No One Knows About These Diamondbacks
And that's the front office's fault
It’s now June and the Arizona Diamondbacks are tied for 1st place in the National League West with the Dodgers on the first of the month. Their .596 winning percentage was tied for the 4th best in baseball. They have one of the leading Cy Young candidates in Zac Gallen and the frontrunner for NL Rookie of the Year in outfielder Corbin Carroll. They hit the ball hard (6th in team slugging percentage) and play aggressively (5th in stolen bases). They also rank 21st in average attendance at 19,799 fans per game after 30 home games.
The leaders on this chart is populated with fellow first-place teams as well as some other teams with high expectations or large payrolls. In the Diamondbacks’ neighborhood are teams in regions with cold spring weather, low-payroll, low-talent teams, and the A’s, who are doing a better job promoting social distancing than the CDC ever did. Of the top 10 teams in terms of winning percentage, the Diamondbacks have the lowest average attendance.
There are two more numbers that paint a sad picture. Fourteen teams have had a game with fewer than 15,000 in attendance. The Diamondbacks have done so 10 times already, or 33% of their games.
They are also one of 7 teams to have multiple games without reaching the 10,000 fan mark.
The A’s, Reds, Pirates and Orioles all have either antagonistic or absentee owners who are content to do the bare minimum to service their fan base. The Royals are trying to be good, but currently aren’t. The Marlins always have issues and I don’t know why the Guardians are suddenly in this tier of low-attendance teams. The Diamondbacks and Rays seem to be the most similar. They have had very good seasons and very bad seasons since arriving in the league together in 1998. They don’t play in the deep end of the free agent pool too often, play in regions of the country that are miserable in the summer (hence the domes and their sweet air conditioning), and their best players never seem to get any national recognition. Paul Goldschmidt was a perennial MVP-caliber player but never won until going to the more popular Cardinals.
The Diamondbacks have not been in the top half of the league in attendance since 2004, which was the end of the 2001 World Series high tide. They are routinely in the 18-24 range despite having the stadium with the 4th largest capacity (listed at 48,633) and playing in the 5th largest city in the country (Phoenix, with a population of 1,656,892). But that popular core of players from the 2001 champions, honored every game in the Legends Race featuring Luis Gonzalez, Mark Grace, Matt Williams and Randy Johnson, haven’t been on the roster for 20 years. Since then, there have been some small sparks, like the Brandon Webb Cy Young run, the excitement of the Justin Upton-Stephen Drew-Chris Young core, and the year-in, year-out excellence of Paul Goldschmidt.
So how did a team that is obviously capable of pulling in huge crowds and “Rally the Valley” (as another local team says) become a field filler?
I’ll start with why I don’t go to many games. Since moving here in 2011, I’ve averaged about 4-5 Diamondbacks games per season. For the first few years, I would try to go whenever the Padres or A’s were in town. But I also traveled a lot in the summer and watched games around the country as well. And I was dating a barrel racer so Bauer and I spent many off days at a stable or a rodeo. Since that ended, I just don’t find many people wanting to go. They all had girlfriends, then wives, then kids, then soccer games!
I’m fine going solo, but it’s increasingly becoming less tempting to do that. I used to be able to scalp a ticket for a few bucks and go see a good pitching matchup or a team I wanted to check out. Now, with everything being through your mobile device, they sure love to reach deep into your wallet. I thought about going to a Tuesday night game against the Rockies, but an upper deck ticket was $21 on top of all the hassle of “convenience fees”, traffic, parking, eating and then getting home late. It was easier to justify that for a $5 ticket. I try to get a couple games in with different friends who are fans of whatever visiting team is in town. I would say what’s keeping me away isn’t that it’s a prohibitive cost to attend, it’s just an inconvenient cost that I’d rather avoid. Which sucks because I love going to baseball games. I just did a triple-header last week at Scottsdale Stadium for the Pac-12 baseball tournament. Three games in one day for $39, baking in the May heat.
Why don’t other people go to games? The greater Phoenix area is home to over 4.5 million people, and even in the summer that number is still at least over 3 million. That’s a huge group to work with. The people here are also like to get out of the house, hence why they chose to live in a climate with year-round shorts weather. Surely you can find at least 30,000 fans to come to a game at least 2/3 of the season’s schedule. It’s not even like you sit in the sun.
Aside from the cost, which really limits the amount of repeat visits the average fan can make, there’s just no buzz about the team in the area. I don’t know what the marketing team thinks will work, but if I didn’t actively seek out the schedule on the website, I’d have no idea we even had a baseball team. I was driving to work last Wednesday and along the highway there was one of those electronic billboards that flips between a few different ads. The Diamondbacks 20-second screen was drumming excitement for the upcoming Boston Red Sox series. The only problem is that series had been over for 4 days by the time I saw that billboard.
Phoenix knows their sports. There’s a reason there’s the four major sports here, a big golf tournament, two NASCAR races and basically everything else. Even non-sports fans know Randy Johnson, Steve Nash and Larry Fitzgerald (and hopefully Shane Doan). Phoenix has the capacity to be a baseball town, that’s why they host half the Major League teams every spring. But the Arizona Diamondbacks need to turn Zac Gallen, Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte and the rest of this first place team into a can’t-miss experience. Just go all out with a marketing blitz. Have a few summer games where kids 12-and-under are free. Cover buildings with giant posters of the best players.
Get people in the building. Let the excitement grow from there. A couple games with 35,000+ fans seeing how exciting this team is and suddenly you’ve got something snowballing. The city isn’t a bad sports city, it’s just that its baseball team went dormant. The Suns roared to life after some truly terrible seasons, and now they’re the ticket everyone wants. The Cardinals benefit from the NFL’s marketing machine to overcome their inept ownership, but they’re always a draw until they collapse after the yearly 6-2 start. And the Coyotes just need one well-located arena and they’ll be looked at as a success just like the Vegas Golden Knights.
Anyone I talk to who was here for the World Series remembers it vividly. They talk about going to games with their dad, meeting Luis Gonzalez at their school and having had season tickets with a group of friends. It won’t be easy, but it’s possible to build that level of interest again. The team is fun, the park isn’t bad and with the Giants, Padres and Dodgers, the next few years should see some exciting baseball. All the Diamondbacks need to do now is get people in the door.