'Nobody' Goes To Mets Games

Attendance Isn't Great: But it's not the 'lolMets' joke people think it is.

Every year it’s like clockwork:

Around the month of September, I’m usually tagged with an image or video of Citi Field that is practically empty. It’s usually followed with the ever-annoying “Thoughts?” question. The question, as loaded as it is presented is asking about why one of the baseball teams in the largest markets in baseball always looks like it’s empty. Now, the answer to that question is usually because the team is underachieving. Still, this past Monday, in the middle of a playoff race, broadcaster Gary Cohen was dumbfounded that 21,000+ fans came out to a stadium that holds close to 40,000.

I got tagged four times by people who aren’t baseball fans or fans of other fanbases. “Explain this, Flobito!” Okay, I will. But just know that no matter what amount of logic I apply to this people are going to claim that I’m making excuses. Also, I’ll try to keep my biases at the door. While I’m more level-headed than say Frank the Tank, I’m going to answer this as objectively as I can. Don’t remember Frank?

There you go. Okay, let’s get the “little” reasons out of the way. By no means are the following actually little, but rather these are reasons that you could apply to any team generically that would impact attendance of a given game. These are also some of the reasons I saw on Reddit that went into detail about the Mets attendance issue on September 16th, 2024 (A game that we won btw)

“It’s too expensive to go to sporting events these days”

“It’s a Monday/School Night”

"I prefer to watch sports from home”

Now, I don’t necessarily disagree with these statements. After all, while it is a playoff chase, the Mets were playing the lowly Washington Nationals. That said, when it comes to reasons why they don’t go to games, I like to think of these as evergreen. As in, if you find games to be expensive, you ALWAYS will, no matter if you have the extra cash or not. Baseball is actually one of the cheapest pro sports to see live due to them having way more games available in a season. Tickets routinely start at $7 on the resale market. Those who wouldn’t go on a Monday night would probably feel a Friday is for going out on the town or Sunday afternoon is best served with family. My dad is in the latter category. He watches every game on TV, but if I don’t physically stuff him into the car to see a game live, he won’t go.

And even then he wanted to leave after the fourth.

Next up, the facts. Here’s a list of Major League Baseball teams and their attendance. The Mets rank 17th:

Not great, but not nearly as doom and gloom as everyone on the Internet wants you to believe. The Mets outdraw “better” teams such as Baltimore and Arizona. But you can’t deny that the markets get noticeably smaller after that, but you can see a couple of trends. In areas with multiple teams (Dodgers/Angels, Cubs/White Sox, Yankees/Mets, San Francisco/Oakland), a “primary” team FAR outdraws the secondary one. And it’s a fact that I’ve admitted constantly that the Mets are the secondary team in New York. In fact, that’s part of the appeal. The Yankees are the flagship standard of a sport that has dwindling eyes on it (save for 2024). The pie is getting smaller all around and secondary options will get smaller slices. By the way, side question:

This is a Mardi Gras cheesecake from Popeyes. Are cheesecakes considered a pie?

Okay, let’s move on to the Mets specific reasons why people don’t go to games. This one obviously hurts to write a bit but we gotta be honest with ourselves.

It’s a Pain-in-the-Ass to Get To

I grew up in Southeast Brooklyn New York. To get to a game by public transportation, I would have to take a bus to the Brooklyn College subway stop. Then, I would have to take the 2 Local to Times Square (Manhattan!), and THEN hop on the 7-Line to Queens. The whole process can take 90-120 minutes to get there and that’s BEFORE a three-hour baseball game. Driving there is a luxury because parking is hovering around $40 and for a city that’s not a car-culture town, that’s straight up a robbery.

People are Shell-shocked

The odds of being a World Series champion are pretty slim. It’s 1/30th AT BEST. And because the Mets have historically underachieved, there’s always hesitation to outwardly support the team. The fan base (and rightfully so due to past ownership) is in this constant waiting for the team to blow up down the stretch of the season. Fans like to get together and commiserate about how many squandered opportunities they had like a poker player telling a bad beat story. I’ve made a conscious effort to be as positive as I can while rooting for my boys, (and that’s why people like sending me stuff to see if it would send me over the edge) but there are fans who admittedly are scared. This happens all the time in sports. In SoCal there’s the San Diego Padres. Padres fans act high and mighty now, but when I first moved out here, games were a GHOST TOWN.

There Ain’t Sh*t To Do When You Get There

I have my own reservations about “Entertainment Districts” in general, but while Citi Field is a fun place to hang out, it still lives in a dank part of Queens on the border of Flushing and Corona. There are just local seedy bars, auto repair shops, closed businesses, and poor lighting around the park. So yes, while Citi Field has the best food in baseball, Flushing Queens very much has “watch your game and get out” energy. Owner Steve Cohen wants to build an entertainment complex, dubbed “Metropolitan Park” but that’s quite a years off.

Okay bear with me, we’re almost done.

So let’s look at that top ten list of teams with attendance. If you subtract the ease of use of getting to the stadium, the list of things someone can do around the stadium before and after a game, whether or not there’s a second team in the same market, the location of the park in relation to the downtown core of the city, the Mets are doing OK and will improve. In fact, remove the primary/secondary team dynamic and the ONLY other stadium with more challenging logistics is the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“But Flobo,” I can hear you say. “They top the league in attendance. What’s your ‘eXcUsE’ now?”

Well, the answer they get more fans is the same reason why the Dodgers charge almost the same money to park. The same reason why they have the highest beer prices in the league. The same reason they have people lined up before a game for hours just to pick up a dumb bobblehead.

Winning cures everything.

The core of ‘hardcore’ fans will always be small for any team. Casuals and ‘enthusiasts’ (people who go between hardcore and casual) buy into winners. The Mets, in the thick of a playoff race, are winning now, but for a team that has more losing seasons than winning ones, it will be a hard sell until they start winning. Smaller markets can get away with losing a lot longer than any team living under the bright lights of New York City.

And you know what? I’ll take 21,000 fans ready to go hard for their team than 45,000 fans looking to be seen in their jerseys that are so new the tag is still on them.

LGM

P.S. Feel the crowd here: