Rainy days and Mondays

There's no doubt Consol Energy Park was a much less-crowded place this year. Heck, on most nights it wasn't even crowded. It was more like spacious Consol Energy Park.

Attendance at Wild Things games was down to an all-time low average of 2,789 tickets sold per game. Only two years ago, the average was a highly respectable 3,317. Wild Things ownership noticed the drop and cleaned house in the ticket office at season's end.

There were plenty of reasons for the drop in attendance, the most notable being the rotten economy. Almost everybody in southwestern Pennsylvania and the panhandle of West Virginia has less disposable income than they did two years ago.

There were other factors that contributed to the attendance drop. The Wild Things were out of the playoff race right from the start of the season. People with less money don't want to spend it watching the local team lose. There also was some lousy weather this spring, which killed the walk-up sales at many games (almost always on mid-week dates) but there's bad weather every year.

There's also the newness/novelty factor wearing off. People who are going to see only one or two Wild Things games in their lifetime have probably already seen them and won't be back. And judging by the comments on this blog, some people were turned off by the cost or customer service.

So what needs fixed with the Wild Things' marketing? Did the day of the week have anything to do with the drop in attendance? In this post, I'll try to answer the latter question.

Here is a breakdown of the Wild Things' average attendance per game in 2009 based on the day of week (the 2007 average is in parenthesis):

Sunday - 2,935 (3,355)
Monday - 2,164 (3,031)
Tuesday - 2,503 (2,971)
Wednesday - 2,141 (3,457)
Thursday - 2,712 (2,512)
Friday - 3,405 (3,598)
Saturday - 3,033 (3,539)

Note: The 2007 numbers are missing the attendance for one game, a June 20 Wednesday night game against Southern Illinois. The attendance was not listed in the boxscore and I didn't mention it in my game story. If I recall correctly, it was far less than 3,457, which would drop the average.

As you can see, there were huge drops on Mondays and Wednesdays. There were only two home games this year on Mondays, both against Midwest. Neither game drew 2,300. The Wii Wednesday giveaways didn't work. The Wild Things were a year too late on that promotion.

There was a gain in attendance of 200 on Thirsty Thursday, but the drops on Saturday and Sunday had to be major disappointments. Fireworks Friday attendance basically held steady. The slight drop was product of a crowd of only 2,648 opposite the opening week of high school football.

So where do the Wild Things go from here? If they use this chart as a gauge, they'll keep Thirsty Thursdays and Fireworks Fridays, hope Saturdays and Sunday pick up slightly (winning more often might make the difference) and focus much of their attention on how to boost tickets sales - especially group sales - on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Groups from places like Uniontown, Cranberry and Morgantown aren't likely to attend games on weeknights because parents have to go to work in the morning. The push for tickets will have to be local on these nights. If there's a hot giveaway item this year, it better be distributed early in the week.

The Wild Things can do a much better job of marketing themselves locally. There are still many people who live a stone's throw away from the ballpark who don't know the team even exists. On my street, I know there's only one family other than mine that has attended a WTs game. There others either don't know who the WTs are or what goes on at one of their games. These are the people who the new ticketing people must attract. The diehard fans will be back, the youth leagues will be back, but the people who have never been to a game have to be exposed to the product. And they need to be enticed to show up on a weekday.