Quote:
Originally Posted by actionjackson
They were a baseball city in the nineties when Jacobs Field was brand spanking new and the team was a monster. I suppose that could be fairweatherish, but every market has that to some degree. When you don't win for a long time, fans stop showing up. One marked exception would be the Cubs since 1945, but they look like a juggernaut now.
|
No Browns in town from 95-99, a great, young team, Cavs weren't great, new park....perfect storm.
Not saying the sellout streak and everything they did back then wasn't great, because it was. But yeah all in all it was a blip on the radar screen.
It'll be interesting to see what happens this year IRL. Despite being a Tiger fan, I'd love to see the fans in Cleveland show up and the Indians get some support. The park is STILL nice, the team obviously deserves it. We'll see. I honestly suspect they'll have to keep this run up for multiple years to truly bring them in though. And that's a shame.
Edit: Also not going to act like Cleveland is the only market that does this. Again, I'm a Tiger fan. I remember the days when you could buy an 8 dollar bleacher seat (those go from $20+ these days), and by the middle of the game could sneak to almost any seat in the park you wanted because no one wanted to come watch a 100 loss team. Then 06 happened, then the stars came in, and BOOM. 43,000 fans on a random Tuesday night in June. Now that they've missed the playoffs a couple of years, we're seeing the attendance fall back a bit again. It's the natural ebb and flow....you'd just think a team in 1st in September could draw more than 19,000 into a 35,000 seat park.