Azubuike24;1507611 wrote:Nobody is St. Louis. I hate to admit it, but their fan loyalty and support for the Cardinals is almost unmatched in professional sports (outside of the NFL). In today's economic times and with the wide variety of entertainment options, it's simply not what it used to be.
Who ever thought in our lifetimes we would see the Chicago Cubs not drawing at Wrigley Field? Then you have certain markets like New York, Atlanta, Phoenix and Houston, who despite being 4 of the 6 biggest metro areas in the US, draw almost exclusively based on results of the team.
The Reds got that reputation in the 50's and it lasted even into the early 90's. Long enough for the expectation to be that of a "great baseball town", but not significant enough to sustain through almost 2 decades of terrible ownership and terrible teams.
Precisely, I've noticed with the Pirates, it takes until June or so for crowds to start really showing up for home games, just based on the 2 decades of terrible teams they had. People don't want to commit time and energy to a loser mired in losing when they're not convinced ownership is doing whatever they can to correct the problem. When you're not a large market who can buy whomever they want (ie: Cincy, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc.), you have to be patient at the MLB level sometimes, while being aggressive in stockpiling young talent through drafts and trades, but fans and their $$$ aren't always understanding of that, which can get frustrating.
A mindset that led to the David Littlefield Debacle Era, when he went for 5 million quick-fix solutions while ignoring the development of young talent and keeping the team a loser and further alienating fans...which is another story, but yeah...
