Attendance change based on major transaction

[RevRedbird23]

I started an expansion team in the 2015 season called the Portland Mist. Added the OKC Oilers as well and set the league to 4 divisions, no inter-league, balanced schedule. But anyway...

My bench coach reported that we needed a team leader. That makes sense since the roster was complied of other teams scraps.

I took the risk and acquired Troy Tulowitzki and not only did I instantly get an email that said the fans were excited but I got one saying the team was excited to have a leader to get behind.

Then I noticed from the day of Tulo's acquisition I sold out every game! Very cool. Might have been in other versions before but I never noticed this extreme of change.

[r0nster]

Wow never seen that even in my solo game

[Matt Arnold]

I did a lot of changes to the attendance model. I'll say it likely wasn't entirely due to the trade, but likely a combo of the trade and team winning. Modeling after real life, fans tend to be more fickle in the first few months, but once the races start heating up, attendance for top teams will do very well for the second half of the year.

Conversely, if you trade away a very popular player and go into a nosedive, the graph will look reversed from above

[Assos]

But still have a base that it can not go below due to season tickets?

[gads]

Yes the season ticket amount is the guaranteed minimum.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

I did a lot of changes to the attendance model. I'll say it likely wasn't entirely due to the trade, but likely a combo of the trade and team winning. Modeling after real life, fans tend to be more fickle in the first few months, but once the races start heating up, attendance for top teams will do very well for the second half of the year.

Hmmm, I wonder how much that really is the case in real life. It's worth nothing the second half of the season is also the half of the year with better weather—who wants to attend a cold April game versus a game in warm August sunshine?. Also, in terms of total season attendance, most studies I have seen indicate the largest influence is the prior season's performance, with the current season's performance coming in second.

I tend to think OOTP is overstating the attendance impact of individual players.

There's also too the attendance patterns on the different days of the week, as well as day games versus night games, neither of which OOTP recreates at all.

[RevRedbird23]

If it helps. The following is the breakdown of my Portland situation. They are hungry for baseball. We were playing sub .400 ball before Tulo, playing .600 since. 4 games out of first with 15 to go, exciting for the new fan base. We will likely miss out as the A's magic number is 8, but exciting.

[RevRedbird23]

Stretch run

[majesty95]

I wonder what the threshold is for a below avg market size? If you had a 55,000 seat stadium how many more people would come? Conversely, if you had the same fan loyalty and interest in a large market, what is the max attendance you could see?

[r0nster]

Toronto had sellout crowds for if I recall correctly 3 years straight cold rainy days they still sold out. If a team is good they would goto game in any condition

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by r0nster

Toronto had sellout crowds for if I recall correctly 3 years straight cold rainy days they still sold out.

The club was (a) in contention and winning during those years, and (b) it was playing at SkyDome, a park with a retractable roof.

In general, there is a connection between the time of the year and attendance. Opening day games are always well attended, but after those on average it drops until the warmer weather comes along. In the past, clubs used to see drop-offs heading into September as the cooler weather set in and fans started giving up on clubs well out of contention.

It is possible to do studies on the daily and monthly attendance patterns in MLB thanks to Retrosheet's game logs, which, starting from the early 1950s, contain the attendance for each individual game. (I've used the game logs to make some early examinations of the attendance patterns on the different days of the week, and how they varied over time.)

[r0nster]

That's true but they still had a few hundred games in a row complete sellout of which is something I have yet to see even with a dominating club I have I can't get two games in a row sold out

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Hmmm, I wonder how much that really is the case in real life. It's worth nothing the second half of the season is also the half of the year with better weather—who wants to attend a cold April game versus a game in warm August sunshine?. Also, in terms of total season attendance, most studies I have seen indicate the largest influence is the prior season's performance, with the current season's performance coming in second.

I tend to think OOTP is overstating the attendance impact of individual players.

There's also too the attendance patterns on the different days of the week, as well as day games versus night games, neither of which OOTP recreates at all.

I did add a modifier for day of the week - you see spikes on weekends in the current version.

I did not find any data on day vs night. The flaw is that most teams don't actually schedule too many day games, and when they do, they tend to be on holidays, which draw very well.

I did do some research and most teams did have low attendance in April and May, hence you will see that in-game.

[Mancandy]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

I did add a modifier for day of the week - you see spikes on weekends in the current version.

I did not find any data on day vs night. The flaw is that most teams don't actually schedule too many day games, and when they do, they tend to be on holidays, which draw very well.

I did do some research and most teams did have low attendance in April and May, hence you will see that in-game.

Referring to weekday day games, there's usually about one of those a week - getaway day, the last day of a series when one or both teams have to travel for a game the next day. Mostly Thursday games and the occassional Wednesday. Northern cities will do more day games early in the season to avoid the cold weather, which probably also contributes to the lower attendance. Still, pretty cool that attendance by day and month are factored in the game.

Another thing to consider, if it's not already, is that tickets go on sale well in advance of games. So there should be a considerable delay before an attendance drop with good teams if they trade a player and/or nosedive. Maybe there could be two different numbers, for how many tickets are sold and how many people actually show up...the latter could be a warning that the former will be dropping.

[r0nster]

Boston Red Sox 820 game streak ends in 2013 is Baseballs longest Sellout streak

Boston Red Sox's 820-game sellout streak ends - ESPN Boston

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

I did not find any data on day vs night.

Retrosheet game logs. Those list the attendance and whether the game was a day (D) or night (N) game.

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

The flaw is that most teams don't actually schedule too many day games, and when they do, they tend to be on holidays, which draw very well.

There are enough to serve as a meaningful sample size I think.

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

I did add a modifier for day of the week - you see spikes on weekends in the current version.

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

I did do some research and most teams did have low attendance in April and May, hence you will see that in-game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on OOTP in regards to attendance patterns.

To get solid reference data to serve as the basis for any major league attendance model requires one to go through several decades' worth of Retrosheet game logs and compile the attendance data for each season. Needless to say that is a lot of work. I've done it for a few seasons, mostly as a quick test and to see what the differences were between some seasons.

(I'll point out as well that the attendance patterns are quite different between the major and minor leagues. That is a lot harder to research—there is no historical game-by-game minor league attendance data available. I manually kept track of all minor league game attendance for the 2013 and 2014 seasons in order to gather at least some contemporary reference data.)

[Le Grande Orange]

As an example of what kind of analysis can be pulled from examining the Retrosheet game logs, shown below are the results from the 1962 and 2012 seasons. Unless otherwise indicated, all attendance figures are based on single-admission games only (i.e. regular doubleheaders are excluded).


1962 Average MLB Game Attendance by Month
April: 11,633
May: 11,864
June: 15,165
July: 16,712
August: 15,780
Sept./Oct.: 12,281

2012 Average MLB Game Attendance by Month
Mar./Apr.: 28,705
May: 30,032
June: 33,377
July: 32,306
August: 30,521
Sept./Oct.: 29,190


1962 Average Day / Night Game Attendance by Day of the Week
Monday: 10,165 / 13,822
Tuesday: 7,928 / 14,254
Wednesday: 9,094 / 13,256
Thursday: 8,156 / 12,951
Friday: 7,039 / 18,241
Saturday: 13,240 / 16,975
Sunday: 17,039 / 5,477
Holiday: 24,816 / 19,809
Home Opener: 24,830 / 15,732
All days: 12,404 / 15,222

In terms of sample size, there were 514 day games and 694 night games. Day games fell most frequently on Saturday (163), Sunday (147), and Thursday (80).

2012 Average Day / Night Game Attendance by Day of the Week
Monday: 28,499 / 27,243
Tuesday: 31,295 / 27,702
Wednesday: 27,916 / 28,016
Thursday: 29,696 / 27,453
Friday: 34,769 / 32,813
Saturday: 36,135 / 34,732
Sunday: 32,243 / 40,773
Holiday: 29,502 / 39,254
Home Opener: 43,766 / 43,482
All days: 32,374 / 30,182

In terms of sample size, there were 749 day games and 1,591 night games. Day games fell most frequently on Sunday (354), Saturday (165), Wednesday (108), and Thursday (92).

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

As an example of what kind of analysis can be pulled from examining the Retrosheet game logs, shown below are the results from the 1962 and 2012 seasons. Unless otherwise indicated, all attendance figures are based on single-admission games only (i.e. regular doubleheaders are excluded).


1962 Average MLB Game Attendance by Month
April: 11,633
May: 11,864
June: 15,165
July: 16,712
August: 15,780
Sept./Oct.: 12,281

2012 Average MLB Game Attendance by Month
Mar./Apr.: 28,705
May: 30,032
June: 33,377
July: 32,306
August: 30,521
Sept./Oct.: 29,190


1962 Average Day / Night Game Attendance by Day of the Week
Monday: 10,165 / 13,822
Tuesday: 7,928 / 14,254
Wednesday: 9,094 / 13,256
Thursday: 8,156 / 12,951
Friday: 7,039 / 18,241
Saturday: 13,240 / 16,975
Sunday: 17,039 / 5,477
Holiday: 24,816 / 19,809
Home Opener: 24,830 / 15,732
All days: 12,404 / 15,222

In terms of sample size, there were 514 day games and 694 night games. Day games fell most frequently on Saturday (163), Sunday (147), and Thursday (80).

2012 Average Day / Night Game Attendance by Day of the Week
Monday: 28,499 / 27,243
Tuesday: 31,295 / 27,702
Wednesday: 27,916 / 28,016
Thursday: 29,696 / 27,453
Friday: 34,769 / 32,813
Saturday: 36,135 / 34,732
Sunday: 32,243 / 40,773
Holiday: 29,502 / 39,254
Home Opener: 43,766 / 43,482
All days: 32,374 / 30,182

In terms of sample size, there were 749 day games and 1,591 night games. Day games fell most frequently on Sunday (354), Saturday (165), Wednesday (108), and Thursday (92).

Thanks. Most of our data is geared to the modern day, and as you see on the last one, there's actually very little difference day/night. At least, I'm not sure which of those differences are significant, or skewed by individual team patterns (ie. I have no clue which team schedule Sunday Night games, but if the only Sunday night games are hope openers or a handful of teams that draw well, that would skew the results). Plus I did look through and you get very weird cases, like there was a random Tuesday game in Atlanta last year where they drew like 40k-plus, and I search and couldn't find anything noteworthy about how they drew so well. It was a complete mystery - not a great team they were playing, no star pitchers scheduled for the game, no promos, no nothing.

Certainly the lower attendance early year is noticeable, and I added that in. I wasn't aware that September was also down so much - I'll add an adjustment for that as well.

[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

I did a lot of changes to the attendance model. I'll say it likely wasn't entirely due to the trade, but likely a combo of the trade and team winning. Modeling after real life, fans tend to be more fickle in the first few months, but once the races start heating up, attendance for top teams will do very well for the second half of the year.

Conversely, if you trade away a very popular player and go into a nosedive, the graph will look reversed from above

Whatever changes you did to the attendance model might be sending all my attendance data out of whack.

I run a promotion/relegation association using three leagues. In 14 I have been able to reliably control attendance through the Settings financial page. I figure they could be controlled the same way in 16, but something has gone awry, and maybe you can help explain.

Each year in Settings/Financial I set the average attendance per game (or "attendance baseline" per game, as it is now called), and I also set average ticket price ("ticket price baseline"). In 14 the actual average attendance would generally lower, like mostly in the -10% to -20% range. That's OK, that doesn't bother me, as long as it's consistent.

However, in my first season of OOTP 16 I noticed a clear divergence in attendance. In D1 it still runs -16% versus baseline, so OK. But in D2 it ran +12%, after a year that was -24% vs baseline. Plus, attendance went up when I "instructed" it to go down.

But it really went wacky in D3: +87% vs. baseline, and average attendance almost doubled after I "instructed" it to decrease!

Here is how it looks in summary form for the last 12 seasons:



I checked and re-checked my setting and i cannot figure out why attendance should increase like this. Here are my settings for both D1 and D3, to show you how they look versus each other.


D1:




D3:




Everything except the attendance, ticket price numbers and salaries/cash figures look the exact same to me, so I don't see anything here that would indicate to me why D3 diverges so much from its average, while D1 behaves the same way it always has.

Do you have any idea as to why that might be? Does it have anything to do with whether the game senses a club might go very deeply into the red so it artificially props up attendance to keep it solvent?

[chucksabr]

Wow, I didn't think to look at my minor league, but I just did, and it has the opposite problem! Instead of artificially inflating attendance, it is crashing attendance there:



Not only that, but the team I just relegated down to that league from the Third Division is out-pulling every other team by 4x to 5x:



This kind of thing was not happening in 14. Any ideas about what the what is?