Looks Like MT Bank Stadium

Yet Study Claims Attendance Off Just 0.7%

Let me begin by reiterating that from top to bottom, and unlike most in the sports media, I am a huge fan of the Baltimore Ravens. I admit it and wear my fandom like a badge of honor. A significant portion of my livelihood is directly tied to the Ravens organizational hip. Few things would make me happier than to see them be successful on and off the field, year in and year out.

With that established (assuming you didn’t already know that about me), I want to point out a Tweet and the accompanying article it featured, that I saw today on Twitter from the Baltimore Business Journal.

Following a league-wide trend, attendance at Ravens home games this season is down — albeit ever-so-slightly https://t.co/hRLz8PeZgh pic.twitter.com/RcESFFFer7

— Baltimore Business (@BaltBizOnline) December 12, 2017

Naturally I clicked on the article written by BBJ’s Jonathan Munshaw.

Amongst other things, the article highlighted the following, and it’s this that jumped off the page at me:

“An average of 70,602 fans have attended each game at M&T Bank Stadium this year, according to data compiled by the SportsBusiness Journal, a drop of 0.7 percent from last year. All six of Baltimore’s games at home this year have been at 98 percent capacity or higher, according to the data, which is recent as of Monday morning.

Team officials chalked the drop up to several factors, including a less interesting schedule than in 2016 and the improved quality of the television product.”

Ok, I’ll buy that a less interesting schedule contributed to the 0.7% drop off (more on that in a moment) and that the at-home experience of watching the game has improved substantively over the past few years.

But what this article conveniently ignores, and then reduces it to nothing more than spin at best and team propaganda at worst, are arguably the biggest factors that keep fans away:

• Cost of a ticket
• Expensive concessions
• Parking Fees
• Traffic
• Inconsistent play
• Drop off in the fan experience (as compared to the Ray Lewis years)
• Overall decline in the quality of play across the league
• Player protests
• Increasing number of fans who no longer care

To sweep these things under the rug or just flat out ignore them, does little to cure the drop off in “attendance”. The first part of correcting a problem is to be honest about the things creating the problem.

at•tend•ance (əˈtendəns)

noun: the number of people present at a particular event, function, or meeting.

Now publicly, this might be the message the team wants to convey. Privately, let’s hope that key members of the Ravens admin staff are rolling up their sleeves and working diligently to mend all areas of weakness that they can. They’d be wise to conduct a study of fans, perhaps even invite a cross-section of fans to be part of a focus group.

That’s on the Ravens and I trust that they’ll seek solutions.

But for the BBJ to throw out a 0.7% drop off isn’t just laughable, it insults the intelligence of its readers.

M&T Bank Stadium has a capacity of 71,008 according to BaltimoreRavens.com. If attendance is off 0.7% on average, that means, if we are to believe the findings compiled by SportsBusiness Journal, there are only 406 empty seats at M&T on game day.

Four. Hundred. Six.

Early minutes of the battle between 6-5 teams in Baltimore. #NFL #DETvsBAL (https://t.co/drLjKUwCtb) pic.twitter.com/QlZyq0VunL

— Empty Seats Galore (@EmptySeatsPics) December 3, 2017

Now it’s quite possible that those figures reflect “ticket sales”, many of which go to brokers who are selling tickets at 30% of face value these days, just to unload them. I’m sure many of you reading this have had tickets offered to you by friends and family members for free, yet the tickets go unused.

Trust your eyes.

Look around when you go to games.

And tell me that you believe that there are only 406 empty seats.

Stop the spin. Stop the lies. Stop the insults.

Admit the problems. Fix the problems. Start to heal.

I’ll be waiting and hoping that my team gets it right.

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