Pickering Angels

The 2025 Toronto Blue Jays

tml

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Aug 10, 2011
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Andres Gimenez, multiple Gold Glove winner and .333 BA, 3 dingers, and 1.399 OPS, dare I say it? another Robbie Alomar in the making?
It's early but still.
Do we swallow our pride and give Shapiro/Atkins credit?
 

unassuming

Well-known member
Feb 11, 2017
13,530
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Poilievre Jr making a come back year.
Springer continues to shine.
WTF? with Vladdy and Tony Taters>>no dingers
Bottom of order playing small ball! Love it!
 

Toronto Passions

Trusted Since 2001!
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We are a hop, skip, and a jump away from 2007 attendance. The home opener had a sellout. After that, I’m seeing a lot of empty seats on the weekend and so far this week, which I guess would be more expected for weekdays. The game I went to on Sunday was already showing signs of low attendance. I was behind the behind the plate and that whole section is generally filled up, but you could easily hear crickets in the fifth deck and quite a few crickets in the third deck. I think the official attendance number for Sunday was around 27,000. Guys this team better start doing something soon or else 8000 is around the corner.

Philip
 
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Phil C. McNasty

Go Jays Go
Dec 27, 2010
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We are a hop, skip, and a jump away from 2007 attendance. The home opener had a sellout. After that, I’m seeing a lot of empty seats on the weekend and so far this week, which I guess would be more expected for weekdays. The game I went to on Sunday was already showing signs of low attendance. I was behind the behind the plate and that whole section is generally filled up, but you could easily hear crickets in the fifth deck and quite a few crickets in the third deck. I think the official attendance number for Sunday was around 27,000. Guys this team better start doing something soon or else 8000 is around the corner.

Philip
I think this might be part of the reason why:

https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/...-now-more-expensive-actual-blue-jays-tickets/

Also the cold weather isn't helping
 
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shack

Nitpicker Extraordinaire
Oct 2, 2001
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We are a hop, skip, and a jump away from 2007 attendance. The home opener had a sellout. After that, I’m seeing a lot of empty seats on the weekend and so far this week, which I guess would be more expected for weekdays. The game I went to on Sunday was already showing signs of low attendance. I was behind the behind the plate and that whole section is generally filled up, but you could easily hear crickets in the fifth deck and quite a few crickets in the third deck. I think the official attendance number for Sunday was around 27,000. Guys this team better start doing something soon or else 8000 is around the corner.

Philip
It's happening sooner than I'd predicted.

I'm not sure mitch poster said I was wrong and predicted that attendance would not drop.
 

onomatopoeia

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We are a hop, skip, and a jump away from 2007 attendance...

Philip
2007 Blue Jays' attendance: 2, 360, 644, (average 29, 143); 7th of 14 AL teams.

2025 Year to date:

March 27: 40, 737
March 28: 26, 289
March 29: 27, 005
March 30: 21, 069
March 31: 20, 137
April 1: 21, 845

Keep in mind that Inter league games often draw the among the highest and lowest home crowds, depending on the opponent. In Oakland recently, they had relatively large crowds for any games against other California teams from both Leagues, and for the New York Yankees. Many other games drew less than 5,000 fans. What is unfortunate for the Jays is that they have no natural geographical rivals in the National League, and their three 2025 games against the LA Dodgers are on the road.

The Washington Nationals are one of the six Major League teams who had a worse record than the Jays in 2024. The Nats did very little to improve their roster for 2025. They resigned Josh Bell for $6M, and signed Canadian Michael Soroka for $9 Million, (0-10 for the 2025 Chicago White Sox), Amed Rosario, ($2M), Jorge Lopez, ($3M), and Blue Jays cast off Paul DeJong, ($1M), all to one year contracts, and Japanese pitcher Shinnosuke Ogasawara, (2 years, $3.5M). Their ability to compete is severely restricted by the disastrous $245 Million/ 7 year contract extension given to Stephen Strasberg. Strasberg won one game for the Nats during the contract, and officially retired in April, 2024. Washington is still on the hook to pay him $35 Million this year, and next.

Washington won the draft lottery for 2025, and they have several top prospects. They appear to be in 'tank mode' at least until the Strasberg contract expires.
 
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maurice93

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April Attendance is always down across MLB (excluding home openers). They had as low as 23,000 for an April game last year too.

Best way to look at it is YOY through 6 games.

2024/2025
40/41
31/26
23/27
29/21
31/20
27/22

2024 Avg = 30
2025 Avg = 26
So down about 13% year over year at this point.
That 13% is a direct trailing impact of last year's lack of success. I think the lack of Vlad extension

If they can have a good season that 13% should close, and the attendance would not be a major issue. Last year it was 11th which was good for a sucky team... a 13% drop bring it down to 15th. But another bad season and it becomes problematic.

The biggest value the Jays have is their local TV contract. Their local watchers dwarf the average MLB team, and assuming Rogers can monetize that TV watchers its a big asset for the Jays,




Last year's Jays attendance was
 
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onomatopoeia

Bzzzzz.......Doink
Jul 3, 2020
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Cabbagetown
April Attendance is always down across MLB (excluding home openers). They had as low as 23,000 for an April game last year too.

Best way to look at it is YOY through 6 games.

2024/2025
40/41
31/26
23/27
29/21
31/20
27/22

2024 Avg = 30
2025 Avg = 26
So down about 13% year over year at this point.
That 13% is a direct trailing impact of last year's lack of success. I think the lack of Vlad extension

If they can have a good season that 13% should close, and the attendance would not be a major issue. Last year it was 11th which was good for a sucky team... a 13% drop bring it down to 15th. But another bad season and it becomes problematic.

The biggest value the Jays have is their local TV contract. Their local watchers dwarf the average MLB team, and assuming Rogers can monetize that TV watchers its a big asset for the Jays,




Last year's Jays attendance was
You also need to take into account that the 31/20 and 27/22 games represent Saturday and Sunday attendance in 2024 vs Monday and Tuesday nights in 2025. I see no statistical significance in this small sample.
 
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shack

Nitpicker Extraordinaire
Oct 2, 2001
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You also need to take into account that the 31/20 and 27/22 games represent Saturday and Sunday attendance in 2024 vs Monday and Tuesday nights in 2025. I see no statistical significance in this small sample.
Unless I'm mistaken, of the 1st 6 games each season, there were 2 weekend games each year. That should be a wash, I believe.

I see a decrease of about 24K attendance so far after 6 games. For 81 games multiply by 13.5= 324,000 lowered attendance. Is that a significant number? I don't know.

It is a small sample and a lot relies on team performance.
 

onomatopoeia

Bzzzzz.......Doink
Jul 3, 2020
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Unless I'm mistaken, of the 1st 6 games each season, there were 2 weekend games each year. That should be a wash, I believe.

I see a decrease of about 24K attendance so far after 6 games. For 81 games multiply by 13.5= 324,000 lowered attendance. Is that a significant number? I don't know.

It is a small sample and a lot relies on team performance.
My post which you quoted referred specifically to home games #5 and 6.

The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals are not as popular as some other road teams for a Toronto crowd. If the Jays had opened the home season against the Yankees, Red Sox or Tigers, 2025 attendance after six home dates may have been higher than in 2024. If they had played the Florida Marlins and the Chicago White Sox, the drop would likely have been larger.

Andres Gimenez will also not hit 81 home runs this season, even though that is his current pace after 3.7% of the season.
 

shack

Nitpicker Extraordinaire
Oct 2, 2001
53,865
11,784
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Toronto
My post which you quoted referred specifically to home games #5 and 6.
Yes, I noticed. 5 and 6 were weekend games last year but only weekday games this year. I believe for apples to apples one must accept the advantage that 2024 attendance had with those 2 games in particular.

But we must also accept the advantage of the weekend games this year, no? This year the weekend games were numbers 3 and 4. 3 and 4 last year were weekday games yet they outdrew this year's 3 and 4 weekend games by 52K to 48K.

The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals are not as popular as some other road teams for a Toronto crowd. If the Jays had opened the home season against the Yankees, Red Sox or Tigers, 2025 attendance after six home dates may have been higher than in 2024. If they had played the Florida Marlins and the Chicago White Sox, the drop would likely have been larger.
Their 1st 2 home series last year were Seattle and Colorado. I posit that those 2 are clearly not only the Yanks or Sox, but they were weaker draws than Baltimore (a division rival) and Washington. Seattle and Colorado are/were in no way big draws here.


Andres Gimenez will also not hit 81 home runs this season, even though that is his current pace after 3.7% of the season.
That's why I agreed that it is a small sample size. It means that it's much too early to make any declarations regarding what attendance will be like or to even evaluate the quality of this year's attendance.
 

onomatopoeia

Bzzzzz.......Doink
Jul 3, 2020
24,533
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Cabbagetown
Yes, I noticed. 5 and 6 were weekend games last year but only weekday games this year. I believe for apples to apples one must accept the advantage that 2024 attendance had with those 2 games in particular.

But we must also accept the advantage of the weekend games this year, no? This year the weekend games were numbers 3 and 4. 3 and 4 last year were weekday games yet they outdrew this year's 3 and 4 weekend games by 52K to 48K.

Their 1st 2 home series last year were Seattle and Colorado. I posit that those 2 are clearly not only the Yanks or Sox, but they were weaker draws than Baltimore (a division rival) and Washington. Seattle and Colorado are/were in no way big draws here.



That's why I agreed that it is a small sample size. It means that it's much too early to make any declarations regarding what attendance will be like or to even evaluate the quality of this year's attendance.
Between 1977 and 1978, the number of men in the US who listed their occupation as 'Elvis Presley Impersonator' on tax returns increased from 50 to 253, a 506% increase in a single year. If that trend had continued, by 2017 one out of every three employed men in the US would have been an Elvis Presley impersonator.

This is why extrapolation from small samples is not statistically significant.
 
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