The Pittsburgh Pirates are mired in a disappointing 2016 season. As a result, the team’s attendance is trending down for the first time since 2010.
At this writing, the Pittsburgh Pirates are 70-74 on the season, 3-13 in their last 16 games, and 24-31 in the second half of the 2016 season.
The team is currently on the road, sparing their fans a front row seat to the club’s swan song.
But for the first time in six years, there is a better than average chance that those fans would not have been there to see it anyway.
Trending Down
During the club’s 20 year streak of consecutive losing seasons, it would be entirely understandable – and expected – that Pittsburgh Pirates fans would stay home. Sure, fans would come out to PNC Park to take in the park’s beauty and enjoy a day at the venue. However, there was virtually no chance at the club drawing a consistent, healthy crowd that would be needed to grow the club beyond its then-plateau.
It is no wonder then that Clint Hurdle made it a point to re-bond the city to its baseball club when hired before the 2011 season. It was a mantra oft-cited and a mission that was truly accomplished. Fans started coming to PNC Park in droves, and the Pittsburgh Pirates set new attendance marks not seen since the venue’s inaugural season. The high water mark came last season, in which the club set a new attendance record.
But, with a dismal season in 2016, the team will likely draw less fans than it did the season before for the first time since 2010.
Here now is a look at attendance over the last four years.
A Step Backward On and Off The Field
While Pittsburgh is one of the best sports cities in the country, the nadir of the product on the field during the 20 year streak left an indelible imprint on the psyches of the casual baseball fan in the Steel City. Yet, the Pirates were able to bring those casual fans back to the park to join the diehards by putting out a consistently improving team.
The club’s disappointing 2016 campaign coupled with front office moves seen as questionable by a large percentage of the fan base has conspired to bring the average attendance under 30,000 for the first time since 2013. Even if the Pirates sell out all of the remaining seven home games in the 2016 season – a near unfathomable task – they will still fall about 150,000 seats short of their high-water 2015 mark.
Small Market Teams Must Make More To Spend More
Pittsburgh Pirates owner Bob Nutting takes his share of criticism, but one area in which he may be beyond reproach is that he does increase payroll commensurate with increasing attendance.
| Year | Attendance | Attend/G | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2,073,525 | 28,021 | |
| 2015 | 2,498,596 | 30,847 | $104,457,499 |
| 2014 | 2,442,564 | 30,155 | $80,729,000 |
| 2013 | 2,256,862 | 27,862 | $99,230,000 |
| 2012 | 2,091,918 | 25,826 | $70,077,000 |
| 2011 | 1,940,429 | 23,956 | $45,047,000 |
| 2010 | 1,613,399 | 19,919 | $37,443,000 |
The reality is that for a small market club like the Pirates, attendance is paramount. While one can easily make the argument that spending more on the on the field product should drive attendance and not the other way around, this practical thinking is employed by many “small market” clubs.
The other chief driver of most team’s revenue is their corresponding TV contract.
Much has been made over the years about the Pirates’ TV contract value with ROOT Sports. Reports have surfaced throughout the years that the club’s profits from the deal range anywhere from $20 million – an astonishingly low figure – to a nebulous amount that is in the upper half of baseball. In team president Frank Coonelly’s own words:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”Pirates President Frank Coonelly” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Our TV contract places us in the top half of all Major League Baseball clubs even though our market ranks 27th out of 30. We are well positioned moving forward.[/perfectpullquote]Though a major league team’s TV contract comes up for renewal at which point a new price point is set, it provides a certain sense of stability during the length of the deal. The team will know exactly what it will get in terms of dollars from the deal.
Attendance, conversely, is a metric that is in near constant flux by its very nature. It is subject to many variables both within PNC Park and without.
Many are hard to quantify.
But one is easily quantifiable, and that is the product on the field.
Fair or not, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ approval rating – we are in an election year, after all – has taken a hit with the fanbase this year, and they have spoken with their dollars. The team will now have to bank on young stars such as Jameson Taillon, Josh Bell and Tyler Glasnow to join Starling Marte, Francisco Cervelli and others to not only win games on the field, but win the financial attention of its fan base.
The club will likely be able to withstand this dip in attendance. Many of its core stars are locked up long-term, and the young stars mentioned – along with others – are just breaking into the big leagues. The Pirates should be able to turn around their home crowd issues by turning around a fair number of losses into wins in 2017.
But the brass on Federal Street would be best served to take notice of the down numbers in 2016, and ensure that a new, darker trend does not emerge. The team can survive a down year, but a downward slope is another beast entirely.
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