The Oakland A's are struggling with attendance. They have been struggling in that department for a long time. It is a different monster in 2022. After two series on the road to open the season, the A's came back home to a modest crowd. The attendance for the second game of the series fell 80 percent. Game 3 was even worse, with attendance dropping even further to just 2,703. The final game of the series against Texas had an increase in attendance four days later, but it was still not enough to match the attendance at the home opener. The national media is paying attention. There are rumors that attendance could have gotten bad. The team has gone through a lot of rebuilding since the late 2000s, so are fans done with it? Fans are turned away by the cats. Maybe the fans don't like a team that doesn't want to stay in Oakland. After all of their best players were traded away, why would fans want to go to games? There are a lot of reasons why fans aren't going to games, and most of the blame is on the team's front office. If the A's lowered ticket prices, paid decent money on free agents, and tried to reach the playoffs, fans would support their team. The front office should do that. Do you know what they should not do? Team President Dave Kaval tried to convince their fans that every team is having attendance problems. The lack of attendance for the first game of the Bay Bridge series was criticized by many people on social media. Fans of the A's were showing empty seats at the park. The San Francisco media pushed a narrative that the A's are struggling with attendance without mentioning how bad the Giants have been. If any of these were true, they would be great points. The Giants did not have an attendance problem last night. Last night's game against the Giants had an attendance of over 30,000. It is about 78.5% of maxOccupancy.
More than 30,000 fans attended last night's game, which is more than any four-game stretch the A's have had all season. The Giants haven't had a home game this year with attendance lower than 20,000. The first game of the series against the Padres was their lowest of the season. There were 23,279 people there. The A's had their entire opening series against Baltimore.
The Giants average home attendance is eleventh in the MLB. They averaged almost 12,000 fewer fans per home game in 2021. The Giants are off to a good start this season, despite the fact that their numbers will decrease as the season goes on. The Giants drew a total of 19,000 fans for their series with the Miami Marlins. The Giants had no expectations to be good last year, so that probably played a part in the lack of attendance, but based on last year's numbers, the Giants are much better off now than they were a year ago. The same can be said about the Athletics.
There is a chance that the numbers are being fudged and the Giants aren't actually bringing in that many fans. The pictures that Kaval was sharing were taken out of context. Take a look at this picture that Kaval shared.
The stands are sparse, but not what you would see at an A's game. The picture was taken between the first and second frames of the game. I can tell you that fans don't show up until a little later for night games in the Bay Area, as I went to a lot of Giants and A's games in my youth. There was no action taken since it was taken in between games. It's the perfect time for fans to get out of their seats and walk around the ballpark looking for friends or waiting in line for concessions. Dozens of people in attendance were sitting in those seats just moments before the picture was taken.
The A's are the team with the biggest attendance problem in baseball right now. The Pirates average 13,118 fans per game, just over half of the next closest team. The front office should be blamed for the attendance issues of the other MLB teams. Kaval, you made your bed when you traded away Matt Chapman and Sean Manaea. Lie in it. If you want to field a competitive team in 2022, stop pushing false narratives about your competitors.
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