I am not counting the two games in Japan as part of this season's total. The A's are definitely getting paid by MLB and the Japanese promoter who put on the two-game "home" series, but that's not enough. The attendance isn't being generated at the Coliseum by Bay Area A's fans, so it can't count.
BTW, the Tokyo Dome was packed. And thank you, Emil Brown, for lending your veteran presence. Update 3/26 - That last sentence no longer carries a sarcastic tone.
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Wow
wow what?
I was reading the accounts of the Tokyo games on Athletics Nation and was surprised to see that their correspondent was none other than our old friend JRBH.
I guess nobody told him that Lew Wolff is profitting from those games too.
R.M.,
What's up with that Tokyo Dome? You'd think the Japanese would have a kick a$$ ballpark that's hi-tech to the core. It was almost like the A's and RS were playing at the ole Seattle Kingdome. Perhaps it's all about the game for the Japanese and nothing else (good for them!).
Baseball in Japan is not the same kind of cash cow it is in the States. jrbh's first post at AN illustrated this clearly. He attended a game at the Seibu Dome where the only filled stands were the "outfield bleacher" sections.
Recently baseball in Japan has faced a similar kind of malaise to what MLB felt just after the 1994 strike-shortened season. Teams are accepting short-term cash infusions when they allow star players to move to MLB, but it hurts them long term as they struggle to retain fans.
Stadium development received a boom in the 80's and 90's similar to what MLB went through in the current era. Design didn't rely on the same ultra-nostalgic sentiments that we experienced here. So you have there a bunch of symmetrical stadia with layouts similar to the pre-renovation Royals Stadium or the Astrodome. Maybe they could use an infusion of new ballparks to create more excitement, but it's a completely different situation there in terms of land use and financing.
Was that 28K number for the game on 3/29 at the "House that Viruses Built"? Was that tickets sold, or actually bums in the seats?
From watching the game on FSN it looked like about 10-15K, tops.
Oh, buy the way, FSN, thanks for putting the Giant's Babble and Mumble Crew on for an Oakland home game.
14k for the exhibition game. Thats pretty consistant with the home preseason game. Usually it gets between 14-17k.
Also, it looks the our opener will sellout. If you go to the website you can only get single tickets (together not counting standing).
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