FIRST: Wow. Best record in baseball. I certainly wouldn't have imagined it on day one of the season. Go Nats!
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Originally Posted by cuervo72
Actually, the word I used to your brother was "uppity", not "dickish."  |
Sorry, that was my self-reflective word, not meant to be credited to you.
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Originally Posted by cuervo72
What was kicked around in the lounge is the idea that while fan interest in DC is growing, some of us expected it to grow faster than it has. This team was in a divisional race - why aren't games selling out? Is it because they were able to coast and had a wild card birth wrapped up? Is it a function of weeknight games (a tough sell in all but a handful of markets)? Football season?
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Several possibilities:
1. New baseball is hard to sell (Miami, Tampa Bay, Colorado, Arizona as cases)
2. Football Town (I don't tend to think this is it)
3. Transient town (maybe)
4. #2 is enforced by the media, who even with a winning team often give short coverage to the team. They say because of the lack of interest, I say lack of interest stems from lack of coverage.
5. Lack of established fandom. The bandwagon will start in force now that they're in the post season I think. Washington fans have been burned by the Capitals and somewhat the Redskins with their lack of depth in the playoffs over the past 20 years. The Caps I think are the best example here -- a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and may feel burned that the team didn't capitalize on their early season hype.
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Originally Posted by cuervo72
The other thing that struck me about the franchise is just how poor of a bump the stadium gave the team. Either due to poor planning (building it when they still stunk) or due to other factors (location? parking? lack of surrounding attractions?), there wasn't that boom that other teams have seen.
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I definitely think the economic downturn was a factor. The park opened just as the economy tanked. That not only meant people had less disposable income, but the area around the stadium that they expected to draw fans has done nothing.
I also would go back to what I said above. Did the Marlins see the boom you would expect this year? (I haven't checked the numbers). New baseball teams are a hard sell, I think.