Worcester Ballpark & Redev

[ctsketch]

The only Thursday game that had anywhere near a sellout reported attendance in 2025 was that last Thursday 09/18. The next best attended Thursday game was 8,042 on 07/03. I can back that up as I have tracked the team's attendance game by game via spreadsheet for the last two seasons. It would therefore appear that your casual in person observations do not necessarily always translate to actual reported attendance figures.

but yet you said you don't believe the figures, so what is it? the numbers they give are correct or not? you want to use it as negative evidence but you dont want to use it as positive evidence?

 

[SlothofDespond]

I go to a few games a year, various nights but usually more weeknights. The park is usually full feeling if the weather is good. As a fan I don't really want it at capacity anyway, just relatively lively and not empty feeling. It's a pretty sweet place to watch baseball.

 

[New England Born & Raised]

but yet you said you don't believe the figures, so what is it? the numbers they give are correct or not? you want to use it as negative evidence but you dont want to use it as positive evidence?

I in absolutely no way assert that the Worcester Red Sox under inflate attendance numbers that are reported as your post would seem to insinuate. Their count is thought to be based (they refused to explain their logic when asked by the Worcester Telegram when numbers for early season games did not mirror the people actually in the park) on the tickets distributed to a game which goes on as planned. The tickets distributed include tickets sold and likely also those that may have been given away. It is most probably not based on the actual physical count of persons that passed through the turnstile for the game and entered the park.

It is my contention that some creative accounting was used to report exact sellouts of 9,508 for the last six games. The fact that only one game before September had reported attendance over 9k lends credence to my thinking. I think the team either applied unused rainout tickets or did ticket give aways to inflate their numbers at year end. The fact that the team has continued to tout that it sold more than 500,000 tickets each of the last two seasons despite reported total attendance numbers for these years tens of thousands below 500k makes their operations open to questioning.

 

[New England Born & Raised]

I go to a few games a year, various nights but usually more weeknights. The park is usually full feeling if the weather is good. As a fan I don't really want it at capacity anyway, just relatively lively and not empty feeling. It's a pretty sweet place to watch baseball.

I would imagine that it is difficult to get a true feeling for attendance at games that one goes to for a park that has seating far less than it's listed capacity of 9,508. I have read that Polar Park probably does not have actual seating for some 2k or more of it's listed capacity as it was designed with a lot of open congregating space. One can therefore not necessarily easily estimate attendance based on the number of seats that are occupied.

 

[SlothofDespond]

I would imagine that it is difficult to get a true feeling for attendance at games that one goes to for a park that has seating far less than it's listed capacity of 9,508. I have read that Polar Park probably does not have actual seating for some 2k or more of it's listed capacity as it was designed with a lot of open congregating space. One can therefore not necessarily easily estimate attendance based on the number of seats that are occupied.

Well, if we're talking about "feeling" then the games I've been to have felt lively and full-ish. Whether the stadium has been at capacity or 90% capacity or whatever doesn't matter to the experience IMO. I'm squarely in the camp of the fan experience is a huge success.

If you're getting at feeling being unable to determine whether they're actually selling out, contrary to whatever their marketing / PR team is saying, I agree, I have no idea. I just don't think it matters.

 

[citydweller]

Well, if we're talking about "feeling" then the games I've been to have felt lively and full-ish. Whether the stadium has been at capacity or 90% capacity or whatever doesn't matter to the experience IMO. I'm squarely in the camp of the fan experience is a huge success.

If you're getting at feeling being unable to determine whether they're actually selling out, contrary to whatever their marketing / PR team is saying, I agree, I have no idea. I just don't think it matters.

Thanks for adding some sanity to the thread.