The Miami Herald reports that the Cubs are down 10 percent in attendance from last year (which was itself down 4 percent from 2011). The Cubs have drawn 148,378 fewer fans during the first 29 home games (35.8% of the total home games this year). That is approximately 5,117 fewer fans per game in 2013 than in 2012.
The Cubs could blame the weather, but the weather is always dicey in April and May in Chicago. The Cubs have to consider that the team started off badly, but they were bad last season, too. The Cubs marketing department expected the full season of Castro and Rizzo to pull fans back into the park. In May, the Cubs had the weakest draw for a weekend series in a decade. The Cubs also had the worst Sunday home crowd in almost 40 years.
The disappointing White Sox are actually drawing 3 percent more fans in 2013 than in 2012.
The Marlins have lost 21 percent in attendance, but that is mainly a protest against the owner selling off his entire team during the off season. The Phillies are down 13 percent to date mainly because of their poor start and injuries to star players. However, surprising teams with winning records like the Orioles have seen double digit increases in attendance.
The bottom line in baseball continues to be that winning turns the turn styles.
It has become apparent to the casual Cub fan that the team is not focused on winning for the next few years. Wrigley Field may be a charming place to spend a day, but so is the local water park, beach, forest preserve picnic grounds, IMAX theater, museum or a mega-mall.
The Cubs management has spent so much time and effort trying to sell their vision of the new Wrigley Field real estate redevelopment projects that they forgot how to sell the Cubs to the average baseball fan. Most of the stories about the Cubs that gather large headlines are the fights between city hall and the neighbors about renovation plans. Even today, the bigger story is that the city council subcommittee passed a compromise ordinance that both the team and the neighborhood dislikes over the Cubs-Angels game story.
The Cubs are on pace to lose 414,435 in attendance in 2013. That projects to a final gate of only 2,468,281 fans, the lowest total since 1997.
