Early season PL attendance and the Giants
Posted by simoncurrie on 2008 April 26日 Saturday
westbaystars at Japanesebaseball.com does a logical analysis on the early season PL attendance figures.
Compared to the same time period last year (up to games ending April 24), SoftBank takes the biggest hit, down 10.3% (27,036 per game). But Nippon Ham makes up for that, up 10.2% (23,362). Orix, having moved to Osaka Dome, is up a whopping 45.7% (16,429).
While the article attributes moving to Osaka as the cause for the rise for Orix, I’ll contend that it was their great start that got people coming out. SoftBank, on the other hand, has had its worst start in years, thus the downturn. I think that when you compare results on the field with results in the seats, that there will be a close correlation – which the press doesn’t seem to get for some reason.
Yeah, that seems like a way more plausible reason. I’ve only been to 2 games so far this season. A half empty Jingu for a midweek Swallows-BayStars tilt, and a Sunday afternoon Hawks-Fighters game in Sapporo that drew well (just north of 30,000).
Meanwhile, sports journalists are desperate to write good things about the Giants. Sure having your first 4 game winning streak of the season is a good thing, scoring 6 runs each in the first 3 wins, but that series sweep was against the lowly BayStars, the worst team in Japan, so that’s nothing to write home about. Now, the 3-1 win against the Tigers last night is a good thing for the club, though only getting 3 runs on 10 hits is rather inefficient. The Giants are the least patient team in the league with only 41 walks while Hanshin leads the league and almost doubles that with 78. Hmm…
westbaystars said
Here is the full chart, provided by today’s Nikkan Sports (paper version):
Team G Att Avg 2007 Comp
---------- -- -------- ------ ------ ------
SoftBank 15 405,540 27,036 30,145 -10.3%
Nippon Ham 15 350,433 23,362 21,193 +10.2%
Lotte 14 274,672 19,619 21,020 - 6.7%
Orix 13 213,576 16,429 11,279 +45.7%
Rakuten 11 162,651 14,787 12,609 +17.3%
Seibu 14 201,779 14,413 11,813 +22.0%
========== == ======== ====== ====== ======
Totals: 82 1,608,651 19,618 17,807 +10.2%