Largest Crowd Since Opening Day Saw Today's Walk-Off Classic

The walk-off warriors struck again this afternoon, and the largest crowd since opening day was there to witness it.

If you take a peek at our Yankee Stadium attendance tracker, you will notice that today's attendance of 46,889 beat out the attendance for the Red Sox game on 5-5-09 for second place in 2009. Of course, the Yankees haven't come close to the 48,271 from 4-16-09. At the time, it seemed like that was a disappointing number, but it is likely going to take a playoff game to top it. Perhaps the stadium holds a few less people than they thought it would? Read the full post, after the jump

Get Used To Large Announced Attendances With Sparsely Populated Seats At The New Yankee Stadium

We were recently introduced to the extremely useful FanSnap.com. It is essentially Kayak.com - but for event tickets instead of airline tickets. In other words, the search engine has access to inventory for tickets from multiple sources and aggregates them within a well-designed website (why don't we ever think of this stuff?!) In perusing the website for Yankee tickets, we realized that there is considerably more inventory on the secondary market for Yankee tickets than for any other baseball team. This may explain why Yankee Stadium looked so empty during the first homestand.

This shouldn't come as a surprise - it was months ago when we first pointed out that Yankee fans were justifying irrational ticket upgrades with ideas of putting excess on the secondary market. Finally, we have some proof of the Yankees success in scaring fans into purchasing tickets that they had no intention of using.

The Yankees officially state the maximum capacity of the new Yankee Stadium at 52,235, which includes "approximately" 2,000 standing room only tickets. However, the Yankees announced opening day's crowd of 48,271 as a sell out. Therefore, we will operate under the assumption that 48,271 is the maximum number of Yankee tickets that could ever be on the secondary market (standing room only will only be day of game sales, if they ever start selling them).

Referring back to FanSnap.com, the number of tickets available for the remaining 75 Yankee games is ridiculous. Doing math based on the rounded numbers of tickets available according to the site (which does not include all ticket brokers, or Craigs List), an average of 16,900 Yankee tickets are available on the secondary market for each game. In other words, 35% of the per-game inventory sold by the Yankees is now back on the market, presumably with the intent of making a profit. Even worse, ticket inventory for "premium" games such as the Red Sox and the Mets come in at over 20,000 tickets available. According to FanSnap.com. nearly half of the tickets sold for the premium games were bought just to sell and and these totals don't even include outlets such as Craigs List. For some perspective, the Mets secondary market doesn't have one game with 10,000 tickets available - not even when the Yankees visit their cross-town rivals in Queens.

While large portions of the empty seats at the new Yankee Stadium can be attributed to the fact that the team still has plenty of good (and overpriced) seats available directly from their box office, there are other contributing factors. As evidenced above, the secondary market is completely flooded with tickets. It appears that people who purchased tickets in the "cheap" seats did so with the intent to sell many of the games in order to subsidize their ticket purchase. Premium games in these "cheap" seats are still going for above face value, so there is obvious secondary market demand for them. For such games, the unsuspecting ticket brokers (hardcore Yankee fans forced to upgrade to larger plans to keep their tickets) and regular ticket brokers (the people who take advantage of the free market) are taking profits, and the stadium is full.

However, when hardcore fans fail to attend the non-premium games and ticket brokers are unable to sell them, the result is a half-empty stadium for mid-week games against Oakland, as we saw last week. We were stuck at work last Wednesday and had to sell a pair of Grandstand tickets for $10. We were happy to get that, as some people were giving them away on Craigslist.

Aaron Elstein touched on the financial aspect of this in a recent Crain's NY article, but there is also a fan-friendliness angle to the new-fangled ticket sales model. By encouraging fans to sell tickets, the Yankees have made it harder on everyone. Typically, nobody feels bad for ticket scalpers. In this case, many of the "scalpers" are simply defacto ticket brokers, hawking their extra tickets so they can afford to attend the number of games they originally intended on going to.

Other Yankee fans, who can't commit to attending a game until the last minute, are left without an obvious venue to purchase affordable seats - even while outlets represented on FanSnap are flooded with tickets. Many of us are well-versed in the ways of Stubhub, but the majority of casual fans have never purchased tickets from an online broker and are leery about being ripped off. These people would rather go to Yankees.com or go to the Yankee box office to buy tickets for games that clearly aren't in high demand.

We don't have access to the numbers, but it can easily be assumed that walk-up ticket sales in the new Yankee Stadium have dramatically decreased. How couldn't they? All of the available tickets are on sale through websites like FanSnap.com, and are deactivated a few hours before the event. Affordable tickets are wasting away in cyberspace, while they could be in the hands of the box office to sell on the day of the game. Until this is fixed, Yankee fans who are priced out of the new stadium will have to deal with the frustration of seeing empty seats while they watch at home on TV.
Read the full post, after the jump

FINAL 2009 Yankee Stadium Attendance Tracker

With the Yankees having trouble filling the expensive seats, now is as good of a time as ever to start a new Yankee Stadium attendance tracker. For now, we will just post the official attendance (based on the box score), the date & time and the weather conditions for that day. Perhaps sometime in the future we can put it in graphical form, but for now it is just simple numbers. Will the Yankees ever crack the 50,000 mark? We'll have to wait and see...

Date & Time / Attendance / Weather Conditions

4-16-09 1:08 PM/ 48,271 (announced sellout) / Sunny, lower 60's
4-17-09 1:05 PM/ 45,101 / Sunny, upper 60's
4-18-09 3:40 PM/45,167 / Partly Sunny, mid 70's
4-19-09 1:05 PM/ 43,068 / Mostly Cloudy, mid 60's
4-21-09 7:05 PM/ 42,065 / Cloudy/drizzle, low 50's
4-22-09 1:05 PM / 43,342 / Cloudy/drizzle, low 50's
4-30-09 7:05 PM / 43,388 / Cloudy, upper 50's
5-1-09 7:05 PM / 44,058 / Cloudy/rain showers, mid 60's
5-2-09 1:05 PM / 44,970 / Sunny mid 60's
5-4-09 7:05 PM / 46,426 / Rain, low 50's (2:16 rain delay at start)
5-5-09 7:05 PM / 46.810 / rain showers, upper 40's
5-6-09 7:05 PM / 42,585 / Cloudy/rain showers, upper 50's
5-7-09 7:05 PM / 43,769 / Partly Cloudy, lower 60's
5-15-09 7:05 PM / 43,856 / Partly Cloudy, upper 60's
5-16-09 1:05 PM / 45,455 / Cloudy, mid 60's (chance of rain late)
5-17-09 1:05 PM / 44,804 / Cloudy, mid 50's (chance of rain early)
5-18-09 7:05 PM / 43,244 / Cloudy, low 50's
5-19-09 7:05 PM / 42,838 / Clear, upper 50's
5-20-09 7:05 PM / 43,903 / Clear, upper 60's
5-21-09 7:05 PM / 43,342 / Clear, lower 70's
5-22-09 7:05 PM / 46,288 / Clear, upper 70's
5-23-09 4:05 PM / 46,889 / Partly Cloudy, upper 60's
5-24-09 1:05 PM / 46,986 / Partly Cloudy, low 80's
6-3-09 7:05 PM / 43,948 / Cloudy, low 70's
6-4-09 7:05 PM / 44,452 / Rain Showers, mid 50's (:12 delay at start)
6-5-09 1:05 PM / 45,713 / Cloudy, mid 60's
6-6-09 1:05 PM / 46.205 / Partly Sunny, low 70's
6-7-09 1:05 PM / 46,465 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
6-8-09 7:05 PM / 44,706 / Partly Cloudy, low 70's
6-12-09 7:05 PM / 47,967 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's
6-13-09 4:05 PM / 48,056 / Light Rain, low 70's
6-14-09 1:05 PM / 47,943 / Partly Cloudy, low 70's
6-16-09 7:05 PM/ 44,873 / Partly Cloudy, low 60's
6-17-09 7:05 PM / 46,052 / Cloudy, low 60's
6-18-09 1:05 PM / 45,143 / Rain, upper 50's (5:26 rain delay at start)
6-30-09 7:05 PM / 46,181 / Rain to start, mid 60's (0:58 rain delay at start)
7-1-09 7:05 PM / 45,285 / Partly cloudy, low 70's
7-2-09 7:05 PM / 46,142 / Cloudy, low 70's (0:36 delay at start due to threat of storms)
7-3-09 1:05 PM / 46,308 / Partly cloudy, low 70's
7-4-09 1:05 PM / 46.620 / Partly cloudy, mid 70's
7-5-09 1:05 PM / 46.320 / Sunny, mid 70's
7-6-09 1:05 PM / 46.450 / Sunny, low 80's
7-17-09 7:05 PM / 46.197 / Cloudy, Thunderstorms, upper 70's (0:57 rain delay in 8th inning)
7-18-09 1:05 PM / 46.423 / Sunny, low 80's
7-19-09 2:05 PM / 46,937 / Sunny, low 80's
7-20-09 7:05 PM / 46,342 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
7-21-09 7:05 PM / 45,589 / Cloudy, Showers, upper 60's (0:26 rain delay to start the game)
7-22-09 1:05 PM / 47.134 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
7-23-09 7:05 PM / 44.206 / Cloudy, Rain, low 60's (2:43 rain delay to start the game)
7-24-09 7:05 PM / 46,086 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's
7-25-09 1:05 PM /46,412 / Sunny, mid 80's
7-26-09 1:05 PM / 46.163 / Cloudy, mid 80's
8-6-09 7:05 PM / 49,005 (announced sellout) / Cloudy, mid 70's
8-7-09 7:05 PM / 48,262 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's
8-8-08 4:05 PM / 48,796 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
8-9-09 8:05 PM / 48,190 / Cloudy, upper 70's
8-10-09 7:05 PM / 46,376 / Partly Cloudy, low 90's
8-11-09 7:05 PM / 46,523 / Partly Cloudy, mid 80's
8-12-09 1:05 PM / 47,113 / Cloudy, low 80's
8-25-09 7:05 PM / 46,511 / Partly Cloudy, low 80's
8-26-09 7:05 PM / 46,461 / Partly Cloudy, low 80's
8-27-09 1:05 PM / 47,209 / Cloudy, low 70's
8-28-09 7:05 PM / 46,318 / Rain, mid 60's
8-29-09 1:05 PM / 46.193 / Cloudy, Showers, low 70's

8-30-09 1:05 PM / 46,664 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's

9-7-09 1:05 PM / 47,436 / Partly Cloudy, low 70's

9-7-09 7:05 PM / 45,953 / Cloudy, upper 60's

9-8-09 7:05 PM / 45,350 / Cloudy, low 70's

9-9-09 7:05 PM / 45,848 / Cloudy, low 70's

9-11-09 7:05 PM / 46,771 / Rain, upper 50's (2:40 in 2 delays)

9-12-09 1:05 PM/ 46,497 / Cloudy, upper 60's

9-13-09 1:05 PM / 46,413 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's

9-14-09 7:05 PM / 44,701 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's (makeup of 5/3 rainout)

9-15-09 7:05 PM / 45,847 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's

9-16-09 7:05 PM / 46,046 / Cloudy, low 60's

9-25-09 7:05 PM / 48,449 / Clear, low 60's

9-26-09 4:10 PM / 48,809 / Cloudy, low 60's

9-27-09 1:05 PM / 47,576 / Cloudy, drizzle, mid 60's (1:00 delay to start the game)
9-28-09 7:05 PM / 45,348 / Cloudy, rain, low 60's (1:56 delay to start he game)
9-29-09 7:05 PM / 44,794 / Cloudy, low 60's
9-30-09 7:05 PM / 46,956 / Cloudy, low 50's
----
END REGULAR SEASON

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POSTSEASON:

ALDS

10-7-09 6:07 PM / 49.464 / Cloudy, low 60's

10-9-09 6:07 PM / 50,006 / Cloudy, upper 50's

ALCS

10-16-09 7:57 PM / 49,688 / Cloudy, Drizzle, low 40's

10-17-09 7:57 PM / 49,922 / Cloudy, mid 40's

10-25-09 8:20 PM / 50,173 / Partly Cloudy, upper 50's

World Series

10-28-09 7:57 PM / 50,207 / Drizzle, mist, low 40's

10-29-09 7:57 PM / 50,181 / Cloudy, low 50's

11-4-09 7:57 PM / 50,315 / Cloudy, mid 40's

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END POSTSEASON

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TOTAL POSTSEASON ATTENDANCE: 399,956

TOTAL REGULAR SEASON ATTENDANCE: 3,719,358
(#2 in MLB behind the Dodgers)
TOTAL 2009 ATTENDANCE (REGULAR + POSTSEASON): 4,119,314

More info on 2009 regular season MLB attendance figures at the Biz of Baseball

Remember, this is tracking PAID attendance. The Yankees don't release how many people actually went through the turnstile. For example, on the 4-22-09 day game, the paid attendance was 43,342, but anyone watching on TV knows that the Yankees were lucky if 30,000 were in the stadium.

Read the full post, after the jump

Yankees On Pace to Draw "Only" 3.9 Million Fans in 2009

As of today, the Yankees shockingly are not on pace for 4 million fans in attendance in their brand new stadium. The official attendance for today's game was only 48,271. We're unsure why it was so low, but perhaps it is because the Yankees haven't put standing room only tickets for sale yet. Or maybe too many people bought tickets just to flip them, and were unable to dump them in time.

Regardless of the reasons, the capacity of the stadium is supposed to be somewhere in the 52,000 range. Today, on a highly publicized opening of the most expensive stadium ever, the Yankees couldn't even draw 50,000. For comparison's sake, the Yankees had 55,112 fans come through the gates one year ago, after a rainout forced opening day to be moved to the next night.

This must be pretty disheartening for the team. There are some cold nights to come in the rest of April. Is it possible that the attendance will not even crack 40,000 for some of those games? For a team that has been easily drawing 4 million fans the past few years, this definitely comes as a bit of a surprise. Was anyone listening to the John Sterling on the radio? Did he mention the lower than expected attendance? How about the YES broadcast crew?

We checked last night, and Ticketmaster was completely sold out of tickets. Did the Yankees have to remove more seats than they initially let on due to obstructions? Is the capacity of the new stadium actually only 48,000 without standing room? Unfortunately we don't have the answers, but perhaps a mainstream news source will do some more digging. Keep an eye on the papers tomorrow. Read the full post, after the jump

Will The Yankees hit the 4 Million Attendance Mark in 2009?

Peter Gammons had an item on his blog yesterday, quoting Major League Baseball officials in regard to expected attendance for the 2009 season:

Major League Baseball has warned club businesspeople that attendance is expected to be down 17-20 percent in 2009, and that it could be worse, especially for franchises such as the San Diego Padres, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies and others that could be seriously impacted by the recession.

The Yankees will be immune to these massive drops in attendance, but it will be nearly impossible for the Yankees to not see a percentage decrease as compare to 2008.

The old Yankee Stadium held over 56,000 fans, and the new one only holds 51,000. Even if the Yankees sell out every single game, they will draw 4,131,000 fans, a decrease from the 4,298,655 they drew in 2008. With the Yankees struggling to sell the most expensive seats, all 81 games being sold out is far from certainty, and is likely a long-shot in this economy.

So, the drama mounts - will the Yankees draw 4 million fans? It would have to be considered a failure for them to draw anything less. Feel free to chime in with your best 2009 Yankee Stadium attendance guess in the comments section.

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