CPBL Attendance: 2019 vs 2016-18 Comparison (13/May/2019)

CPBL Attendance as of May 13, 2019

We are about 64 games into the 2019 CPBL season which is about halfway through the first-half season. Now it is an excellent time to see how the 2019 attendance stack up against the data from the previous three seasons (2016-2018).

Comparing 2019 vs 2018 data, overall speaking, the league’s average attendance is down by 5.21%. The Brothers’ have the most growth with a massive 44.29%, while the Guardians’ attendance is down by 29.92%.

The Monkeys maintain their level with a slight 0.71% down from last year. The Uni-Lions are down 17.03% overall and coming in last in terms of total attendance at 57,841 over 15 home games.

Note: 2019 attendance data is not the full season data. It is only up to May 13, which is about a quarter of the 2019 season.

2019 Total Attendance Game-by-Game Chart

• Monkeys: 130,451 over 17 games (Total)
• Brothers: 92,573 over 14 games (Total)
• Guardians: 85,769 over 18 games (Total)
• Uni-Lions: 57,841 over 15 games (Total)

2019 Average Attendance Game-by-Game Chart

• Monkeys: 7674 over 17 games (Average)
• Brothers: 6612 over 14 games (Average)
• Guardians: 4765 over 18 games (Average)
• Uni-Lions: 3856 over 15 games (Average)
• CPBL: 5729 over 64 games (Average)

Lamigo Monkeys 2016-2019 Attendance

Chinatrust Brothers 2016-2019 Attendance

Fubon Guardians 2016-2019 Attendance

Uni-Lions 2016-2019 Attendance

What I Think: Opinion on 2019 Attendance

Overall speaking, there is a slight dip in Saturday attendance comparing with 2018. There are many theories about it. But for this section, I just want to focus on theme nights.

Theme nights are one of the biggest sources for CPBL teams to boost their overall attendance. Traditionally speaking, one good Saturday night tend to cover at least two or three weekday nights in terms of total attendance.

From a fan’s perspective, my gut feeling for the 2019 theme nights is a lot of teams are just phoning it in with minimum efforts. It is pretty much rinse and repeat from the previous seasons.

Examples of Less Impressive Major Theme Nights

Monkeys’ Yokoso nights and Uni-Lions’ Ultraman nights were nothing special this year. It felt  like both teams watered it down by cutting out a lot of pre-game and mid-game entertainment.

Guardians’ All Grit nights where they wore camouflage uniform, they did not even bother to make the nights more “military” similar to previous years. Come to think of it, I don’t know what’s the theme behind this “All Grit Nights”.

Brothers’ Classic Series throwback nights, given the franchise has such a rich history during its Brother Elephants day, it was nothing unique about it. They did a half-arsed job with the uniform, did not even bother to secure the rights to use the original hat. Lack of pre-game and mid-game entertainment.

In my opinion, the Brothers’ dodged a big bullet that theme nights. If it were not the same weekend as Chen Chiang-Ho’s retirement, the attendance could be a lot worst.

Spotting Early Red Flags

While it is not a big issue right now, the dip in 2019 Saturday nights attendance could developed into a major problem if teams continue to ignore the red flags.

We are living in an age of over-saturation of entertainment. Consumers are smart these days, if there are no innovations in baseball theme nights, why should fans pay extra to go to the game when there are hundreds of entertainment options on Saturday night?