Indians & Fans Coming Up Short In Play-Off Push

The Indians just got off their longest home stretch of the season (11 games), having a chance to take their .600 home winning percentage and make a real move on the Royals and Tigers, who played each other, and the Mariners in the play-off race. They, in fact, did the absolute minimum possible to stick around, going 6-5 while losing a four game series with Tigers to increase the already daunting deficit. The Indians weren’t the only ones to put forth a limited effort, as they averaged just 14,505 fans per game over the 10 day stretch. While attendance has been a big issue for more than one season, even with the decreased numbers to be expected this was a very paltry showing for a team running for the play-offs.

There are a couple legitimate excuses for the past home stand, including tornado warnings leading to a rescheduled game to end it, but any weather considerations should only effect a few thousand fans at most, not 20,000. Included was the lowest game total of any September game in team Progressive Field history when just 9,489 fans showed up to see the first game of the Indians and Twins series on Tuesday. It marked the eighth game of the year with an attendance lower than 10,000 in Cleveland, but outside of the two that occurred during this past home stand, all were in May or earlier. Since 2007, the Indians have averaged almost 5,000 less fans in March and April games compared to their overall average, a number that increases each month until more than 3,000 in July. This likely has to do both with the weather and importance of games, but for whichever reason, games with under 10,000 (which are a relatively new thing for Cleveland), are generally relegated to April and May. In fact, since 2007, there have only been two games after June 1st with less than 10,000 prior to this year and both were in September of 2013.

While there were a couple of poorly attended game down the stretch last year, when the games were most important, the fans showed up. In their final eight home games versus Detroit, the team averaged more than 25,000 fans per games and in the final home stand of the year, when the Indians needed to win every game and did, against Houston and Chicago, they averaged more than 22,000 per game. This year, they dropped about 10,000 per game from those numbers as just 14,000 per game saw the last four game series against Detroit while 13,000 per game saw the entire home stand. Even for the final double header on Thursday, a game where all who had tickets to both Wednesday’s and Thursday’s matches could have seen two games for the price of one, just 12,637 showed up for both combined.

There is no single explanation for this. It most likely is not economic, as was already covered a few months ago and it likely doesn’t have anything to do with the team’s success, as home attendance actually dropped immediately after the Indians deep play-off run in 2007. There are some interesting numbers to look at (located in the charts on right) that could make Indians fans seem like literal “fair weather fans,” although it would seem like most teams would have a similar break down. These numbers are from the seasons from 2007 through 2013, as to not be affected by the partial season this year, and show exactly what you would expect. When the Indians are in first or second place in the division (essentially meaning contending for a play-off spot), more fans show up than normal. In third, the average amount of fans comes and when at the bottom of the division, less come. These numbers are likely skewed, however, due to a majority of the fourth and fifth place games occurring early in the season (when less fans enjoy the games due to the weather) and most of the first and second place games happening in years with higher overall attendance in the entire league (2007 and 2008).

The shifts based on temperature are likely a little more accurate, as these hold throughout, independent of opposing team, start time, starting pitcher or any other variable short of day of the week. Of course, weather isn’t the reason for the current drop in attendance as, while it hasn’t been hot, it has still been above 60° for almost every game, meaning there should be within 1,000 fans of the average attendance of about 22,000.

While none of this explains the drop in attendance, it at least shows that it is real. There are many things the Indians could do to start the trend going back the other way, including the planned renovations to the stadium, lowering ticket prices or winning more games, but it is likely that none of these are the direct problem at the moment.

There is one more thing that has been mentioned much along with attendance that needs to be dispelled as well. It has often been said this year that when the Indians do get a big crowd, they don’t perform up to expectations. This, of course, is completely ridiculous, but the actual numbers can be seen below. In the ten games this year that at least 26,000 fans have attended, the Indians are 6-4, pushing their record to 101-89 in the past eight years. In games with a crowd smaller than 20,000, the Indians have went 28-19 this year and 159-138 since 2007, for a winning percentage of .535. That is a difference of just .004 between the two extremes. No baseball team plays differently in front of a large or small crowds, so that is one more excuse Indians fans can’t use to stay at home.

While it may not effect winning percent in the current season, low attendance will likely effect it in the long term as less money in, means less will be spent on players. The Indians ticket prices, game time temperatures, winning percent and stadium quality are all better than average compared to the rest of baseball, so there is absolutely no reason that Indians fans shouldn’t pack out Progressive Field for the final seven games of the season.