It’s all about moolah

I’ve been to two Reds games so far this season, with a third on the calendar next week. I noticed something at both games: a lot of empty seats.

The capacity at Great American Ballpark is 42,271. Gate records show attendance figures of 20,104 and 32,105. The first of those was a Thursday afternoon game, one week after Opening Day…and they couldn’t even get half full? The second was a Sunday afternon game – with a popular stadium giveaway. The only other Sunday home game so far this year only drew 24,805.

I expect the numbers to be up again next week for two reasons: 1) it’s a Saturday night, and 2) it’s a Joey Votto bobblehead giveaway.

To the casual observer, the attendance figures seems troubling. There have already been six games in Cincinnati this season that have not broken the 20,000 mark, and four more under 30,000. That’s 10 games out of 13 with less than 75% attendance.

According to Deadspin, it doesn’t matter…as long as MLB has television and internet revenues coming in.

One point that the article makes that I never considered before is how cable subscribers end up paying for the rights to broadcast MLB games. I know costs get passed along to the consumers, but I just never made the connection before.

“Due to the odd way cable providers bill customers, anyone who has a cable package within a team’s broadcast area is stuck paying for the team’s station. You have no choice but to shell out.”

Actually, you do have a choice. You can cancel cable.

Gasp!

It is unimaginable to many, but there are better ways to spend your time and money, and you have more control over what entertains you. My family canceled cable last fall, and I really haven’t missed it. There are only three television programs that I watch regularly (Chuck, Smallville, and How I Met Your Mother). All three are uplaoded to the stations’ websites by the next morning, and I get to watch them with fewer commercials.

I really didn’t sit down to watch games on television regularly enough to make cable worth it for that alone. No, I haven’t begun subscribing to MLB’s internet package either…it’s just not worth it to me. I’ll still see parts of games at work, and will go to a few games each month, and that will be good enough for me.

There is a decent article on Man vs. Debt (a website that I just stumbled onto tonight) called “11 Reasons to Ditch Your Television.”

Between the internet (which you’re already paying for anyway) and a low-cost Netflix plan, you can save a bunch of dough.