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Thursday, October 06, 2011
Why can’t Tampa support its team?
Jason asks.
It seems obvious to me that the answer is the fanbase itself.
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/attendance_base_for_each_team/
There, I show that the fanbase for each team since 1987, if their team played .500 ball. By far the worst was the Expos-gutted teams after all the fire sales concluding with Pedro being traded. That one was an exceptional case. Anyway, bringing up the bottom were the Expos (1987-1997), Rays, Pirates, A’s, Marlins.
That is, these teams are simply starting off with a low base. The Dodgers (through to 2009 anyway) had the highest fan base, almost double that of those five bottom teams.
I also concluded the following:
- the two cities that have a good fan base don’t have a team: Brooklyn and Montreal… given a decent situation, each city can support a team
- Oakland and Tampa are probably the two teams that may benefit the most from a new ballpark
I also said this:
6. Anyway, best way to use this chart is to look at the base numbers (in either step 5 above, or the 1987_2009 in step 4), and treat that as a city’s “.500 team” fan support.
Then, in order to figure out how much fan support you can expect, add 2% for each win over 162 games. So, if you are a .580 team (94 wins, or +13 wins above average), you add 26% to the base number. Similarly, drop 2% for each win below average.
Now, the Rays base support (for a .500 team) is 20,960 fans. Since they won 91 games (+10 wins above average), my little shortcut here says to add 20% to the base number. That puts them at 25,152 fans per game. They actually drew 18,879 fans, which is abysmally low from expectations (25% below expectations).
So, the fanbase itself may be in an even worse position than I thought.
Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with relocation, if a city isn’t supporting its team. I like what happened with the Winnipeg Jets: they got their team ripped away, and when given a chance to support them once more, they came back in force, selling out the season tickets for the next 5 years, and with a waiting list that is some 8000 deep (I think that was the number).
A little temporary breakup may be what is needed for some teams.
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