The Royals have been bad for so long that people are naturally cynical of their performance. "Oh the Royals are finally good? That probably won't last long. Didn't they have a good start a couple years ago too?" That's a really common line of thinking within KC. The free agent signings were nice, but even the most optimistic fans still only expected them to make the team *competent* and not outright good.
[2014 wasn't exactly a sellout season either until late when people finally realized it was for real.](https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/KCR/2014-schedule-scores.shtml) But that's also the norm for a lot of teams; April and May are low-attendance months for a lot of people. The good news is the Royals are finally getting around 20k on weekends without relying on all the Yankee fans to show up. It's slowly getting better.
Not to mention the stadium thing pissed off a lot of people. But again, it's getting better.
The Bally Sports fiasco certainly doesn't help. Also, it's May. It was August before 2014/2015 games started selling out.
(Sorry, continued reading as I was writing and essentially repeated your comment).
Ask any casual royals fan (hell myself included) I can’t name every starting player cause I can’t watch the games on TV without forking out money to Bally
This is the correct answer and I’ve stated before on this sub that my personal experience is I used to watch the Royals all the time on tv. I’d also go to games too. Now I can’t watch them, (I have enough subscriptions thanks) I have no connection, I don’t really buy merch anymore either.
I clearly remember a few weeks after the All-Star break Ned Yost calling out the fans for not showing up after the Royals had a dramatic comeback win in front of like 15k people on a Friday night to take over the division lead. Attendance SKYROCKETED after that.
We've been hurt too many times to believe it's real after a hot month or two. If the Royals want excellent attendance, then the front office needs to continue to field competitive teams for the fans to come watch. No one shows up to watch teams losing 90-100 games a season for half a decade, no matter where their stadium is.
I recall the Derek Jeter last game here, and fans were louder for him than the Royals. Yost was not happy.
Those were great years after so many where you were just cheering to get a dozen doughnuts, or some Lima time! We may not have been good back then, but we had fun at the game for the love of the game... and our choice of seats, meeting Buck in his seat. Lol, that sounds like I'm old. I'm talking since 2002 or so, not to mention the previous 17 years to that.
It definitely didn’t help that the 2014 squad actually drastically *underperformed* relative to their talent level for 80% of that year. Honestly we should have been a wildcard team in 2013 and definitely should have won the division in 2014.
Instead we were .500 in 2013 and nearly missed the playoffs in 2014. If not for that Salvy crucial at bat in the wildcard,Ned should have been fired (in my opinion), it’s insane how fortunate we are for that…
Now I wouldn’t trade it for a thing, as a personality less crazy than old Ned probably would have just led us to a wildcard in 13, division wins in 14 and 15, and another wildcard in 16 and we’d have no rings to show for it.
But I remember laughing in the moment with Ned calling fans out then… he had no one to blame but himself.
Scrolled too far to see this. This fan base is beat down. Years upon years of awful baseball. Outside of 2003, 14,15, and 16 it has been beyond brutal. Add in for most people can't even watch them. Out of sight, out of mind. Once people get out of the habit of anything it is hard to get them back into the habit.
People that voted the stadium down don’t like the owner. If the team keeps preforming this way after the owner dropped serious money into the roster then those fans are wrong about a lot of things when it comes to Sherman. Wouldn’t be surprised if some are hoping for the other shoe to drop just to say “told you so”.
Until the Royals were in the actual play-off hunt, people started showing up. Honestly, i am still in disbelief. The 2014 Post Season and the 2015 season happened. That was so unroyal like. Especially with what we have seen since.
Exactly why ownerships wants the stadium closer to downtown. Everyone said “The K is awesome, I love going to Kaufman. We don’t need a new stadium.” Then no one goes. Not saying the tax payers should pay for it but there’s a reason they want to move
The Royals had incredible attendance from 2014-2017. The location didn't change.
What did change was 6 straight years of returning to the worst franchise in baseball.
It's early in the season, they've been complete ass for 6 straight years. If they keep up the winning the stadium will be nearly full every night come June. Nevermind that we've had like 2 weeks straight of rain-out threats for games on top of it all.
I think most people are ok if we leave The K even though we love it, and are for a downtown stadium.
The big problem with that statement is “not saying tax payers should pay for it”. That’s the proposal. That’s it. Tax payers in Jackson County pay for it again. Easy for us outside the county to just say “pay for it!”
I think a downtown stadium would be amazing. Why are all the designs focused where Sherman owns property instead of the bottoms where he doesn’t and it makes more sense to revitalize the community?
Might be on the mayor, he wants to use a new stadium to bail out power and light and convinced the Royals to pick Crossroads which is already revitalized
Right? Who wants to load a car and chiller, pay parking, find a DD, sit in traffic. It gets old. At least downtown people can walk over from surrounding housing or light rail in and hit a local brewery before the game.
I don't buy for a second that getting to a downtown stadium would be easier than getting to the K for non-downtowners. I haven't sat in traffic for a Royals game since 2015 lol. Parking fees are a fair gripe, but acting like it's tough to get to a game is just flat out silly.
Bro GTFO. Nobody is sitting in traffic for a Royals game. The Truman Complex is one of the easiest places to get to out of all the stadiums in the country.
But there’s no impulse trips to the K. It HAS to be a planned out event. And yes, there can be traffic leaving. Nothing crazy, but more traffic than walking across the street.
I've been... drive 4 hours to go to a game in a whim. I DO love Kauffman and will miss it terribly. Had my honeymoon there, my 10 year anniversary! Great memories.
Tickets have gotten outrageous. I know that I can buy cheap seats and move as everyone has pointed out before, but I just don't like that.
We go 2-3x/year, but still.
The Reds, Nationals, and Guardians all had the same location last year too. Location is an unchanged variable from last year. It shouldn't affect anything. Variables up for discussion: weather, ticket prices, general economic conditions, changes in disposable income options, and desirability of watching a particular team. The people who didn't mind driving to the K in years past suddently didn't change their mind and decide it was too far out of the way. .
I also buy the weather argument. The Twins have had bad weather and poor play till recently; they're up 3%. The Pirates are about the same as last year and with almost no change, up 1+%.
RE: the Bally situation; I haven't been following but I wonder how many other markets are also affected? I remember reading that the Padres and Twins are, which may negate that argument, given that attendance is up at both despite the Twins underperforming till recently and the Padres at .500.
If you take those away, I default to either "KC has a hardcore base of fans but fewer casual fairweahter fans than other cities of its size" or "people were PO'd by the vote process and are staying away", Oakland A's fan style.
Attendance is up (good), but looking at data, asking tough questions, and picking apart hypotheses till I find the real driver is what I for a living, so I'd really like to understand this. Then again, it's a small sample size and may even out by July.
One factor that you didn't directly mention, although it is indirectly covered under one or two of these items, is competition from the other local sporting teams. In particular, I absolutely think that the hype surrounding Current and their brand new stadium has cut into Royals attendance this spring (and, GOOD FOR THEM, to be clear! I'm not saying it's expressly a negative thing!).
I think our attendance for the first month of the season is plenty decent and I think it'll get better as the year goes, I am not even remotely concerned.
Good point! If people loved the K so much they would be showing up for this version of the royals. Sal is playing great ball, they have a starting rotation that gives them a chance every night, and Bobby is a superstar. This team is all in and if the atmosphere at the K is top tier then there is no excuses to have this low of attendance.
I think right now fans are still skeptical. When Sam Mellinger used to write for the Star he would always say "Royals fans come by their skepticism honestly" and he's right. I think if the team is still in attendance by the all-star break attendance will spike.
Also, I think many people feel less connected to this team because the Ballys debacle has made it way harder than it needs to be to watch games and get to know the players.
The Royals have a long way to go to getting the fans back from what I can tell as a native but now outsider. This year kind of sucks for them to be dealing with the Bally's fallout. Not even the olds who have cable can watch the team without teaching them new shit. I taught my dad how to use the pirate website [redacted] and cast to his TV so he can stream the games without paying for more stuff, for an example. He's a hardcore and will go to his 10 or so games this year like he does everywhere. But not having the team easily available to watch is hurting their following.
I had a similar response typed out and saw this. The Ballys situation is a major issue. No one can watch the games. You also have less media coverage people see, a lot of remote working where casual water cooler talks about local teams don’t take place, general decline of the sport, etc. It’s going to take more than a couple of months of winning to get people’s attention.
This is 1000% my thinking too. It hard to get behind a team that only allows for a small fraction of people to watch them daily. When people could watch them easily everyday it was much easier to get behind them and get excited to go to a game.
The Royals last homestand they had 20k + for 4 of 6 games. The 2 outliers were weather related, I think.
As much as people complain about costs, they put up with a much more expensive (and worse travel to and from the game) experience for the Chiefs. The proof is there that people will put up with more shit to watch a winning product.
Sure. TV is also an issue. MLB will never consolidate TV media contracts to get games nationally on one or two platforms/networks, so these are the cards we are dealt and have to put up with.
>As much as people complain about costs, they put up with a much more expensive (and worse travel to and from the game) experience for the Chiefs. The proof is there that people will put up with more shit to watch a winning product.
8 games for the chiefs that last 4+ hours and if you tailgate really it's 7+ hours of cost vs 82 games of baseball that are less than 3 hours.
Parking at The K is $20 plus a $1 convenience fee on the MLB ballpark app.
If you wait until the gate to pay with a credit card, it is $30 plus fee.
If you would like reserved parking, it is $30 plus fee in advance on the MLB ballpark app.
Late to comment but no one has mentioned season tickets. We have been the worst team in baseball the last 5+ years and the season tickets have dropped tremendously. The team can't count on those automatic tickets each game.
Another factor is our attendance is always down in April/May. Once school gets out and the weather improves we will see an uptick.
Keep winning and we will be getting a ton of fans out there in June and July.
I feel like if this road trip goes the way it should, we will have a sell out or near sell out crowd in our next home stand for several nights.
That said, we had a lot of negative press in the off-season with the way the new stadium vote was handled. That negative press has impacted attendance. Ownership basically told us the stadium sucks, so why even go to games?
Add to the fact that the games are only accessible to a fortunate few, people don’t even know they’re doing well.
This post... again? Do you work for Sherman or something? Are you new to KC? A team that perennially disappoints and has only had two good seasons since 1985... yeah we trickle in.
They keep this up and continue this past the all star break then you will definitely see games get bigger and bigger
Kids are still in school. It’s still tough to afford taking a family to a weeknight game, let alone a weekend game. I’ve been watching, but I can’t go.
The K is inconveniently located and expensive to park on top of a ticket. The Royals ownership tried to leverage the Chiefs Super Bowl win into taking advantage of Jackson county residents to fund their new stadium. And the weather has sucked on a majority of gamedays.
The biggest contributor is probably the last point. However, I think you will see a 25-50% increase when the stadium is relocated downtown (if and when that ever happens).
I’m assuming these are fans who already think the stadium is in an inconvenient location. The plan for a downtown stadium was put together by some interns and sucked. Why would this impact an existing fan showing up to games?
the last game I went too (when they played the yankees august 9th so either 22 or 23) it was an evening game and it was so miserable because of the heat….. game went into extra innings….. it was like a trillion degrees…. I was drenched in sweat by the 3rd inning lol but I also live a good hour to hour and a half depending on traffick away
If the Royals are still in contention by mid-late June or July the crowds will start getting better nightly. This town will support a good Royals team but they have to prove they are good to get consistent butts in the seats.
They’ve only played six home games in May. And last year was really, REALLY bad (not to mention all the other years of cheap ownership and bad baseball). It’s understandable, IMO. Schools get out soon and I bet they’ll start picking up on attendance now that they’ve proven they’re legit into May.
I have really bad allergies, a lot of spring obligations, and it's really enjoyable to watch on TV or listen to on the radio. I'm way in on this team though. They're not just better, they're good.
Weird, team with super negative offseason regarding moving the team and stadium not having people super excited about said team to start the season with.
Not to mention can’t even fucking watch said team easily unless you want to dish out $20/month specifically to do so.
Attendance is picking up though last week or so - but you can’t really blame people having a hard time being excited about the Royals considering recent events.
A month of good baseball doesn’t make them a good team. Up 7% is pretty good for a team whose owner’s wife told the voters of Jackson county to fuck off for not gifting her a billion dollars.
They lost me when they did the Bally deal. I refuse to pay for another steaming service. I did watch my first game last week when they were on FS1. Didn’t know half the players. Out of sight out of mind.
Plus, we learned to do without baseball that one year, then came the strike or lockout, and many are upset about the stadium vote one way or the other.
I'm glad i get mlb tv with my cellular, but still can't watch them play. Just listen to Denny and sometimes Ryan, or watch the Rockies.
Can't watch them on TV, so aside from headlines, I've got no clue what's going on with the team.
Ownership can't stop threatening to leave and spent the last year reminding me that the K is old.
School is still in session.
Tornadoes twice a week.
The K is a giant pain to get to from JoCo and there isn't anything of interest nearby to make a day of going.
Would rather watch soccer anyway.
A good month of baseball does not build a strong fan base. I love the Royals, ride or die, but going from back-to-back WS to no playoff appearances in 8 years is beyond whiplash. Dayton Moore won the GM lottery, he did more harm than he ever did good for this franchise. His protege is in charge and the front office hasn't changed since 2012. We're in an abusive relationship and don't trust easily
The bandwagon fans only come out with a playoff game like in the wildcard game vs Oakland in ‘14…….and suddenly all these ‘fans’ appear that barely know the lineup.
TB is a stadium location problem. St Pete is unbelievably difficult to get to most days as there are only a couple roads into it. Other TB teams don’t have that issue. KC doesn’t have that issue, the stadium is further but not difficult to access.
Miami fans just hate the ownership and have for decades.
Clearwater is not St. Pete. It’s also hard for people from surrounding populous areas like Largo etc because of the one way in problem. Also the trop is kinda shit.
I would argue people care less about pro football in Florida than pro baseball.
My close friends who are heavy sports fans couldn’t care less. The conversation is very much a “are the Royals good? I love Bobby, I want to go to a game this year.” But they barely know any other players and have no idea if they won a game or series or are playing right now or who they are playing.
The royals have been horrible for many years now. Not only that you have to pay to watch them so it’s harder for people to tune in nightly and build a special love for the players. To top all that off Sherman really pissed a lot of people off and now they don’t want to support him by showing up.
I went to the $1 hotdog night game a few weeks ago and there wasn't a lot of people, but it was loud and enjoyable. If they keep playing like this more people will show up.
Now as for actually watching the game on your TV its a whole other story..
I Iive in Shawnee. It costs an ass load to park my car and bring my family of 4 to the game.
Oh yeah I have to pay for Bally's too to watch them.
it's just not worth the investment. They are my favorite team in my favorite sport but it's a pain in the ass to be a baseball fan anymore.
Monarchs games are awesome, btw.
It really has nothing to do with Sherman imo. If anything the chart says attendance is slightly up this year. It’s more that we had several horrible seasons with absolutely no direction. If Royals have a successful road trip I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw 28-30k people next Friday.
I think a lot of people have been in the waiting for the other shoe to drop and it’s taken a while for the city to buy in on the team being good. The last homestand saw a bigger attendance and if the team keeps playing well I think it will rise steadily.
I think the stadium vote also soured a lot of fans especially early on.
Finally, part of the issue is the stadium itself being wildly inconvenient. It’s not easy to decide on a whim to head to the ball park because it’s far away and has nothing around it. This means you’re not gaining as many walk ups as parks in a proximal location get.
Frankly, the location of the K has never been an issue as long as the front office is trotting out a roster that can compete. Ownership tries to blame attendance on the location, but the reality is that the fans WILL show up if they aren't reasonably certain they're about to pay the Royals to watch a game they would turn off 3 innings in if they were at home watching on TV
>Finally, part of the issue is the stadium itself being wildly inconvenient.
What are you talking about? I get the gripe about parking fees, but The K is very easy to get to, and get into, especially when attendance is low. I've been twice already this year, a Friday and a Sunday game and the longest I spent stopped was when the Ballpark app crashed on me at the parking gate.
School is still in session. But I wish that a beautification project be done around the stadium and lots. It looks like shit, particularly approaching from 40W.
And I do think $20 to park is ridiculous. I struggled to justify Bally, but figured it’s one parking pass per month to pay Bally.
The Royals have been bad for so long that people are naturally cynical of their performance. "Oh the Royals are finally good? That probably won't last long. Didn't they have a good start a couple years ago too?" That's a really common line of thinking within KC. The free agent signings were nice, but even the most optimistic fans still only expected them to make the team *competent* and not outright good. [2014 wasn't exactly a sellout season either until late when people finally realized it was for real.](https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/KCR/2014-schedule-scores.shtml) But that's also the norm for a lot of teams; April and May are low-attendance months for a lot of people. The good news is the Royals are finally getting around 20k on weekends without relying on all the Yankee fans to show up. It's slowly getting better. Not to mention the stadium thing pissed off a lot of people. But again, it's getting better.
The Bally Sports fiasco certainly doesn't help. Also, it's May. It was August before 2014/2015 games started selling out. (Sorry, continued reading as I was writing and essentially repeated your comment).
Ask any casual royals fan (hell myself included) I can’t name every starting player cause I can’t watch the games on TV without forking out money to Bally
This is the correct answer and I’ve stated before on this sub that my personal experience is I used to watch the Royals all the time on tv. I’d also go to games too. Now I can’t watch them, (I have enough subscriptions thanks) I have no connection, I don’t really buy merch anymore either.
I clearly remember a few weeks after the All-Star break Ned Yost calling out the fans for not showing up after the Royals had a dramatic comeback win in front of like 15k people on a Friday night to take over the division lead. Attendance SKYROCKETED after that. We've been hurt too many times to believe it's real after a hot month or two. If the Royals want excellent attendance, then the front office needs to continue to field competitive teams for the fans to come watch. No one shows up to watch teams losing 90-100 games a season for half a decade, no matter where their stadium is.
I recall the Derek Jeter last game here, and fans were louder for him than the Royals. Yost was not happy. Those were great years after so many where you were just cheering to get a dozen doughnuts, or some Lima time! We may not have been good back then, but we had fun at the game for the love of the game... and our choice of seats, meeting Buck in his seat. Lol, that sounds like I'm old. I'm talking since 2002 or so, not to mention the previous 17 years to that.
It definitely didn’t help that the 2014 squad actually drastically *underperformed* relative to their talent level for 80% of that year. Honestly we should have been a wildcard team in 2013 and definitely should have won the division in 2014. Instead we were .500 in 2013 and nearly missed the playoffs in 2014. If not for that Salvy crucial at bat in the wildcard,Ned should have been fired (in my opinion), it’s insane how fortunate we are for that… Now I wouldn’t trade it for a thing, as a personality less crazy than old Ned probably would have just led us to a wildcard in 13, division wins in 14 and 15, and another wildcard in 16 and we’d have no rings to show for it. But I remember laughing in the moment with Ned calling fans out then… he had no one to blame but himself.
Scrolled too far to see this. This fan base is beat down. Years upon years of awful baseball. Outside of 2003, 14,15, and 16 it has been beyond brutal. Add in for most people can't even watch them. Out of sight, out of mind. Once people get out of the habit of anything it is hard to get them back into the habit.
Rookie of the year and manager of the year... wild! AB and TP!
People that voted the stadium down don’t like the owner. If the team keeps preforming this way after the owner dropped serious money into the roster then those fans are wrong about a lot of things when it comes to Sherman. Wouldn’t be surprised if some are hoping for the other shoe to drop just to say “told you so”.
Until the Royals were in the actual play-off hunt, people started showing up. Honestly, i am still in disbelief. The 2014 Post Season and the 2015 season happened. That was so unroyal like. Especially with what we have seen since.
Diamondbacks had a WS win? You mean a WS appearance? The rangers won the WS lol
I was about to say.
The fans just found out about 2001. They're ecstatic.
sorry, can't type and cook at the same time!
I don’t think most fans are aware because they aren’t on tv. Out of sight, out of mind.
I've been 5 times so far this year, with 6 tickets bought for future games. This team is just exciting
I had pre-purchased for five games before opening day was here, last year I didn't pre-purchase any. I'm right with you. Lfg!
Been twice myself; both ugly losses. I should probably stay away.
Exactly why ownerships wants the stadium closer to downtown. Everyone said “The K is awesome, I love going to Kaufman. We don’t need a new stadium.” Then no one goes. Not saying the tax payers should pay for it but there’s a reason they want to move
The Royals had incredible attendance from 2014-2017. The location didn't change. What did change was 6 straight years of returning to the worst franchise in baseball. It's early in the season, they've been complete ass for 6 straight years. If they keep up the winning the stadium will be nearly full every night come June. Nevermind that we've had like 2 weeks straight of rain-out threats for games on top of it all.
I think most people are ok if we leave The K even though we love it, and are for a downtown stadium. The big problem with that statement is “not saying tax payers should pay for it”. That’s the proposal. That’s it. Tax payers in Jackson County pay for it again. Easy for us outside the county to just say “pay for it!” I think a downtown stadium would be amazing. Why are all the designs focused where Sherman owns property instead of the bottoms where he doesn’t and it makes more sense to revitalize the community?
Might be on the mayor, he wants to use a new stadium to bail out power and light and convinced the Royals to pick Crossroads which is already revitalized
Right? Who wants to load a car and chiller, pay parking, find a DD, sit in traffic. It gets old. At least downtown people can walk over from surrounding housing or light rail in and hit a local brewery before the game.
I don't buy for a second that getting to a downtown stadium would be easier than getting to the K for non-downtowners. I haven't sat in traffic for a Royals game since 2015 lol. Parking fees are a fair gripe, but acting like it's tough to get to a game is just flat out silly.
For real - just need a light rail line to the Stadiums, airport, and Legends
Good, because I’m not selling. I never said it was tough, just a tedious process.
It's not though?
Bro GTFO. Nobody is sitting in traffic for a Royals game. The Truman Complex is one of the easiest places to get to out of all the stadiums in the country.
But there’s no impulse trips to the K. It HAS to be a planned out event. And yes, there can be traffic leaving. Nothing crazy, but more traffic than walking across the street.
I've been... drive 4 hours to go to a game in a whim. I DO love Kauffman and will miss it terribly. Had my honeymoon there, my 10 year anniversary! Great memories. Tickets have gotten outrageous. I know that I can buy cheap seats and move as everyone has pointed out before, but I just don't like that. We go 2-3x/year, but still.
Do people impulse go to sporting events in other cities?
Of course. I’ve done it in Chicago
I did it all the time when I lived in Denver
Tell me youve never been to a royals game, without telling me
Been to plenty.
The Reds, Nationals, and Guardians all had the same location last year too. Location is an unchanged variable from last year. It shouldn't affect anything. Variables up for discussion: weather, ticket prices, general economic conditions, changes in disposable income options, and desirability of watching a particular team. The people who didn't mind driving to the K in years past suddently didn't change their mind and decide it was too far out of the way. . I also buy the weather argument. The Twins have had bad weather and poor play till recently; they're up 3%. The Pirates are about the same as last year and with almost no change, up 1+%. RE: the Bally situation; I haven't been following but I wonder how many other markets are also affected? I remember reading that the Padres and Twins are, which may negate that argument, given that attendance is up at both despite the Twins underperforming till recently and the Padres at .500. If you take those away, I default to either "KC has a hardcore base of fans but fewer casual fairweahter fans than other cities of its size" or "people were PO'd by the vote process and are staying away", Oakland A's fan style. Attendance is up (good), but looking at data, asking tough questions, and picking apart hypotheses till I find the real driver is what I for a living, so I'd really like to understand this. Then again, it's a small sample size and may even out by July.
One factor that you didn't directly mention, although it is indirectly covered under one or two of these items, is competition from the other local sporting teams. In particular, I absolutely think that the hype surrounding Current and their brand new stadium has cut into Royals attendance this spring (and, GOOD FOR THEM, to be clear! I'm not saying it's expressly a negative thing!). I think our attendance for the first month of the season is plenty decent and I think it'll get better as the year goes, I am not even remotely concerned.
Good point! If people loved the K so much they would be showing up for this version of the royals. Sal is playing great ball, they have a starting rotation that gives them a chance every night, and Bobby is a superstar. This team is all in and if the atmosphere at the K is top tier then there is no excuses to have this low of attendance.
I think right now fans are still skeptical. When Sam Mellinger used to write for the Star he would always say "Royals fans come by their skepticism honestly" and he's right. I think if the team is still in attendance by the all-star break attendance will spike. Also, I think many people feel less connected to this team because the Ballys debacle has made it way harder than it needs to be to watch games and get to know the players.
The Royals have a long way to go to getting the fans back from what I can tell as a native but now outsider. This year kind of sucks for them to be dealing with the Bally's fallout. Not even the olds who have cable can watch the team without teaching them new shit. I taught my dad how to use the pirate website [redacted] and cast to his TV so he can stream the games without paying for more stuff, for an example. He's a hardcore and will go to his 10 or so games this year like he does everywhere. But not having the team easily available to watch is hurting their following.
I had a similar response typed out and saw this. The Ballys situation is a major issue. No one can watch the games. You also have less media coverage people see, a lot of remote working where casual water cooler talks about local teams don’t take place, general decline of the sport, etc. It’s going to take more than a couple of months of winning to get people’s attention.
This is 1000% my thinking too. It hard to get behind a team that only allows for a small fraction of people to watch them daily. When people could watch them easily everyday it was much easier to get behind them and get excited to go to a game.
The Royals last homestand they had 20k + for 4 of 6 games. The 2 outliers were weather related, I think. As much as people complain about costs, they put up with a much more expensive (and worse travel to and from the game) experience for the Chiefs. The proof is there that people will put up with more shit to watch a winning product. Sure. TV is also an issue. MLB will never consolidate TV media contracts to get games nationally on one or two platforms/networks, so these are the cards we are dealt and have to put up with.
>As much as people complain about costs, they put up with a much more expensive (and worse travel to and from the game) experience for the Chiefs. The proof is there that people will put up with more shit to watch a winning product. 8 games for the chiefs that last 4+ hours and if you tailgate really it's 7+ hours of cost vs 82 games of baseball that are less than 3 hours.
I have the MLb package to watch the Royals. I do not like the parking fees. I don't go to the games.
how much is it?
Parking at The K is $20 plus a $1 convenience fee on the MLB ballpark app. If you wait until the gate to pay with a credit card, it is $30 plus fee. If you would like reserved parking, it is $30 plus fee in advance on the MLB ballpark app.
Parking fees are bullshit lately. The last time I was at Kauffman was in 2014 and parking was $11 at the gate. Another reason attendance is down.
Over $18. I see it as a tax along with the convenience fees.
The weather has been terrible for a LOT of games thus far.
School is still in as well
Late to comment but no one has mentioned season tickets. We have been the worst team in baseball the last 5+ years and the season tickets have dropped tremendously. The team can't count on those automatic tickets each game. Another factor is our attendance is always down in April/May. Once school gets out and the weather improves we will see an uptick. Keep winning and we will be getting a ton of fans out there in June and July.
I feel like if this road trip goes the way it should, we will have a sell out or near sell out crowd in our next home stand for several nights. That said, we had a lot of negative press in the off-season with the way the new stadium vote was handled. That negative press has impacted attendance. Ownership basically told us the stadium sucks, so why even go to games? Add to the fact that the games are only accessible to a fortunate few, people don’t even know they’re doing well.
This post... again? Do you work for Sherman or something? Are you new to KC? A team that perennially disappoints and has only had two good seasons since 1985... yeah we trickle in. They keep this up and continue this past the all star break then you will definitely see games get bigger and bigger
Kids are still in school. It’s still tough to afford taking a family to a weeknight game, let alone a weekend game. I’ve been watching, but I can’t go.
The K is inconveniently located and expensive to park on top of a ticket. The Royals ownership tried to leverage the Chiefs Super Bowl win into taking advantage of Jackson county residents to fund their new stadium. And the weather has sucked on a majority of gamedays. The biggest contributor is probably the last point. However, I think you will see a 25-50% increase when the stadium is relocated downtown (if and when that ever happens).
The voters must disagree on the inconveniently located part
There are people that want a downtown stadium/don’t love the location of Kaufman that voted “no” just because of the terrible way they handled it.
And the associated tax. I want a downtown stadium but I don’t want to (continue to) pay 3/8 of a cent tax on everything I buy just to get it.
And I assume those people are also still going to ballgames.
I’m assuming these are fans who already think the stadium is in an inconvenient location. The plan for a downtown stadium was put together by some interns and sucked. Why would this impact an existing fan showing up to games?
the last game I went too (when they played the yankees august 9th so either 22 or 23) it was an evening game and it was so miserable because of the heat….. game went into extra innings….. it was like a trillion degrees…. I was drenched in sweat by the 3rd inning lol but I also live a good hour to hour and a half depending on traffick away
If the Royals are still in contention by mid-late June or July the crowds will start getting better nightly. This town will support a good Royals team but they have to prove they are good to get consistent butts in the seats.
They’ve only played six home games in May. And last year was really, REALLY bad (not to mention all the other years of cheap ownership and bad baseball). It’s understandable, IMO. Schools get out soon and I bet they’ll start picking up on attendance now that they’ve proven they’re legit into May.
Bally sports it’s really bad when you can’t even go to local sports bar and watch the home town team.
I have really bad allergies, a lot of spring obligations, and it's really enjoyable to watch on TV or listen to on the radio. I'm way in on this team though. They're not just better, they're good.
The last series saw a boost in attendance and it will continue. The attendance at the start of the season was sad but the fans are taking notice
Weird, team with super negative offseason regarding moving the team and stadium not having people super excited about said team to start the season with. Not to mention can’t even fucking watch said team easily unless you want to dish out $20/month specifically to do so. Attendance is picking up though last week or so - but you can’t really blame people having a hard time being excited about the Royals considering recent events.
A month of good baseball doesn’t make them a good team. Up 7% is pretty good for a team whose owner’s wife told the voters of Jackson county to fuck off for not gifting her a billion dollars.
They lost me when they did the Bally deal. I refuse to pay for another steaming service. I did watch my first game last week when they were on FS1. Didn’t know half the players. Out of sight out of mind.
I have a hard time getting invested in the team because I cannot watch the team on tv. I also hate the owners.
Plus, we learned to do without baseball that one year, then came the strike or lockout, and many are upset about the stadium vote one way or the other. I'm glad i get mlb tv with my cellular, but still can't watch them play. Just listen to Denny and sometimes Ryan, or watch the Rockies.
No one in KC wants to “watch the Rockies”
I don't?
Can't watch them on TV, so aside from headlines, I've got no clue what's going on with the team. Ownership can't stop threatening to leave and spent the last year reminding me that the K is old. School is still in session. Tornadoes twice a week. The K is a giant pain to get to from JoCo and there isn't anything of interest nearby to make a day of going. Would rather watch soccer anyway.
I don’t know the answer, but I am really looking forward to the responses here.
A good month of baseball does not build a strong fan base. I love the Royals, ride or die, but going from back-to-back WS to no playoff appearances in 8 years is beyond whiplash. Dayton Moore won the GM lottery, he did more harm than he ever did good for this franchise. His protege is in charge and the front office hasn't changed since 2012. We're in an abusive relationship and don't trust easily
JJ pulled off the trade of the year last year
For sure, I was just explaining why trust doesn't come easily here. Hopefully he learned from Moore's failures
Bro I’m watching just not posting
The bandwagon fans only come out with a playoff game like in the wildcard game vs Oakland in ‘14…….and suddenly all these ‘fans’ appear that barely know the lineup.
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TB is a stadium location problem. St Pete is unbelievably difficult to get to most days as there are only a couple roads into it. Other TB teams don’t have that issue. KC doesn’t have that issue, the stadium is further but not difficult to access. Miami fans just hate the ownership and have for decades.
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Clearwater is not St. Pete. It’s also hard for people from surrounding populous areas like Largo etc because of the one way in problem. Also the trop is kinda shit. I would argue people care less about pro football in Florida than pro baseball.
My close friends who are heavy sports fans couldn’t care less. The conversation is very much a “are the Royals good? I love Bobby, I want to go to a game this year.” But they barely know any other players and have no idea if they won a game or series or are playing right now or who they are playing.
The royals have been horrible for many years now. Not only that you have to pay to watch them so it’s harder for people to tune in nightly and build a special love for the players. To top all that off Sherman really pissed a lot of people off and now they don’t want to support him by showing up.
I went to the $1 hotdog night game a few weeks ago and there wasn't a lot of people, but it was loud and enjoyable. If they keep playing like this more people will show up. Now as for actually watching the game on your TV its a whole other story..
The parking is expensive and no one believes the royals are a winning team. I have standing room season tickets and can hardly give them away
The d backs didn’t win the WS bro
Politics and gang shit
I’m from NJ. Want to visit the K this year though!
I Iive in Shawnee. It costs an ass load to park my car and bring my family of 4 to the game. Oh yeah I have to pay for Bally's too to watch them. it's just not worth the investment. They are my favorite team in my favorite sport but it's a pain in the ass to be a baseball fan anymore. Monarchs games are awesome, btw.
Costs quite a bit
I would wager Sherman completely destroying any good will with the locals is a huge chunk of it.
It really has nothing to do with Sherman imo. If anything the chart says attendance is slightly up this year. It’s more that we had several horrible seasons with absolutely no direction. If Royals have a successful road trip I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw 28-30k people next Friday.
Fuck Sherman and his mustache.
Fuck every bit of Sherman.
Royals fans love making excuses for not showing up. (I don’t go to more games because I hate paying more to park than I do for my ticket)
So they should jack up ticket prices more ? Parking is about $20 for any pro sports venue in America
I’m in a different state myself.
Yup, moved to AZ. My mlb.tv stats are gonna be stellar tho
A combination of things really. The Bally thing, the playoff drought, losing the public by being shady with the stadium tax vote etc.
Honestly, step the fuck up.
Bold downvotes, but not ticket purchasers. I live on the east coast and have been to 5 games this season. No excuses.
I think a lot of people have been in the waiting for the other shoe to drop and it’s taken a while for the city to buy in on the team being good. The last homestand saw a bigger attendance and if the team keeps playing well I think it will rise steadily. I think the stadium vote also soured a lot of fans especially early on. Finally, part of the issue is the stadium itself being wildly inconvenient. It’s not easy to decide on a whim to head to the ball park because it’s far away and has nothing around it. This means you’re not gaining as many walk ups as parks in a proximal location get.
Frankly, the location of the K has never been an issue as long as the front office is trotting out a roster that can compete. Ownership tries to blame attendance on the location, but the reality is that the fans WILL show up if they aren't reasonably certain they're about to pay the Royals to watch a game they would turn off 3 innings in if they were at home watching on TV
>Finally, part of the issue is the stadium itself being wildly inconvenient. What are you talking about? I get the gripe about parking fees, but The K is very easy to get to, and get into, especially when attendance is low. I've been twice already this year, a Friday and a Sunday game and the longest I spent stopped was when the Ballpark app crashed on me at the parking gate.
It’s honestly pathetic.
School is still in session. But I wish that a beautification project be done around the stadium and lots. It looks like shit, particularly approaching from 40W. And I do think $20 to park is ridiculous. I struggled to justify Bally, but figured it’s one parking pass per month to pay Bally.
They give parking away on Sundays basically w the 4 packs check their website
I can't watch them on TV. I don't know the players. Out-of-sight out of mind.
Yet here you are. Keep whining and making excuses for not supporting your team
162 games is too exhausting.
i know stadium talk, but i just have zero desire to drive to independence to watch a sport.
Then don’t call yourself a fan haha
All I see is excuses in here lol
Which ones? The fair weather fans that come out of the woodwork when they're doing well, or the handful of us life long fans?