Turnstile talk

In a notes column in today's Observer-Reporter, I mentioned that it should be interesting to see which Consol Energy Park tenant, the Wild Things or the new Pennsylvania Rebellion of the National Pro Fastpitch women's softball league, will draw more fans (per game) this summer.

My guess is the turnstile battle will be spinning in the Rebellion's favor.

By a large margin.

I mentioned that many groups who go to CEP once a year are likely to take the been-there-and-done-that approach to the Wild Things and attend a Rebellion game instead. You can't blame them.

There are a lot of other things working in the Rebellion's favor. There are the novelty and curiosity factors. News pro sports teams generally draw best in their first two years, when the one-and-done crowd shows up simply to check out something different.

This is a strong softball area. Locally, the high school programs at Canon-McMillan, Chartiers-Houston, Carmichaels, Trinity, Burgettstown, Peters Township, South Fayette and McGuffey either have been or currently are among the best not only in the WPIAL but also in the state. This year, Charleroi also is a having a stellar season. Seven other WPIAL schools have won state softball championships in the last decade.

There will be interest in Rebellion games, especially from the high school kids, which is a demographic that all but disappeared at Wild Things games.

Unless I am completely wrong about this, sharing CEP with a softball team won't be like sharing it with a soccer team (Riverhounds). The crowd at Riverhounds games during their two seasons at CEP was not the same crowd that attended Wild Things games. However, many of the people who will attend Rebellion games might have attended Wild Things games in previous years. In other words, the Riverhounds didn't take away from potential Wild Things customers. The Rebellion will, to some degree.

This is perhaps the worst possible year for the Wild Things to be competing for fans with another sports team, especially one that will be sharing the same ballpark. It's no secret the Wild Things' attendance has been dismal in recent seasons. It has declined six years in a row. Last year, the per-game average attendance was less than half of what it was in 2003 and 2004.

In the print edition today, I listed incorrect figures for the Wild Things' attendance last year. I wrote that it was 1,638 per game and down 48 per game from 2012. It was actually 1,707 and down 34 per game. I keep a list of the Wild Things' yearly end-of-season attendance and their attendance at the all-star break on the same piece of paper, and I looked at the wrong column of numbers yesterday.

Wild Things attendance by year

Year	Attendance per game
2002	3,241
2003	3,552
2004	3,444
2005	3,197
2006	3,251
2007	3,317
2008	2,970
2009	2,789
2010	2,431
2011	2,226
2012	1,741
2013	1,707

You can see that the last thing the Wild Things need is to give fans another reason to stay away from their games, which is what the Rebellion will offer.

The Wild Things are at the point where the only way they will increase their attendance is by winning. And this a franchise that hasn't won a championship in its 12 years in the league, which is the second-longest drought in league history. Washington hasn't been to the playoffs since 2007. Only four teams have ever had a longer run without a postseason appearance.

While last year's team was much more competitive than in 2012 -- a season that can best be described as a train wreck for the Wild Things -- the level of play in the Frontier League improved as well. The result was the Wild Things won three fewer games than in 2012. At the end of last season, there was no buzz about the Wild Things having a chance to compete for a championship in 2014.

Typically, the question I am asked most often about the Wild Things during the offseason is "Are the Wild Things going to have a good team this year?" I've noticed that question has often been replaced this offseason by "Why does the O-R still cover the Wild Things? Nobody cares about them anymore."

Ouch!

And that has come from some former season-ticket holders or CEP regulars. I ask why they no longer go to games? Their responses have been something like "because it's no longer fun" or "they've taken all the fun out of it."
 
Their question about the O-R's coverage is easy to answer. It's still professional baseball. The Wild Things still draw more than 85,000 people through their turnstiles every year. No other sports team or event in Washington or Greene counties can match that. The closest competition is the Highpoint Nationals motocross event in Mount Morris, which can still put 15,000 per day into a national amphitheater on the Holbert farm, but that event runs only a couple of days. The second-biggest sports draw in Washington County would be California University football, which drew fewer than 13,000 fans to its home games last season.

People are still showing up for Wild Things games, just not as many as a half dozen years ago. Interest is still there, even if there are more eyes this summer watching a softball team.