Top NL Road Draw: The Houston Astros???
Perusing the Boston Globe this past Sunday, and saw a little chart showing each team’s average home and road attendance. Not surprisingly, the Yankees are the top road team (35,612). Reigning WS champs, a number of well-known players, hated by so many yet also have fans everywhere… you know all the reasons. The Red Sox are #2 (32,667). They are not WS champs, but have won recently enough. More to the point, they have a number of well-known players, are now hated by many yet also have fans everywhere… again, you know the reasons. But while the Yankees are #1 in MLB, the Sox are only #2 in the AL. The #2 team in MLB average road attendance - and #1 in the NL is… wait for it… the Houston Astros?!
Houston is 32-51 - but draw an average of 34,001 fans in opposing ballparks, leading the NL (and as noted, #2 in all of MLB). The only NL team worse than them is the Pittsburgh Pirates, at 30-52. Um… why are the Astros a big road draw? They don’t have Stephen Strasburg. Do they have anyone that people are dying to see? If it’s because they’re so bad that opposing fans come to games reasoning the home team will likely win (reasonable expectation this season, I suppose), then why are the Pirates in the bottom third of NL road attendance (29,399)?
Average NL road attendance is 29,917 - so the Pirates are slightly below average. Perhaps one would expect them to be even lower, but no big deal. Why are the Astros #1 though?
I get that they play in the NL Central where the Cubs often sell a lot of tickets in Wrigley (even when the team is a hot mess), and the Cardinals sell out Busch Stadium, and the Brewers even do pretty well… but they’ve also got the Pirates (19,462 avg home attendance) and the Reds (22,850). And it’s not like they’re playing 10 road games in Philly (leading the NL at 45,054 in avg home attendance ) or LA (#2 in NL at 44,840 in avg home attendance) - and these two teams are just behind the MLB-leading Yankees (45,671 in avg home attendance).
What am I missing?
July 6th, 2010 at 11:58 am
So, you probably have most of the reasons (Wrigley, Busch, Miller parks having big draws), and the good guys are prolly going to win… but one factor that could add to it a bit is that Houston is the 3rd or 4th largest city in the nation, neck and neck with Chicago. There are just a lot of people down there.
July 6th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
So… it takes an Astros post to pull BA out of hibernation?
Regarding Houston being so large a city and there being a lot of people down there, how would that impact *road* attendance? Are you suggesting that a lot of Astros fans would rather not go see a home game - but will instead travel many more miles, and thus incur far greater costs, in order for the privilege of seeing the Astros lose yet again? That seems inconceivable to me.
July 13th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Maybe there are alot of fans like BA who are displaced and live elsewhere?
Then again, half the teams in the NL can claim Brad as a displaced fan..