2016 Cubs Attendance Watch: May 27-June 5 Homestand

Even if you didn't know, you could probably tell what dates on this homestand had bad weather just from looking at the attendance numbers:

Date     Announced Crowd     In-House Estimate
5/27        38,941              37,000
5/28        41,555              40,000
5/29        41,575              41,000
5/30        41,470              41,000
5/31        34,681              30,000
6/1         36,426              32,000
6/2         37,422              32,000
6/3         38,813              38,000
6/4         40,415              35,000
6/5         41,596              41,000

Yes, that's right. The games on May 27, May 31 and June 4 all had threats of rain, actual rain, or rain delays, or all of the above. All those dates would have drawn more people (both actually in the park and tickets sold) if the weather had been better.

Nevertheless, I'm sure you see that the Cubs are starting to have more sellouts (and bigger in-house crowds) now that Memorial Day has passed and many schools and colleges are out of session. Four of the dates on this homestand drew over 41,000, making them sellouts (or close). And the in-house estimates would have been bigger on the three dates mentioned above if not for bad weather. You'll also note that for the three non-holiday dates for the Dodger series (May 31, June 1, June 2), the largest tickets-sold number was for the day game on June 2.

For this homestand, the Cubs sold 392,894 tickets, or 39,289 per date. My in-house estimates for the homestand totaled 367,000, or 36,700 per date. Thus there were 25,894 estimated no-shows for the homestand, or just 2,589 per date. That figure would have been lower with better weather.

The Cubs passed the one million mark in tickets sold for the season during this homestand. The total announced tickets sold for the season are 1,150,489, or 38,350 per date. My in-house estimates for the season now total 1,001,000, or 33,367 per date. Thus there have been an estimated 149,489 no-shows for the year, or about 4,983 per date. That number should drop as the weather gets better over the summer.

At the current tickets-sold average, the Cubs will sell 3,106,350 tickets for the season, the highest total since 2011, the last time they sold over three million. It's not really possible for the Cubs to break their 2008 attendance record (3,300,200) this year, as they would have to average 42,151 tickets for every game the rest of the year -- a sellout plus standing room for all 51 remaining dates.

The Cubs' current tickets-sold number ranks third in the major leagues, behind only the Cardinals and Dodgers. The average per game ranks fifth, behind the Cardinals, Dodgers, Giants and Yankees. The average is only 107 per game behind the Yankees, so the Cubs could very well be fourth on that list soon.

We'll have another pricing update here from BCBer Lifetime Cubs Fan around the All-Star break. There are only 10 home games between now and July 15 as the Cubs play 23 of their next 33 on the road.