcher affects attendance at all. But you’re right - interesting to look at!

The one thing I do see (not as much with Chicago but some) is that a weekday game against a NON divisional opponent does seem to draw less fans.

You have that trend slightly as well as I do in Portland. The Long Beach and Valencia series sort of support that theory. I have seen the same with some weekday games against Omaha and a Monday game against Des Moines. But you have some things that don't support that theory when you look at the San Fernando series (pretty much on par with a divisional series) and your Monday Vancouver game which did not see a dip in attendance.

[HoosierVic]

One thing I wonder about - whether teams with nationally popular players would outdraw teams that don’t have any. I’ll go back and take a look at that when I get home!

[usnspecialist]

One thing I wonder about - whether teams with nationally popular players would outdraw teams that don’t have any. I’ll go back and take a look at that when I get home!

that is a possibility. I know in looking at my team I have the following breakdown of high end popularity guys.

Extremely popular: 4
Very popular: 1
Well known: 3

I have no idea where that stacks up in compared to everyone else, but given my top heavy approach to team building I imagine that is fairly high up there.