The Cleveland Indians are usually among the teams in Major League Baseball that have poor home attendance in the months of April and May.
It can get quite cold in Cleveland on a spring night and with children in school it can be tough for some people to justify spending money for tickets when it’s both chilly outside and they have early school night bedtimes.
To help address these situations, the Indians will take a slightly new approach for five week night home games in April and May and cited a need to avoid cold weather conflicts in a news release to announce the move.
The April 27, 28, and 29 home games against the Kansas City Royals will start at 6:10 p.m. rather than the traditional 7:10 p.m. first pitch, while the May 12 and 13 games against the St. Louis Cardinals also will begin at 6:10 p.m. instead of 7:10 p.m.
This means the Indians will only play two games in April with a 7:10 p.m. start during the week, April 14 against the Chicago White Sox and April 30 vs. the Toronto Blue Jays.
In May, there are three games that begin at 7:10 p.m. on a Friday night, which typically have been well attended due to special promotions such as fireworks. The only other game with a weeknight 7:10 p.m. start is May 26 against the Texas Rangers.
The remainder of home games in April and May are day games that either start at 1:10 p.m. or 4:10 p.m. with the exception of April 15 against the White Sox when there is a 12:10 p.m. start on Jackie Robinson Day.
The Indians appear to be experimenting a little bit with these earlier start times in an effort to attract some of the downtown Cleveland workers who might not want to wait around for a couple hours before game time and then leave for home at a late hour.
Plus, it might bring a few more parents with children downtown to watch a game and not feel the pressure to leave as early to get ready for school the next day.
Another added benefit for these earlier start times is that the games should end sooner. Perhaps a few games will be over around 9 p.m. rather than 10 p.m.
It will be interesting to see how the shift in times might affect television ratings as well because a 6:10 PM start isn’t in the prime time slot. The Indians seem to be thinking outside the box here in an effort to try to find ways to help improve early season attendance.
There isn’t much to lose especially since the Tribe averaged just 18,428 fans per home game in 2014 and ranked 29th out of 30 with only Tampa Bay drawing fewer fans per game with a 17,857 average.
I think it’s worth the experiment especially because it only involves five games, so if it doesn’t work out it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme.
Just a reminder as well that Indians single-game tickets go on sale to the general public on March 9 at 10 AM.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
