Despite dire forecasts of rain and storms on three of the four days in the just-completed homestand (which was just one four-game series against the Dodgers), it only rained a couple of times during games, and never for that long or hard enough to hold up play. The only day it didn't rain (Tuesday), it was quite cool for late June.
Here are the announced totals and my in-house estimates for the Dodger series:
Date Announced Crowd In-House Estimate 6/22 35,147 26,000 6/23 36,799 28,000 6/24 36,653 28,000 6/25 41,498 35,000
41,498 was the largest tickets-sold count for 2015, and there appeared to be a lot of groups in the stands during Thursday's afternoon game. The weather, again, seemed to scare a few people away, but not that many.
For this homestand, the Cubs announced 150,097 tickets sold, or 37,524 per date. My in-house estimates totaled 117,000, or 29,250 per date. That's an estimated 33,097 no-shows for the four games, or 8,274 per date, up slightly from the last post in this series.
For the season, Cubs official attendance is 1,177,935, or 33,655 per date for the 35 home games played thus far. That's up about 500 per date from the last post in this series. My in-house estimates for the season now total 944,000, or 26,971 per date, about the same as it was after the last homestand. That's an estimated total of 233,935 no-shows for the 2015 season, or 6,684 per date, up slightly from the last estimate, likely again because bad weather forecasts kept some people away.
The Cubs' attendance total ranks 10th in MLB, slightly behind the Nationals and slightly ahead of the Rockies. The attendance per-date average, a better indicator, ranks seventh, about 1,000 behind the Angels, about 500 ahead of the Nationals. The five other teams in this ranking ahead of the Cubs are the Dodgers, Cardinals, Giants, Yankees and Red Sox.
The next homestand includes popular opponents in the Cardinals and White Sox, and holiday weekend games against the Marlins. There are 10 total games including the July 7 makeup date with the Cardinals for the postponement on April 7. I'd expect nearly all of those games to break the 40,000 mark in tickets sold, and if the weather is good, the no-show counts should be quite low.
And I think the photo at the top of this post is awesome. It's from Wednesday night's game, when the sky cleared to the west just before sunset.