By Josh Finkelstein
Neil Best of Newsday reports that the New York Mets saw the fourth-highest attendance increase during the 2019 season which increased by 217,537 fans to 2,442,532 people as part of the paid attendance.
That increase was only lower than the Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, and Philadelphia Phillies while Best notes that the New York Yankees actually saw a decrease in fan attendance despite the fact that they won the division this year after only winning a Wild Card spot in 2018.
As to what caused the increase, the obvious would probably surround the team’s record which was notably better than last season (77-85) as they went 86-76 to finish over .500 for the first time since 2016 when they reached the NL Wild Card game.
Mets’ executive VP and and chief revenue officer, Lou DePaoli, believes it had to do with other factors too, such as the rise of young talent on this team such as J.D. Davis, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto, and Dominic Smith which made the team a lot of fun to watch.
“The players built a nice bond with our fans,” said DePaoli. “I think it is a really nice, likable team that plays hard every day. Obviously, with the amazing comebacks we had, they never quit, and that obviously resonated with the fan base.”
From personal experience, I never saw Citi Field as packed as it was on August 9 against the Washington Nationals which was the game where the Mets chased Sean Doolittle in the ninth inning trailing by three runs to win 7-6.
Another factor that certainly must have contributed to the team’s success in drawing fans to the ballpark was Jacob deGrom‘s 2019 performance after winning the NL Cy Young Award in 2018, which will likely lead to another award in his honor within the next few weeks and Pete Alonso’s rookie campaign that saw him break record-after-record especially in the team’s final month.
There’s a lot to look forward to with this team going forward and this season was hopefully just the beginning of something special for the fans to watch.
