Are you loyal or disloyal to your baseball team? A study ranks fans loyalty! (playoff, win)
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Here is the link/Detroit based article - Study: Detroit Tigers fans are second least loyal in Major League Baseball | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press (http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080813/SPORTS02/80812109/1217/SPORTS - broken link)
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I have to think that some portions of those rankings are just simply not true. Ranger fans the most loyal?? Not this year and not really any other year. Not when the Cowboys have training camp. And how the heck can Ranger fans be more loyal than Astro fans?? Bogus.
There were other surprises, too, in those findings. You'd think that a team like the Yankees would have more loyalty in their fan base.
I'm a very loyal marlins fan. Been their fan since I was 3 years old (1996) I've been through the bad, the ugly, the good, the awesome, everything!! we're practically.......married!!!!
Much to my chagrin, the Detroit Tiger fans rank second to last in team loyalty. Yikes!
I remember the dark ages of the mid-90's, back when I was a young teenager. Tiger Stadium was home to many fans disguised as empty seats. As soon as we had a good year, which amounted to 79 wins; fans started showing up. A few years ago when we lost 119 games, you could literally count the number of fans in the upper deck on one hand on more than one occasion. There have been a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon the past couple of seasons. I don't think we are as bad as Marlins fans, but I do think the low ranking is deserved.
Well, the methodology of the Forbes article is stupid. It merely tracks the ups and downs of attendance compared to the team's performance. That means a team with 1,000 fans in the stadium every day whether they win or lose will rank higher than a team whose fan base swells to 40,000 per game when they're in first place and shrinks to 30,000 when they're dead last. That's how a team like the Pirates can rank third in "loyalty" even as their average attendance has been below 25,000 per game in every year of the study period but two, and in one of those years it was higher because of the brand-new stadium.
I didn't get far into that article before I realized that it was full of crap. The Pirates ranking 5th in all of baseball???? Unless their fans show up disguised as empty seats, there is next to nobody in those stands night after night in Pittsburgh, despite having one of the nicest ballparks in baseball and a reasonably competitive team seeing that they have a cheapskate ownership.
The Braves? They can't even sell out playoff games.
Philly should be on the most loyal list....they consistently pack the park, despite not winning a championship in 28 years and consistently being shortchanged by cheapskate ownership.
Last edited by FightinPhils; 08-14-2008 at 09:13 AM..
Pirates a "resonably competitive team" You realize they haven't had a winning season in over 15 years?
Still, it's a nice stadium, and they're practically giving away the seats. Bleacher seats start at 9 bucks. Hell, seats right behind the dugout are $35. You can't get bleacher seats at Wrigley for that. Seats right behind home plate at PNC are $135 -- and that includes a buffet and all non-alcoholic concessions are complementary. Oh, and it includes in-seat waitservice too -- you don't even have to get your pampered ass up to get your special-order hot dog. At Wrigley, those seats are about $300 and they don't even come with a complementary kick in the teeth, much less a complementary buffet and concessions, and have fun tracking down a beer vendor. There's no excuse for the pitiful attendance at PNC. It's probably one of the cheapest ways to enjoy a night on the town.
Win or lose, I'm a baseball fan, and if I lived in Pittsburgh, with that park and cheap seats, I'd be there all the time.
People in Pittsburgh are too worried about the "Stillers." I'm still pissed off that the taxpayers of PA funded a new ballpark for Pittsburgh and the people don't even show up. They might as well be playing in the old Three Rivers....or at a high school field.
Pittsburgh hasn't been a good baseball town since probably about the early 1960's. Check out various teams' attendance records on baseball-reference.com, keeping in mind each team's quality in a given group of seasons and the size of their market, and you'll see the Pirates not only have not drawn well since moving into PNC Park (which is understandable to a degree), but they also did not really draw all that well in the early 1990's or the 1970's, eras in which they were good. Compare the Pirates' attendance during those periods to other smaller market teams (Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cincinnati, etc.) during their good periods and you'll see what I mean.
It should also be noted the Pirates have probably offered more promotions/giveaways than any other team in Major League Baseball every year for at least the last 5-6 years.
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