Juan Soto and Josh Bell Traded to Padres

rmc523 · August 3, 2022

9 hours ago, SirFishFan said:

Long post ahead, just writing my thoughts about the Marlins attendance in the middle of the night, because why not? 😂

Nothing important and stuff we have talked about before, so skip this if you want.

TL;DR - The Marlins will not get bigger attendance unless they are around 10 games over .500 or make the playoffs, regardless of having star players or where most of the population is from, since most people in Miami mainly just care about things that are trendy and buzzing to not miss out on it.

Yes, definitely, and for baseball that is 100% true.

The big exception is the Dolphins, but I mean with only 8 games a year or so at home and with all the history and loyalty of Dolphins fans, that’s understandable.

The Heat have done really well in attendance, but of course that is because they have been an overall good team since 2003 when Dywane Wade came, I know they had some decent seasons prior to that, but they were pretty hit or miss throughout most of the 80’s and 90s. Once D-Wade came and then Shaq and then of course the LeBron and Bosh etc. So the Heat have been playing exciting basketball for quite a few years and winning a lot, so of course they have had very good attendance for a lot of years now. But also I feel like basketball in a lot of ways appeals to a different type of crowd in Miami, including a lot of people who will use sitting in courtside seats as a status symbol and so forth, and of course in Miami there are plenty of people like that as anyone from Miami will know very well. 😂

Then we come to the Marlins which as we all know is near last place in attendance every year for as long as most of us can remember. We’ve all discussed many times the reasons for the low attendance.

The thing that is funny to me is that over the years I have always seen the argument that because of all the people in South Florida of Latin American decent, that baseball should be very popular here. And I also saw that same argument for the Miami soccer team Inter Miami FC. Guess what? Inter Miami FC is in last place out of all the MLS teams with an average attendance of 12,000 per game, which for comparisons sake, the Atlanta MLS team is averaging around 47,000 per game, which to be fair they play in the Falcons stadium of 67,000 capacity, and the Miami soccer stadium holds 20,000, but as Michelle Kaufman from the Miami Herald wrote in an article back in June, if the Atlanta team can get 47,000 average attendance there is no reason the Miami MLS team shouldn’t be selling out every night at a 20,000 seat stadium.

Here’s the article if anyone is interested, she briefly mentions the Marlins attendance.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/inter-miami-climbs-standings-but-still-ranks-last-in-attendance-that-is-unacceptable-opinion/ar-AAXWd02

That’s why -and I’m sorry if I offend anyone with my opinion- but that’s why I never have bought the argument that signing certain players like Correa or Puig or whoever, will really make a huge difference in attendance. Of course, you might see a small bump for a bit, and maybe some more season ticket sales, but I think that will just be people coming because of the novelty of having a new star player(s) but once that team with the star players is 10 games under .500 in July, a lot of those people will stop coming for the most part. 😂

Doesn’t matter what descent most of the population is, a lot of people in Miami (and every other city, of course, but I've noticed a little bit more) have a big level of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

What I mean by that is that say for example the Marlins were to make the playoffs, people will come in droves if something is buzzing and trending so that they can take pictures and Tik Tok videos and act like they are lifelong Marlins fans, and rooting for their team, even though you know that most of them they never cared in their life until like 5 minutes after they made the postseason.

Of course I’m speaking in general terms here, and I know that there are many thousands of actual true Marlins fans who continue following this team year after year of losing records and still coming back to watch again every new season.

But yeah, put an exciting team on the field who can actually win games and get to the playoffs, and people will definitely show up. That’s all I’ve been asking for since like 2004. Which, to be fair, over of course that time, Marlins have had a number of seasons with fun and exciting rosters and people did show up a little bit more often in some of those years, but never enough to ever get the Marlins out of the bottom 5-10 in attendance most years. And with the number of people that live in South Florida there should be sell outs every night, but it won’t happen unless the Marlins are like 10 games over .500 and those Fish are getting in the playoffs or at least very close in the chase, like 1 or 2 games back close in September.

End of rant.

😂

I agree with just about everything you say here. Signing a big name as you said may get a short bump, but at the end of the day, it's a playoff run that'll get people in the building, and sustained success that will bring them back on a nightly basis. Add on keeping said star players through their contracts (though success can hide this), as they have to overcome the "Miami Firesales" view of the team. It's a shame that they made the playoffs in 2020 because fans weren't able to go in person.

As for Inter Miami, I think they've done a terrible job of getting their schedule out there - I never know when a game is since the day of the week seems to always change. They've also been mediocre, so that doesn't entice people to go. I also don't understand what they've done with their TV contract - some games will be on TV, others you can't find at all, others stream only, others are radio only. Makes it hard to consistently be plugged into what's going on. I think next year they'll be on.....Apple or something IIRC. I'm not overly convinced a Miami stadium will help things either, but we'll see.

Anyway, the South Florida area supports winners, with asterisks of historical success (Dolphins).