2016 Cubs Attendance Watch: June 17-22 Homestand

Visits from the Pirates and Cardinals and good weather (except for the final game of the homestand) brought announced sellouts and full houses to Wrigley Field for the just-completed homestand:

Date     Announced Crowd     In-House Estimate
6/17        41,547              41,500
6/18        41,424              41,500
6/19        41,024              41,000
6/20        41,166              41,000
6/21        41,616              41,000
6/22        41,058              39,000

The pre-game rain (and forecast of more) on Wednesday seemed to keep a few people away, as there were scattered empty seats all over the ballpark. Otherwise pretty much every seat was filled for the entire homestand.

For the homestand, the Cubs sold 247,835 tickets, or 41,306 per game. My in-house estimates for the homestand totaled 245,000. Thus there were approximately 2,835 total no-shows for the homestand, or 473 per game. That's by far the lowest number of no-shows since I started this series. That should be no surprise, given the performance of the team, the quality of the opposition, the weather and the fact that schools are out and summer travel season has begun.

For the season, the Cubs have now sold 1,398,324 tickets, an average of 38,842 per date. My in-house estimates total 1,246,000, or 34,611 per date, so the average estimated no-show count for the season is 4,231 per game. That's down over 700 per date from the last post in this series.

At the current average the Cubs will sell 3,146,202 tickets for the season. That number is likely to go up, though they will fall somewhat short of breaking the team record of 3,300,200 (set in 2008). Breaking the record would require selling 42,264 tickets per game for every remaining game, which is not possible.

I'm turning over the rest of this post to BCB reader Lifetime Cubs Fan, who has produced some interesting data regarding ticket pricing points.

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As the Cubs magical season continues, one theme has become constant: If you are not a season ticket holder and did not get your tickets early on, going to a Cubs game will not be cheap. Below are some visuals that help substantiate this point. Interestingly enough, the only games with tickets under $10 (before fees) is the September series against the Reds (which in my opinion, could be some kind of clincher).

Based on trends thus far this year, the lower tier games for the bleachers are likely to see the largest percentage price increase in 2017. Note: I have this information for every section in Wrigley and will highlight other sections in future updates.

Demand-based price increases have varied widely based on section. Even though attendance is not on pace to break a record, the extra revenue generated by demand based pricing likely more than compensates for it.

Section prices are likely to increase as more Platinum and Marquee games are upcoming.

What has a greater influence on secondary market pricing for bleacher seats, a bad weather forecast from Tom Skilling or Jake Arrieta pitching against a division rival? I am going to go with a bad weather forecast from Tom Skilling based on the data below for the 6/22 game against the Cardinals: