Not that this should come as a surprise to any of you, but despite this afternoon’s probable packed house to pay tribute to Mike Piazza, Mets’ attendance will drop for the fifth straight season.
Not counting Saturday and Sunday, Adam Rubin of ESPN New York crunched the numbers and calculates that with an average attendance of 26,467, the Mets rank 21st in the majors.
Here’s a year-by-year look that illustrates the steady decline since 2008 when over four million energized fans flocked to All Stars Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado.
2013: 2,064,440, TBD, 21st
2012: 2,242,803, -5.7%, 17th
2011: 2,378,549, -7.1% , 14th
2010: 2,559,738, -18.8%, 12th
2009: 3,154,270, -22.0%, 7th
2008: 4,042,047, +4.9%, 2nd
* The percentage reflects the change from the previous season. The MLB ranking is based on average attendance for that season.
That’s a massive loss in revenue and just to put a dollar figure on it, I crunched some numbers of my own. Over the last three years alone and using an average and very conservative value of $25 per seat, the Mets have lost over $46.5 million dollars in potential revenue.
And that doesn’t include parking, food concessions and merchandise.
They can easily recoup about half of that amount by spending only half of the $50 million that is coming off the books (Santana, Bay, Francisco) – which is exactly what I suspect they might do.
