Los Angeles Dodgers: Where did all the Dodger Fans Go?

Attendance at Dodger Stadium is in a free fall, declining each year since signing the ill-fated deal with Time Warner Cable in 2013. So where did all the Los Angeles Dodgers fans go?

Through the first seven home games of the 2017 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers are averaging 44,014 fans, a number that may be artificially inflated due to a sellout on Opening Day.

Further analysis of the game-by-game attendance figures shows that the Dodgers have already had four games with less than 40,000 fans hitting the turnstiles. They have only played seven games at home thus far.

Though seven out of 81 games appear to be a small sample size, the trend is evident. In 2014 – the year after the Dodgers signed a 25-year, $8.35 billion deal with Time Warner Cable – the team’s average attendance was 46,696. Time Warner subsequently formed SportsNet LA, a Dodgers-only network, infamously blacking out 90% of the fan base within Los Angeles.

Though the attendance figure only took a marginal hit initially, decreasing to 46,479 in 2015, the decrease was more pronounced in 2016. The 45,720 average attendance represented a full 2% shrinkage, a figure that has accelerated thus far in 2017. If these numbers hold, the drop off will be greater than five percent, not a tenable number for Guggenheim Partners.

While the team may still lead the National League in attendance, it is clear that the cable deal is not helping team exposure in the greater Los Angeles area. In the L.A. Times, esteemed writer Bill Shaikin discusses potential action items for the organization, including a low-cost Sunday ticket. The Dodgers currently have the most expensive ‘minimum’ Sunday package in Major League Baseball.

The low-cost Sunday tickets may not appear feasible on the surface – the Dodgers already have the fourth-lowest average cost of tickets in the sport. However, looking more closely at the numbers, the overall cost of the ‘full experience’ to Dodger fans soars to ninth-highest taking hot dogs, beer, tickets and parking account.

With a capacity of 56,000 fans – the largest in baseball – and $20 cost of parking at the gate, the revenue ownership earns on a daily basis is akin to their market scope and size.

It is no secret that in an evolving market that includes two new NFL teams, the Dodgers need to be accessible on local television to generate and vitalize a fan base, even with a rabid fan base.

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The adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’ could not be truer – especially when it comes to the new generation of young fans who have more options than ever before. If they could only see their team on television, the attendance figures might stop its free fall.