World Series Attendance Too Low

[BaseballReplayJournal]

Hey all,


I've been doing an auto play experiment. I started in 1936 and have now reached 1940.


In looking back through boxscores, I've noticed that World Series games attract somewhere around 22,000 fans, regardless of the city they are played in or the size of the ballpark.


It makes the highlights seem a bit strange — especially in old Yankee Stadium.


All the financials and era settings are set to default. I suspect that this might be a bug because the attendance is consistently 22,000-something for World Series games.


Regular season attendance figures seem about right. For example, the Yankees just drew 922,890 in 1940, compared with 988,975 in real life. However, only drawing 22,691 for game 5 of the World Series in a stadium with a capacity of 71,000 is really strange.


If it helps, the Yankees have a fan interest of 100, fan loyalty of 10, and a market size of 12. The fan interest modifier is showing up as a whopping 2182. I haven't changed any of this — it's simply what the game came up with.


I'm interested to know what your thoughts are, if somebody else has had a similar problem, or — most importantly — if anybody knows of a possible solution.

[LansdowneSt]

A thread that I thought of when I read this:

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=356024

[LansdowneSt]

The box scores indicate that the home games of the Yanks in the 1939 WS drew about 58k for reference. So, OOTP may be hedging low on its post-season bump in historical games for the WS.

[BaseballReplayJournal]

So, OOTP may be hedging low on its post-season bump in historical games for the WS.

I'm not seeing anything close to 58,000, however. It's right around 22,000, regardless of the size of the ballpark or the year.

Like I said — the regular season attendance figures seem right. However, constantly seeing attendances around 22,000 in each World Series game is not right.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by BaseballReplayJournal

So, OOTP may be hedging low on its post-season bump in historical games for the WS.

I'm not seeing anything close to 58,000, however. It's right around 22,000, regardless of the size of the ballpark or the year.

Like I said — the regular season attendance figures seem right. However, constantly seeing attendances around 22,000 in each World Series game is not right.

Yes, I meant hedging too low. Too low a post-season bump. Too conservative.

[LansdowneSt]

I checked and the Reds drew 33k for their home games that series, over capacity if wikipedia has the correct numbers. I'd think upper-50's would be the max for that era and if capacity<58k, use capacity or capacity plus + %,

[BaseballReplayJournal]

It's not just a problem with 1940, though. This is happening with every World Series game I've played in this project.

For example: the Chicago Cubs beat the New York Yankees in game 7 of the 1943 World Series, which I just simulated. It was an exciting 16 inning game. There were only 21,981 people in attendance at Yankee Stadium.

In real life, the Yankees drew over 68,000 for all 3 of their home 1943 World Series games.

It's happened in every single World Series I've played in this project, from 1936 through (now) 1943. The attendance hovers around 22,000, regardless of the city, the fan support, or any other factor that should be considered.

I haven't checked this closely because I've been autoplaying the seasons one by one. However, I also suspect that the attendance spread is off. Tight pennant races don't seem to produce sellout or near-sellout crowds in OOTP as they did in real life.

And, yes, Crosley Field was overfilled in 1940. That was actually pretty common for World Series games at the time, as well as games during the pennant stretch. You should also keep in mind that the capacity listed online is not necessarily a reflection of reality. For example, over 46,000 people attended a regular season Cubs - Cardinals game in 1931 despite the fact that Sportsman's Park seated only a bit over 34,000; I wrote about this here, including original newspaper articles.

Now, that can be really hard to model, especially when you realize that it came during the worst days of the Great Depression, and when you realize that the Cardinals actually had a substantial lead in the league at the time. However, OOTP should at least be capable of modeling a sellout or a near-sellout for a World Series game.

[HerbD]

The playoff games in my fictional league are always standing-room only.

[Rain King]

Do your regular season attendance numbers look OK?

Do you have finances on?

What are the Fan/Market ratings for the home team in these examples?