The Royals have an Attendance Problem
Attendance for 2022 is way up relative to 2021 because there are not capacity limits and other fun COVID regulations keeping people from going to baseball games this year. However, the attendance levels across the league are still slightly below pre-pandemic levels of 2019, overall attendance is still 5% below those levels. However, the Royals' attendance is looking significantly worse than that as the season progresses.
In raw averages, attendance for 2022 is up 44.5% relative to 2021 through 33 games at home thanks to less COVID restrictions and general concern at this point, but it is down 9.8% relative to the same in 2019. Some schedule shifts can account for things like this at times, especially with how bad the weather was early on this season, but the later than usually start due to the lockout meant fewer April games this year, so the timing should actually benefit the 2022 attendance numbers. April attendance was not really the problem anyway:
Year
|
April
|
May
|
June
|
2019 Avg Attendance
|
14,924
|
19,606
|
21,749
|
2022 Avg Attendance
|
16,248
|
15,324
|
15,156
|
Attendance was actually higher in April this year than it has been in May and June, which is really unusual. After school ends and the weather warms up, there are usually gains in attendance for all the major league teams. Instead, the Royals' attendance is actually decreasing month over month in the 2022 season so far. That is concerning, and I think most people would assume that it is happening because the Royals have been terrible. But the Royals are (almost) always terrible!! The 2019 Royals were 20-45 through 65 games, which is worse than the 23-42 that we are looking at right now. It is not that the Royals are bad that is the problem, it is the fact that people thought that they weren't going to be bad, followed by team inaction that is the problem.
As far as bad teams go, this one should draw better than a typical Royals team because of the young guys. Bobby Witt Jr. and MJ Melendez are playing well, and are exciting, that has been enough in times past to get some people out to the stadium, but not this year. The fans have lost their patience with this team very quickly, and it is part performance, part frustration, and part apathy. The surprising thing to me is that the ownership hasn't stepped in due to these attendance figures. Five thousand people per game is roughly $316,250 in revenue based on the average the Athletic put out at the end of last summer. The Royals' average is likely lower than the league average, but even if we drop that down to say $250,000 that would be $20 million across 80 games. That seems like enough revenue to get John Sherman's attention.
Firing a batting coach seems to have helped the offense, but it has not been enough while staring down another 90 or, if they maintain pace, 100 loss season. They had better figure out how to win games pretty quickly, because their fan base no longer trusts this team's leadership.