How many fans were there?

Kyle Schlueter of Goyang City, South Korea, asks, "When the L.A. Times reports attendance for a baseball game, does it report the actual attendance, or simply the number of tickets the team sold?"

Schlueter cited the story on the Dodgers first game of the season, which said the team's win was "in front of 56,000 fans at Dodger Stadium." The report on the Angels' opener referred to "a crowd of 49,596." (That same story reported the Twins' home opener in 1993 "drew 51,617.")

It makes sense that a season opener is sold out or close to it, but what of a soccer story on Guatemala's defeating Mexico that referred to the "crowd of 19,368"? Or the soccer story that referred to 78,500 in attendance? As Schlueter concludes in his e-mail, "If The Times is reporting the number of tickets the team sold, it seems a little deceiving to use phrases such as 'in front of' and 'the crowd of.'"

Mike James, deputy editor of Sports, agrees that nailing down how many people attended a sports event  is difficult: The attendance figures given by the stadium management are not necessarily the same as the number of fans who showed up. And he and Sports Editor Randy Harvey agree that the various ways  that game stories have reported attendance in the L.A. Times recently have been, at best, imprecise.

Why do the numbers matter? For one thing, the more fans in attendance, the better for teams, which
presumably can charge more to those who advertise in the stadium. Editors don't want to be a part of that process, but they also don't want to bog down a story with details about what the numbers mean.

A five-part series by The Times in 2005 on attendance in sports went into some detail about the reasons that teams might not want to say how many people actually show up. The first article, on Aug. 23, 2005, included this: "The Times no longer routinely includes attendance in sports stories, because of the discrepancies between actual and announced attendance." The story went on to cite a memo sent by then-Sports Editor Bill Dwyre to his staff: "In effect, we're intentionally presenting inaccurate information while attributing it to the home team," wrote Dwyre in announcing the change.

Schlueter's question prompted Sports editors to reapply that guideline. From now on, says James, stories will report the figures only when the number of fans in attendance is itself newsworthy (as in the Feb. 18 article of UCLA's women's basketball team loss to USC that said, "the fourth-largest crowd to attend a women's game at Pauley Pavilion"), and can be verified by a count of how many fans went through the turnstiles. Otherwise, stories will say if the numbers are provided by the team in terms of tickets sold -- and even then, says James, a reporter will note if the stadium appears to be partly empty.

Links to the entire 2005 series:

Attendance figures that count tickets sold, not turnstile clicks, make it hard for fans to reconcile what they hear with the empty seats they see (Aug. 23, 2005)

While the WNBA preaches patience before its 10th season, the league's crowd numbers since 2003 have continued down on a slippery slope (Aug. 29, 2005)

Football crowds at the Rose Bowl have dwindled along with UCLA's fortunes, but a turnaround may not be far off (Sept. 9, 2005)

Football success means more fans and profits, but at a cost to some longtime supporters (Sept. 16, 2005)

You can tell it's an Arizona Cardinal home game by the absence of hometown fans in the stands (Sept. 19, 2005)

Photo above (by Ben Cheng-US PRESSWIRE) shows the Angels hosting the New York Yankees on July 23, 2005 in Anaheim, California.

Comments

[Cliff Driver]

Fan attendance - There are tons of ways to skew the numbers. A big one is freebies given to players to pass out to friends and family - certainly not listed as 'tickets sold'. Also, stadium employees as a part of their jobs often have to pass in and out, and don't always bypass the turnstiles - thus artificially increasing that count. And not all who purchase tickets actually attend the game. Season-ticket holders, for example. Media reps, sport officials, team officials, security, etc., are part of 'the crowd', but usually don't pass through turnstiles and don't buy tickets.
Since the attendance figures mainly affect advertising cost, I suspect the gate count would be the closest and best to use. Inflated numbers are good for the advertising income of the facility and bragging rights for the team and the sport. Otherwise, who (but the advertisers) actually cares?