Spring training in Arizona. I could say with confidence it`important to the states fiscal health. And in a bit of an ironic twist, many of the players that bring these tourism dollars only speak Spanish or very limited English. I decided to give myself a project and record the daily attendence figures to see how they compare to the previous 2 seasons. I wanted to see if there was any evidence of Arizona losing tourism dollars with their disgusting actions. All 5 California teams train there. I don`t live in CA, but I`d guess you could do a spring training mini vacation at a reasonable price. Same for Colorado, maybe Texas too. Colorado and Arizona opened a new facility that they`ll be sharing.
http://articles.latimes.com/...
And there is my team, the Cubs. They`ve always had a loyal following, even when expectations are low. Some smaller market teams and the crosstown White Sox round out the league. Now I did all this with pen, paper and a calculator. Chances are I made an error or two, but the figures will be in the ballpark. (Sorry, couldn`t help myself) Here are my results.
Team 2009 2010 2011
Arizona * 7763 7739 10997
Chicago Cubs 10931 10936 10034
Chicago White Sox 6708 6577 5894
Cincinnati # n/a 4170 3789
Cleveland 5546 4374 3797
Colorado * 5025 5528 10373
Kansas City 5694 5277 4424
LA Angels 6849 9793 5805 (8420)
LA Dodgers 12796 11589 7627
Milwaukee 5041 6817 4417
Oakland 5842 6594 5009 (5785)
San Diego 5223 5691 5121
San Francisco 10485 12796 10036 (11700)
Seattle 7064 8773 7091
Texas 5910 7629 6900
*-Indicates 1st year in new facility
#-2010 1st year in Arizona
When there is an extra figure in parenthesis, it is the average for all exhibition games hosted, not just those in AZ. For example, SF played a game at Whatever Corporate Sponsor Has Naming Rights Field, and it drew over 38,000 fans, which upper their average by 1700.
I`d say California folks stayed out of Arizona this spring. The Giants won the World Series last year, and they still had lower numbers. The Los Angeles teams had big drops. San Diego and Oakland are low in all 3 years, but a little lower this year.
The Rockies and Diamondbacks got big gains in attendance. I`d attribute this to the new stadium. Plus, it you`re a Diamonback fan, you likely live in Arizona.
Seattle is down from last year, but about even with `09. That could be because they played a game last spring in Seattle, which inflated last years number.
Texas is the A.L. champ, and they`re down.
In fact, they all had lower attendance. It could be the snowbirds are just watching their dollars and can`t afford a trip. I have no data on attendance in Florida, so I can`t compare the two.
Well, now the games count. The Cubs lost 2 out of 3 to the lowly Pirates. Ah, well, tomorrow is another day.