Cincinnati and the outlying area always struck me as more of a basketball area than football or baseball. Maybe it's just me. But the rest of Ohio sure is nuts for football, that's for certain...
Cincinnati and the outlying area always struck me as more of a basketball area than football or baseball. Maybe it's just me. But the rest of Ohio sure is nuts for football, that's for certain...
Growing up, most of what I've known is the current attendance situation. The 1999 season was a special year for me. I was a Reds fan before that, but that's the first year I LIVED AND BREATHED Reds baseball. I woke up in the summer, the first thing I thought of was the Reds game that night. I miss that feeling. Of course I still look forward to the games. And I go to 8-10 games a year. But the crowds are just horrible. Even if this team were to improve this year and put a better brand of baseball on the field, I can't say that things would significantly improve in the stands. It will take time. Many of us are in denial that this just isn't a great baseball town at the moment.
Very few times in my life have I heard a Reds crowd come alive. In 2006, I was at the Cardinals game when Freel made that spectacular catch and the Reds seemed to be in for a fight down the stretch. The crowd was great that night. And in 1999, I remember a Pokey Reese walk off homer down the stretch in a huge win, and the crowd went insane. I think the Reds also moved into first place that night (perhaps that was another night, not sure). But on the scoreboard, when it was announced that the Reds were in first, the place went crazy.
But those moments are few and far between. The Reds are my first sports love. I grew up going to games with my dad, with my grandpa, hearing stories about 1990, about the 70's, about Pete Rose and Johnny Bench and Tony Perez and on and on and on. Sometimes I wonder what I'm going to tell my kids some day. It makes me sad to think that I'll have to just repeat what my grandpa and dad have told me, because I have yet to see anything special with my own eyes.
And that's why nobody comes to the park. It won't stop me from coming. But it will stop many, especially with a recession hitting the area hard.
The franchise and it's various blunders have sapped the life out of a once vibrant fanbase.
They'll need consecutive winning seasons and go deep into the playoffs in order to completely heal these wounds.
I'm rabid. I still go to games and pay attention to things they do every day, but I've been doing it with a heavy heart the last couple of seasons.
The Reds are like a really old dog. It's almost too sad to pet him sometimes.
"Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?" ~ Jim Bouton
Right. As poorly as Bob C has been doing as an owner, He's by far the best owner the reds have seen in .... well, in a heck of a long time. They've driven the franchise into the ground.
To then turn around and wonder why folks don't show up is ingenuine.
Give the local fan base 10 seasons of winning and then we can compare the local scene to St. Louis.
"Even a bad day at the ballpark beats the snot out of most other good days. I'll take my scorecard and pencil and beer and hot dog and rage at the dips and cheer at the highs, but I'm not ever going to stop loving this game and this team and nobody will ever take that away from me." Roy Tucker October 2010
You think?Give the local fan base 10 seasons of winning and then we can compare the local scene to St. Louis.
Ten years of winning, I think more. From 67-81 the Reds had 1 losing season and only came in first in attendance one year.
the Reds have topped 30K on average 4 times in their history, St. Louis has done it 21 times since 1985, including 6 years of over 40K.Code:1981 Cincinnati Reds 1,093,730 20,254 5th of 12 1980 Cincinnati Reds 2,022,450 24,664 5th of 12 1979 Cincinnati Reds 2,356,933 29,462 3rd of 12 1978 Cincinnati Reds 2,532,497 31,656 2nd of 12 1977 Cincinnati Reds 2,519,670 31,107 3rd of 12 1976 Cincinnati Reds 2,629,708 32,466 1st of 12 1975 Cincinnati Reds 2,315,603 28,588 2nd of 12 1974 Cincinnati Reds 2,164,307 26,394 2nd of 12 1973 Cincinnati Reds 2,017,601 24,909 2nd of 12 1972 Cincinnati Reds 1,611,459 21,203 3rd of 12 1971 Cincinnati Reds 1,501,122 18,532 7th of 12 1970 Cincinnati Reds 1,803,568 22,266 2nd of 12 1969 Cincinnati Reds 987,991 12,197 8th of 12 1968 Cincinnati Reds 733,354 8,943 8th of 10 1967 Cincinnati Reds 958,300 11,831 7th of 10 1966 Cincinnati Reds 742,958 9,405 9th of 10
Last edited by westofyou; 04-13-2009 at 01:00 PM.
Winning with St. Louis is key to the attendance but also the draw of Big Mac for some of those years. Heck, I was at the game in 1999 when Pokey hit the game winning HR, and right after the last McGuire at-bat (8th inning IIRC) I saw many fans leave.
2024 Reds record attending: 1-02024 Dragons record attending: 0-02024 Y'Alls record attending: 0-0
"We want to be the band to dance to when the bomb drops." - Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran
I was going to ask about these factors...from my view (it's a long look from central Florida), the Reds seem so very dependent upon commuter ticket sales from the outlying areas...when it's April, cold and weekdays, I don't think we should be concerned...
Whether or not attendance picks up will be up to the W-L record...as we get into summer, excitement will trump economy, but economy will trump tradition...if the Reds are good enough, folks will still come...
Last week, Barry Larkin was on the Mad Dog radio show and spoke of the negative culture that surrounds the Reds, the city and its fanbase...he spoke in hopeful terms that the Reds were turning the corner with their young talent and seemed upbeat about the future, but I did think his comment was telling...
What was the atmosphere like in '99 and '00???...I have no idea and wanted some perspective...
You cannot defeat an ignorant man in an argument!
-William Gibbs McAdoo
Though many of us here are sure trying
For as great of a season as it was in 1999, the fans were surprisingly lassiez faire. It was strange. I remember being at a game in june or july and there were 19,000 people there.
I was also at the Pokey Reese game that year and 40,000 were in attendance but probably a third of them were Cards fans. The atmosphere was phenominal. My friend and I were leading cheers for Philadelphia to beat Houston, allowing the Reds to vault into first if they could win. That team pulled off some close wins that year and the people that slept on them really missed something special.
2000 was kinda lame. Buncha bandwagoners that barely watched the game showed up. Reds couldn't pitch that year anyway.
"Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?" ~ Jim Bouton
Your bandwagon fans are the fans that drive up attendance. They are the fans that every organization tries to attract. They are the fans with the expendable income that choose whether or not they want to go to a Reds game as opposed to doing something else. Bandwagon fans or not, the more Reds fans who go to the games the better off for the Reds.
Well, I have yet to attend a game at GABP since I moved down to Houston back in '86. If I were still in Columbus, I'd certainly be going to more games. But alas, I'm stuck with going to away games at Minute Maid Park. I just got my tickets for this Saturday & Sunday's games though, so I'm pumped. They've got it listed as Harang vs Rodriguez then Volquez vs Moehler. If it stays those matchups, I'm looking at two wins. :O)
Wandy Rodriguez is no slouch. By any stretch. He's got great k/9 numbers. I think this may be his breakout year.
Dubito Ergo Cogito Ergo Sum.
But Cincy isn't St Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, or wherever Cyclone, in comparison to other large metropolis'. The Queen City may historically possess the first professional baseball team, and have some heritage in that aspect; but that's about as far as it goes.
Even at the height of the BRM they averaged around 2.5M/year. And without doing the math - over the last several years we've averaged a little over 2M/year. The Brewers, over the past 2 years have had attendance of 3M and 2.8M. But prior to that, and if one looks historically in comparison to the Reds, the Brewer fan attendance is far more erratic and inconsistent compared to Red fans.... http://www.baseball-reference.com/te...L/attend.shtml
And it's unfair to compare Cincinnati to Chicago and other larger cities. To St Louis? You get no argument. But I think that city is a truly, loyal baseball town, and not as fickle as Cincinnati. They love their baseball in St Louis. Now it also helps that they've consistently had a successful organization there for many years too. Now maybe if they too would incur the same problems if their organization was ran similar to the Reds as of late.
Now some contend that with this organization - "If you build it they will come". To a degree yes, you would see a bump in attendance. But not what some would expect. IMO, you'll never see attendance come close to the 3M/year range. Just ain't gonna happen IMO. Why do I say that? Where were they in the '99 season when they were 96-67 and barely drew 2M? Yet three years later, when that W-L record was almost reversed, they drew almost 2.4M. And that's exactly what they drew in their 1990 WS year.
You're just not gonna see it in Cincy Cyclone.
woy showed some great attendance stats.
And Heath brings up a very good point....
Last edited by GAC; 04-13-2009 at 07:54 PM.
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