Cubs 2012 Attendance Watch

With two high-profile interleague opponents in Wrigley Field for the just-completed homestand, both announced attendance totals and my in-house estimates were high. Thousands of Tigers fans invaded Chicago, which allowed the Cubs to set an all-time three-game midweek series attendance record of 124,782. That and absolutely perfect weather all week brought huge crowds to Wrigley.

Overall, the six games drew 244,152, an average of 40,692. My estimates added up to 232,000, so there were only (approximately) 12,152 no-shows, an average of 2,025 per game.

Date     Announced Crowd     In-House Estimate
6/12      41,164              39,000
6/13      41,326              38,000
6/14      42,292              41,000
6/15      40,073              39,000
6/16      40,766              40,000
6/17      38,531              35,000

For the season, total announced tickets sold for 33 dates is 1,251,184, which ranks seventh overall (behind the Giants, Dodgers, Rangers, Phillies, Cardinals and Yankees, and just ahead of the Red Sox). That's an average of 37,915 per date. My estimates total 963,000, an average of 29,181 per date, which is up significantly from the last post on this topic, which had an in-house average of 27,074. The current average would put about 2.3 million actually in the seats for the season -- but that average is likely to drop. More after the jump.

The Cubs aren't going to have that many people in the seats next week when the Mets and Astros come to town. While the Mets used to be a big Cubs rival, that ended in 1994 when the teams were placed in different divisions; the Mets haven't been a big draw in many years. The Astros have never been so.

What's most interesting are the attendance figures and estimates for the just-completed Red Sox series. Not one of the games sold out, and there were hundreds of unsold bleacher tickets for all three games. I'd estimate there were 700-800 empty bleacher seats for Sunday night's contest; that game had an announced tickets-sold figure of 38,531, about 2,500 under Wrigley Field's listed seating capacity.

The reason for this is pretty obvious -- the tickets were overpriced. The Cubs have 13 "Marquee" priced games this season. The real number of games that can bear a price that high is maybe half that number. The Cubs appear to be pricing games as if it's still 2008.

It will be very interesting to see both tickets-sold figures, and how many people are actually in the house, for the next homestand, which will likely follow a losing road trip.