Regarding the attendance, I was curious about that note, so I looked into it. In 2019, the season started March 28, 10 days earlier than this season, so weather early on was likely colder. But the big difference is that it appears the 2019 Reds had two weekend games banged by rainouts early on, including the Saturday game after Opening Day, which likely had been marketed as Kids Opening Day and/or Opening Night. A couple weeks later, their Friday night game vs STL was rained out, and the other two crowds Saturday and Sunday vs STL were noticeably weak (less than 17K each). Not sure if that was a bad weather weekend.
This year’s Reds got a full weekend series vs the Cards in good weather that drew decent crowds, all 3 games between 20K and 28K. And got 3 weekend games vs Pirates included in there … although Game 1 of Saturday’s DH had a dreadful crowd of less than 10K.
In summary: Only three weekend games among the first 12 in 2019. Six weekend games among the first 12 this season. And the STL weekend crowds were larger this year, likely due to better weather. Lastly, I tend to think that Reds attendance often trails team results by a year. The team was a disaster in 2018 and wasn’t expected to be good in 2019, so that likely kept folks away. The Reds were pretty decent last year, which would have helped with attendance early this season (and still may have), but they mostly flushed away any 2021 goodwill with the offseason fire sale and Phil insulting the fanbase on home opening day.
One last attendance note: Aside from the home opener, the Reds have now played 6 weekday/weeknight games in 2022, all against decent or good teams (1 vs CLE, 3 vs SD, 2 vs MIL) and have yet to reach an announced attendance of 11,000 in any of those games. That is really, really poor and essentially means that aside from season ticket sales, hardly anybody is going to these weeknight games on a discretionary basis. And of course the actual bodies in the stadium are far less, generally in the 5K to 8K range most of these nights, I’d estimate. And maybe 3K in the building for that CLE day game.
It’s true, it’s true. Trust me …