It’s another year, and attendance is once again down in baseball. That is troubling because last year saw baseball have a significant drop in attendance. There are many different theories being offered, and to date no one seems to be able to pinpoint anything. The Mets Bloggers offer their perspective:

Michael Baron

The cost is always a factor. Even in the small to mid-markets, its very expensive to go to any given game. I think there’s also the issue of a decline in interest among America’s youth which is factoring in, as well as the pace of play which is creating longer games.

Mark Healey (Gotham Baseball)

The one reason for me is that April weather has been getting progressively worse over the last several years. Nobody, especially casual fans — who are always the reason why attendance jumps — is going to sit through cold and wet night baseball in April. More days games would make for better fan experience in April, but we all know that won’t happen.

Joe Maracic (Joe Art Studio)

For April it’s distractions of spring break, holidays and the weather.

Greg Prince (Faith and Fear in Flushing)

Tim Ryder (MMO)

I’d say the watching-at-home experience has reached such a high-water mark – at least for Mets fans – that the added cost of seeing the game in person just isn’t worth it for most fans. I’ll go to a game or two per home-stand, but my days of season/partial packages are long behind me.

Bre S. (That Mets Chick)

I think that the weather has played a factor in attendance being down. I try to avoid going to April games (besides opening day) because it’s just too cold/windy and unbearable to sit and watch in that kind of weather. It could also be the teams performance so far. Our starting rotation has been the complete opposite of what we all expected. No one wants to sit through a cold game and see Noah Syndergaard let up 6 runs. As mentioned by Michael Baron, cost could also be a factor but if fans really wanted to go to games they could purchase after market tickets for cheap on StubHub or vivid seats. This circles back to weather. If cost is not a factor, do fans really want to go to a game in April when it’s freezing outside?

Mets Daddy

Much like with the rookie having a torrid start or a veteran not getting a quick jump out of the gate, we should not draw any conclusions from April. There are weather, school, holiday, and other familial issues. There are fans not trusting their team’s hot or slow start. If these numbers hold true through Memorial Day, there’s an issue.

But right now, we don’t know if there is an issue in 2019. What we do know is that there is a Commissioner ill-suited to handling this problem, especially because he is more upfront advertising what he deems to be baseball’s biggest problems than what about is great about the game.

Overall, no matter what the situation, these bloggers love the game, and you should be visiting their sites to get their unique input on this and other Mets news.