Attendance For Jays Setting New Lows

The White Sox may be leaving town having lost 2 of 3 to the Jays, with a 4-6 record that is good enough for 4th in the central, but they still fell much better than the Jays do right now. Ozzie Guillen, the White Sox manager, correctly points out that:

"“I felt like I was in Montreal”"

and adds that the Jays may want to adds some hockey players to the lineup in order to draw interest to the 1st place team. Well said Ozzie, well said. Being like Montreal is not something you want to emulate, and we could all understand Rogers if they decide to copy the Rays and maintain a 50 million range budget in the future if this attendance streak keeps up. the numbers just don’t match. If you’re drawing less than 20,000 on average in a season, there’s no way you can keep players around or attract FAs. The White Sox, meanwhile, know that as soon as they get home, they’ll be playing in front of pumped up crowds again.

I know Southern Ontario has been hit hardest by the recession and that the car industry is just starting to make its way back and is hiring again, and that the hockey playoffs are just beginning which may explain some of the absences.  However, a city of over 4 million people should be able to provide more than 10,610 fans or 10,744 fans on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. I personally bought hundreds of tickets trying to keep the Expos in town when they went through this sort of thing and am surely not going to do it again with the Jays. I doubt this is a long term trend and is simply a blip on the radar caused by seasonal, budget, and other activities that are taking priority over the Jays, but rest assured that the Jays management has to base what it can afford on season long attendance, not game by game. So the more games are at the 10,000 attendance level, the more likely the Jays will cut the budget for the long term.

I’m not going to try to compare this year to others because it’s not the point. My point is that the Blue Jays are 100% better than the Raptors and Maple Leafs, but can’t draw more than 1/2 the attendance they get every game despite much lower ticket prices and more seating.

I don’t get it.