The above link is to a Cleveland Plain Dealer interview with Cliff Lee that, I must say, does not include any softballs from “DW” (whoever that may be, since the article is credited to Dennis Manoloff or “DM” where I come from).
I suspect the following will get a lot of run around Cleveland:
DW: Do you feel bad for the fans who see the core of their team traded, fans who wonder, ‘Why can’t Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez still be around in 2010, to try to make another run at it?’
CL: Uh, it would help if the fans showed up and came to the games. That’s why the team didn’t make money, because the fans weren’t there, supporting the team. That’s what happens when the fans don’t support —
DW: But you guys weren’t winning.
CL: Right. It goes hand-in-hand, though. It definitely goes hand-in-hand. Yeah, I feel sorry for them. I wish we were all still there, that we had won the World Series in ‘07, come back and won it again last year and were going to win it this year. That’s not reality. That’s not…It’s a business. It’s a total business.
Aside from Lee offering up the classic “it’s a business” line, which is a current favorite amongst professional athletes, I think his answers include a pretty noteworthy assertion:
Cliff Lee is blaming Indians fans for not buying tickets to games even when the team was losing.
Sure, he backtracks a little by admitting that there’s typically a correlation between winning and attendance, but the initial point is obvious to me - he believes fans should go to games when their team sucks.
While I tend to agree with Cliff, I don’t think he’s being realistic. The truth of the matter is that sporting events become more compelling when there’s more at stake, and it’s nearly impossible to find drama in most MLB games before the All Star break - and it’s definitely 100% inconceivable to do so when a team is 19 games under .500.
On top of this, every team’s fan base consists of, at the very minimum, two distinct groups: hardcore fans and bandwagoneers.
I don’t gamble (well, okay, I bet on a few NBA games when I was in Vegas - and lost money on every one), but if I was forced to for just a moment, I’d bet that the majority of a team’s fan base is made up of bandwagoneers. When ticket sales are thriving and venues are sold out or really packed, in other words, that volume is dictated a lot more by casual fans than by hardcore fans - and those are the people who are only going to buy tickets when a team’s winning, when there’s a buzz around the city, when the stadium or the arena is the “place to be.”
I’m sure the percentages change based on which city and sport we’re discussing. For instance, I presume there are more hardcore Browns fans in Cleveland than there are hardcore Indians fans.
Curious to hear your thoughts. Chime in below.
Side note: there’s a follow-up conversation to be had about what it means to be a fan. I’ve been circling this discussion in my head for a while but haven’t been inspired to write about it…this thread could change that.
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