Oakland A's open the season before 33,325 ...

[Auggie]

empty seats.

Official attendance of the home opener vs the Cleveland Guardians was 13,522. Attendees who weren't rooting for the Guardians were rooting for the A's owner, John Fisher, to "Sell the Team."

"Weird vibe," said one of the Cleveland announcers.

[Diamond_Dog]

1. Yep I'm watching it now.

[Auggie]

2. Great night for Bieber, right?

Listening to Hamilton and Rosenhaus radio broadcast via the MLB app.

[Diamond_Dog]

4. It sure is.

They showed a graphic on TV that Bieber having 10+ strikeouts in 3 opening day games puts him in the same company with Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, gosh I forget who the others were.
Fun to watch 🙂

I guess that means he’ll be traded by the end of July …

[Auggie]

6. Sadly, yes

Cleveland can’t afford to keep him. He’s $20-24 million / 7 year territory if healthy.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Since I don't follow things like this very closely,

is 33,325 a very large number of attendees?

[Auggie]

5. It would be in a small park,

the way the Coliseum is configured.

[usonian]

7. Don't forget. that number is for the empty seats.

13,522 showed, and that's 29% of the sum ( 46847 ) so 71% empty seats.

Wikipedia says: Capacity is Baseball: 46,847 (expandable to 56,782 without tarps)
So, "Mount Davis" is tarped off.

Mount Davis, or Mt. Davis, is a section of 20,000 capacity seating at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California, United States. It was built in 1995 at the behest of Oakland City Council with the intent of bringing the Los Angeles Raiders American football team back to Oakland and is named after former Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis. Since 2006, the top-tier seating of Mount Davis has been covered by tarpaulin during all Oakland Athletics baseball games, and the Oakland Raiders followed suit in 2013.

I watched it being built from my daily BART commute at the time.

[Auggie]

8. Thanks for the math

[Auggie]

9. BTW, Stephen Vogt's first game as an MLB manager is a win

[usonian]

10. Stephen is THE BEST.

I'm so glad for him, getting the manager's job.

[Bleacher Creature]

11. What did they expect when they announced they were moving the team?

That, plus the bargain basement roster, and you really need hand it to the dedication of the 13,522 who showed up.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Their Total Player Payroll...

...is easily under 40% of per team revenue.
Ownership isn't even trying. There is no way to justify taking in $140 million more in revenue than they're putting into the product on the field. By contrast, the Dodgers are spending about $58 of every hundred bucks on player salaries. My Cubs are over 50% (last year) & a but higher this year (with '24 revenues, obviously, estimated).
40% is not trying. And as a kid, my favorite AL team was the A's (KC, later Oakland.)

[True Dough]

12. Great "fast one," Auggie.

Not your velocity, the swerve in attendance figures in your OP!

Some A's "fans" remained in the parking lot in protest.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Thousands of Athletics fans gathered in the Coliseum's south parking lot before Thursday night's Opening Day game against the Cleveland Guardians to try out a new way of displaying their displeasure with the team's ownership: showing up but staying away.

In what might be the beginning of the team's final season in Oakland, fans waved hundreds of "SELL" flags, ate free tacos and listened to live music. What most of them didn't do was enter the stadium to watch the game, choosing to continue the party through the night by watching the game on a blowup projection screen. The announced crowd for the game -- 13,522.

"This will be the first time since 2006 that I've missed Opening Day," said Jorge Leon, the president of the Oakland 68s, an influential fan group. "Opening Day used to be a holiday for all of us. We'd take the day off and celebrate from 11 a.m. to the first pitch. This is hard."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39830102/a-fans-protest-move-watching-opener-parking-lot

[Auggie]

13. Thanks, but it's not my idea

First time I heard it came from a New York sportscaster describing a late season Yankees/Indians game in old Cleveland Municipal Stadium during the early 1970's. The Indians teams of that era were terrible and typical attendance figures would be anywhere from 3000 to 6000 a game in September. Municipal Stadium could seat 81,000.

It was even funnier (or sadder) to report "And in Cleveland, the Yankees beat the Indians 10-0 in front of 76,000 ... empty seats ..."

And that's exactly what this sportscaster said one day.

Thanks for the link, too.

[True Dough]

15. 16,905 fans at Progressive Field today

to watch the Guardians complete the sweep of the A's.

Yeah, it's "just" Oakland, but Cleveland has looked good so far early this season. A 16-6 record now.

Let's see what happens when they welcome the Red Sox next.

[Auggie]

16. They took 3 out of 4 from Boston last week at Fenway

Since then the Sox have been playing better so this series will likely be tougher. Then they play three at Atlanta and Houston.

Yeah, let's see what happens.

No excuses for attendance, except it was a miserable day in Cleveland on Sunday. They did sell out the home opener. In 9 games they're averaging 21,328 -- about the same as Cincinatti, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

In 13 games, Oakland is averaging 6,243 at home.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance