Tampa Bay Baseball Attendance Report - July 30, 2015

Tampa Bay baseball attendance for Thursday, July 30, 2015:

Total Attendance: 0

Dunedin Blue Jays:

• Team Home Game #: 51
• Attendance: 0 (POSTPONED - Rain)
• Opponent: Palm Beach Cardinals

No other games scheduled.

Sports Business Journal discusses Rays use of USF students

It seems the Rays are using students from the USF Sports MBA program like they do relief pitchers from the Durham Bulls - as low-cost talent who can be cycled in and out while they are cheap.

According to a recent article in the Sports Business Journal, the Rays are among many Tampa Bay area sports and entertainment venues capitalizing on a partnership with the USF Sports MBA program.

(Definitely worth the read. The whole program spawned from Lightning owner Jeff Vinik. I've written before about Vinik's ability to find the best and brightest people to work for him.)

While the article discusses USF Sports MBA candidates employed by the Lightning, Hard Rock Casino, and other Tampa Bay venues, the part about the Rays was particularly interesting.

Last year, two of them, Jessica Kitzmiller and Zack Lee, were assigned a project together: to pull data attached to Rays ticket buyers and analyze it to determine how they were using flex packs. Lee looked primarily at game selection to determine what beyond the obvious factors, such as opponent and day of week, influenced their selection. Kitzmiller studied demos, creating customer profiles based on gender, age and preference, along with a heat map that showed where buyers came from.

This year, they will return to the franchise — Lee to continue working on member services and ticketing, and Kitzmiller to focus on social media, where she also spent a chunk of time last year.

The Rays have been open that they created the Flex Packs to know their customers better. They want to know trends in buying, games, and in-park usage, where users come from and who they are. It is all part of "creating a better relationship", which then drives customized communications and promotions that hopefully goes beyond the initial Flex Pack and into a long-term or lifelong fan association with the team. And once they have the fan as a consistent buyer, they just have to maintain the relationship. Meanwhile, they then reach out to other demographics and parts of the potential pool to hook more new fans, hoping to turn them into lifelong fans as well.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

But it is still interesting to get a little insight how the Rays analyze the data. Given their data, the Rays know who is coming only for games versus the Yankees, Orioles, or any other opponent. They also want to know the beer preference of 35-50 year old women from Brandon. Which they can find if those women use their flex pack at Tropicana Field.

Fortunately for the Rays, like young relief pitching, young sports business talent will always be cheap. According to the article, the sports MBA field is

pumping out graduates into an industry already overrun by résumés; an industry that has no established path to entry, like the management training program of the broader corporate world; an industry that generally hasn’t shown a willingness to pay more for an MBA

While USF is doing what it can to get willing students experience, the ability to get bright minds on the cheap is great news for a team that tries to capitalize on competitive advantages ("The Extra 2%") wherever it can.

(Disclaimer: I am a (non-sports) MBA candidate at USF. To my knowledge, I haven't crossed paths with the Sports MBA Department outside of meeting a few sports marketing students.)

Tampa Bay Baseball Attendance Report - July 29, 2015

Tampa Bay baseball attendance for Wednesday, July 29, 2015:

Total Attendance: 29,209

Tampa Bay Rays:

• Team Home Game #: 54
• Attendance: 28,057
• Starting Pitcher: Chris Archer
• Opponent: Detroit Tigers
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Justin Verlander
• Avg Attendance to Date: 15,289
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 19,244
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 14,575
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 17,321
• Promotions (if any): Park and Recreation Day
• Other local events: Dave Matthews Band Concert (Amphitheater)

Bradenton Marauders:

• Team Home Game #: 55
• Attendance: 1,152
• Starting Pitcher: Frank Duncan
• Opponent: Clearwater Threshers
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Brandon Leibrant
• Avg Attendance to Date: 1,553
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 1,045
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 952
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 1,481
• Promotions (if any): Marauders Fan Appreciation Day

No other games scheduled

Monthly Baseball Attendance Trends in Tampa Bay by Team 2007-2014

In Monday's post, we looked at the total monthly attendance trend of Minor League Baseball in Tampa Bay and compared it to the monthly attendance trends of the Tampa Bay Rays.

We found that attendance trends for Minor League Baseball and Major League Baseball in Tampa Bay are very different. While the amount of fans is definitely different, it is interesting to see when fans go to Minor League Baseball and when fans go to Rays games. Granted, these might not even be the same fans, but tracking the behavior of each fanbase is interesting.

Among the conclusions of the last post:

• May is bad for the Rays, but very good for Minor League baseball.
• June is a bad month for both the Rays and Minor League Baseball.
• July is the best month for baseball attendance overall in the Tampa Bay area.
• The beginning and end of the season draw similarly.

But one of the biggest admitted problems with the last post was that I grouped all the Minor League teams together. We can almost safely assume fans of each team don't often go to many games of the other Minor League teams. The only usual exception might be fans of the Dunedin Blue Jays going to Clearwater and vice versa, due to those teams' proximity to each other.

So are all the Minor League teams the same? Do they all follow the same average monthly trends?

Here are the monthly trends for each team in the Tampa Bay area since 2007, starting with the Rays.

Since 2007, Rays attendance has followed this pattern from highest to lowest:

1. July
2. April
3. August
4. September/October
5. June
6. May

Here are the monthly attendance trends for the Clearwater Threshers:

Since 2007, Threshers attendance has followed this pattern from highest to lowest:

1. May / July (tie)
2. April
3. August/Sept
4. June

Here are the monthly attendance trends for the Tampa Yankees:

Since 2007, Tampa Yankees attendance has followed this pattern from highest to lowest:

1. May
2. July
3. April
4. June
5. August/Sept

Here are the monthly attendance trends for the Dunedin Blue Jays:

Since 2007, Dunedin Blue Jays attendance has followed this pattern from highest to lowest:

1. April
2. July
3. August/Sept
4. May / June (tie)

Here are the monthly attendance trends for the Bradenton Marauders:

Since 2010, Bradenton Marauders attendance has followed this pattern from highest to lowest:

1. July
2. August/Sept
3. June
4. May
5. April

The following chart depicts each team and their average monthly attendance pattern:

This chart shows us that the Minor League teams all have different monthly attendance trends. While the Clearwater Threshers and Tampa Yankees are similar, the Dunedin Blue Jays and Bradenton Marauders are unique. And no Minor League team's attendance trend is similar to the Rays.

This graph depicts the previous chart:

One consistent we see through each team is July. July is either the first, tied for first, or the second highest drawing month for every baseball team playing in the Tampa Bay area.

There is also something else interesting: the two highest drawing teams - the Threshers and Yankees - have their highest attendance in May. So they are driving the trend we saw in the last post when we concluded May was a good month for Minor League teams while a bad month for the Rays. This is curious, although we might never find out if any fans are opting to see the Yankees and Threshers in May instead of visiting Tropicana Field.

However, weather might play a role in this attendance phenomenon. In May in the Tampa Bay area, the high temperature is usually in the mid-80s and the lows are in the mid-60s. When baseball games start in the early evening, the temperature is usually in the 70s. According to weatherspark.com, temperature is in the "comfortable to warm" bracket. According to usclimatedata.com, May is one of the least rainiest months in Tampa Bay. So the combination of nice weather and little chance of rain may be the reason more fans see the Threshers and Yankees in May than any other month.

Which might be a good reason for the Rays to look at a retractable dome if/when they build a new stadium, wherever it may be.

But as for the present, there is still a lot to study. I will be breaking each team's attendace down even more in the coming weeks, devoting entire posts to the monthly averages of each Minor League team in Tampa Bay. Then we will dive into per day averages.

I'm not sure what we will come up with, but it should give us more insight into the patterns, trends, and anomalies of baseball ticket buying behavior in the Tampa Bay area.

Tampa Bay Baseball Attendance Report - July 28, 2015

Tampa Bay baseball attendance for Tuesday, July 28, 2015:

Total Attendance: 18,064

Tampa Bay Rays:

• Team Home Game #: 53
• Attendance: 16,326
• Starting Pitcher: Jake Odorizzi
• Opponent: Detroit Tigers
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: David Price
• Avg Attendance to Date: 15,048
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 14,837
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 12,178
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 15,422
• Promotions (if any): None
• Other local events: None

Bradenton Marauders:

• Team Home Game #: 53 / 54
• Attendance: 1,738
• Starting Pitcher: Clay Holmes / Luis Heredia
• Opponent: Clearwater Threshers
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Victor Arano / Yacksel Rios
• Avg Attendance to Date: 1,560
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 1,010
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 975
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 950 / 1,119
• Promotions (if any): 2-for-1 tickets

No other games scheduled

Hardball Times discusses Florida State League attendance

I am a longtime reader of The Hardball Times. A few years ago, I wrote a piece for them on the career of Florida State baseball coach Mike Martin. They are one of the best in-depth baseball publications on the web. Highly recommended.

Yesterday, The Hardball Times posted an interesting piece on the Florida State League entitled "Blame it on the Rain". The article, written by Chris Gigley, focused predominantly on the difference between the FSL and other leagues across the US - especially in regards to attendance.

According to Gigley,

it’s one of the truly unique minor leagues in baseball, home to lonely outposts such as Roger Dean Stadium that offer the most relaxed, laid-back fan experiences you can find in baseball. Parking is free or cheap. No crowds clog aisles and concourses. No long lines snake from concession and souvenir stands. Seat assignments are optional. Sit wherever you want. There’s always plenty of room.

This was also an interesting comment:

all but four (Fort Myers, Brevard County, Charlotte and Daytona) of the 12 FSL teams, the Cardinals and Hammerheads are owned by their parent organizations, which aren’t really worried about attendance and fan atmosphere. They’re more interested in player development,

While this might be true in many cases, I think the Clearwater Threshers are an exception. They are consistently the best drawing team in the Florida State League. They put on post-game concerts that nearly par the Rays' concert series and their mascot won Minor League Baseball Mascot of the Year. But overall, yes, Florida State League attendance is not the main focus of these teams and facilities.

Gigley continues:

But those crowds are pretty small, even compared to the two other High-A leagues. Last year, the average game in the California League drew 2,359 fans. The Carolina League packed them in even more, with an average crowd of 3,811. The Florida State League’s big ballparks, on the other hand, welcomed an average crowd of just 1,593.

I really liked Gigley's inference that market saturation is a problem, even if he didn't state it directly.

That feeling is especially acute at Hammerheads home games. Despite having its parent club just a couple hours south, Jupiter is one of the lowest draws in the league, averaging fewer than 1,000 fans through its first 39 games this year. (Mike) Bauer (GM of Roger Dean Stadium) said part of it has to do with two teams diluting the product.

“When we had one team, we averaged around 1,600 fans,” he said.

Gigley then tries to connect the Major League teams in Florida and their attendance issues. He quotes Bauer again, who cites other venues and demographics as a problem. Unfortunately, neither Gigley nor Bauer make the connection that maybe the Minor League teams and their Spring Training predecessors could be saturating the market and hurting the Rays and Marlins. I've often said on this site that the Tampa Bay area doesn't have to economic capacity (even with tourists) to support one Major League team, four Minor League teams, and all the other sports the region hosts. South Florida could have the same problem.

Maybe Florida has too much baseball.

Economics and personal platforms aside, given his tour of the Florida State League, Gigley did a great job capturing the league's uniqueness. Definitely worth the read.

Blame it on the Rain - The Hardball Times

Tampa Bay Baseball Attendance Report - July 27, 2015

Tampa Bay baseball attendance for Monday, July 27, 2015:

Total Attendance: 13,348

Tampa Bay Rays:

• Team Home Game #: 52
• Attendance: 13,348
• Starting Pitcher: Nathan Karns
• Opponent: Detroit Tigers
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Anibal Sanchez
• Avg Attendance to Date: 15,023
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 13,348
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 13,965
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 14,039
• Promotions (if any): None
• Other local events: None

Clearwater Threshers:

• Team Home Game #: 54
• Attendance: POSTPONED (Rain)

No other games scheduled

Introductory Exploration of Monthly Baseball Attendance trends in TampaBay

Now that I have charted and graphed attendance for each professional baseball team in the Tampa Bay area in each season since 2007, I can start putting the data together and doing 2nd or even 3rd level analysis. This means looking at the data from different angles and in different combinations to see if any trends, patterns, or anomalies appear.

This first analysis looks at trends in average attendance per month. By doing this, I will attempt to answer the following questions:

• Is there a difference between baseball attendance in each month?
• What months draw better? What months draw worse?
• Is the pattern of better months and worse months the same for both the Rays and the four Minor League teams in the Tampa Bay area? Do they follow different patterns?
• What can we learn about fan ticket purchasing behavior by looking at trends in average monthly attendance?

I have posted this before, but here are the Rays monthly attendance patterns from 2007 to 2014. In seasons where the Rays played regular season games in October (2009 and 2012), I have combined those games in September attendance.

(1= Highest drawing month of the year / 6= Lowest drawing month of the year)

Since 2007, Rays monthly average attendance has varied. But averaging the entire range, attendance follows this pattern from highest to lowest:

1. July
2. April
3. August
4. September/October
5. June
6. May

July is the greatest average drawing month for the Tampa Bay Rays. There are several reasons why this might be the case, from opponents to the cliched "kids are out of school" idea. There is also the impact of the Rays Summer Concert Series. April is heavily influenced by Opening Day, and August and September are usually dependent on team performance - if the Rays are in the playoff hunt, attendance is usually higher, if not, then attendance stays at May and June levels.

Here are the total monthly attendance patterns for the four Minor League Baseball teams in Tampa Bay from 2007 to 2014 - the Tampa Yankees, Clearwater Threshers, Bradenton Marauders, and Dunedin Blue Jays. We are taking all four teams together, although we can probably safely assume they draw from at least three different fanbases, with Dunedin and Clearwater having probable overlaps. In seasons where teams played regular season games in the first week of September, I have combined those games in August attendance.

Minor League attendance monthly patterns have not varied as much as Rays attendance. This might be because winning and player recognition means less to Minor League Baseball attendees than it does to Major League Baseball attendees. So Minor League fans are more likely to follow the same attendance pattern year by year.

Averaging the entire range, Tampa Bay Minor League Baseball average attendance follows this pattern from highest to lowest:

1. May
2. July
3. Aug/Sept
4. April
5. June

The following graph plots the Rays and the Minor League average patterns.

This graph gives us some interesting insight. Here are a few key facts we can derive:

• May is bad for the Rays, but very good for Minor League baseball.
• June is a bad month for both the Rays and Minor League Baseball.
• July is the best month for baseball attendance overall in the Tampa Bay area.
• The beginning and end of the season draw similarly.

Does this tell us anything about fan behavior?

Possibly. It shows us Tampa Bay area baseball ticket buyers prefer Minor League Baseball in May and July. Our next step will be looking at those two months for promotions and attractions. Are attendance numbers skewered because of a certain promotion? We have talked before about the effect of fireworks, so 4th of July games may be a big part of July's average attendance. The Rays don't play many July 4th games due to their dome. What if we took away July 4th?

While Opening Day is a big deal for the Rays, it is not for Minor League attendance. What if we took away Opening Day?

I would be curious to see how other Major and Minor League teams trend. Are Tampa Bay ticket buyers unique in their behavior? If so, why? Might the dome of Tropicana Field be a deterrent in the "cooler" months of April and September? Might fans opt for the 72 degrees of Tropicana Field during the dog days of summer?

From here, we are going to dive into each individual Minor League team to see if one team is driving the trend more than any other. Again, this is the total of 4 teams in 3 different areas of Tampa Bay - Clearwater and Dunedin are close enough to group together.

We can also look at whether the Rays performance on the field has any effect on Minor League attendance. When the Rays are in contention, do less people go to Minor League games in August? Or does Minor League season end before Rays fans get excited?

All this research does is show us possible relationships. Although we can't specifically say this specific fan bought tickets to this specific game for this specific reason, we can start to make assumptions based on the overall behavior of 2.8 million possible ticket buyers.

Tampa Bay Baseball Attendance Report - July 26, 2015

Tampa Bay baseball attendance for Sunday, July 26, 2015:

Total Attendance: 20,017

Tampa Bay Rays:

• Team Home Game #: 51
• Attendance: 18,613
• Starting Pitcher: Matt Moore
• Opponent: Baltimore Orioles
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Wei-Yin Chen
• Avg Attendance to Date: 15,056
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 19,883
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 18,513
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 17,141
• Promotions (if any): FSU Day / Christmas in July
• Other local events: None

Clearwater Threshers:

• Team Home Game #: 53
• Attendance: 1,404
• Starting Pitcher: David Whitehead
• Opponent: Bradenton Marauders
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Cody Dickson
• Avg Attendance to Date: 2,815
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 2,443
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 1,556
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 1,873
• Promotions (if any): Brunch at the Park

No other games scheduled

Tampa Bay Baseball Attendance Report - July 25, 2015

Tampa Bay baseball attendance for Saturday, July 25, 2015:

Total Attendance: 27,917

Tampa Bay Rays:

• Team Home Game #: 50
• Attendance: 24,327
• Starting Pitcher: Erasmo Ramirez
• Opponent: Baltimore Orioles
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Miguel Gonzalez
• Avg Attendance to Date: 14,985
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 20,136
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 20,460
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 14,954
• Promotions (if any): Kasey Musgraves post-game concert
• Other local events: Tampa Bay Rowdies home game (Al Lang Stadium) Attendance: not announced

Clearwater Threshers:

• Team Home Game #: 51 / 52
• Attendance: 3,590
• Starting Pitcher: Ricardo Pinto / Mat Imhof
• Opponent: Jupiter Hammerheads
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Jose Adames / Drew Steckenrider
• Avg Attendance to Date: 2,844
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 2,286
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 4,205
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 4,266
• Promotions (if any): Fireworks

Bradenton Marauders:

• Team Home Game #: 51
• Attendance: 936
• Starting Pitcher: Felipe Gonzalez
• Opponent: Dunedin Blue Jays
• Opponent Starting Pitcher: Murphy Smith
• Avg Attendance to Date: 1,557
• Avg Attendance vs Opponent: 957
• Avg Attendance per Day of the Week: 2,201
• Avg Attendance for Starting Pitcher: 2,156
• Promotions (if any): Military Appreciation Night

Bradenton Marauders:

• Team Home Game #: 52
• Attendance: CANCELLED
• Opponent: Dunedin Blue Jays

No other games scheduled