Just ’cause some folks have been asking, some quick facts:
Nats Park Capacity: 41,888 seats
6/23 – 41,517
6/24 – 41,530
Opening Game, 2008 – 39,389
Opening Day 2009 – 40,386
Final game at RFK, 2007 – 40,519
I’m presuming that the numbers are what they are because they’re calculated based upon PAID attendance, and not inclusive of all the free tickets given away. I’ll bet all three of the first 3 games above were much closer to the 41,888 capacity of Nats Park, having been at 2 of the 3 games.
June 25th, 2009
If the Nationals ever started drawing close to this on a regular basis, they’re going to have to do some infrastructure improvements around transportation. Not sure what exactly, but if they routinely draw 35,000+ some day, we’ll see a lot of complaints surface about getting to games.
June 25th, 2009
If they draw crowds close to that big on a regular basis, you’ll soon see the same kind of bar and restaurant infrastructure develop near the ballpark that exists around Fenway/Pac Bell Park/Camden Yards/etc. At that point, the problem starts to solve itself as enough people hang out early and late (while Stan Kasten presumably cackles maniacally with glee over all the money the team is making).
- R
June 26th, 2009
Agreed, to both. When you go from 12-15K per game on a regular basis and jump up to 41+ all of a sudden for just 3 games, it throws the whole system out of whack. Doubling or tripling the number of fans is a huge difference when the Metro isn’t running more trains and buses, the police don’t have more traffic control personnel, the stadium doesn’t have (much) additional personnel, the parking lots don’t increase capacity, etc.
I don’t know (and would be interested to hear) if Wed or Thur went any better, with slightly bigger crowds than Tuesday, but more time to adjust. As far as Tuesday goes, it didn’t help that the Metrorail was all farked because of the Redline accident. And I got the sense that there was a lot more construction than usual on the roads around downtown and SE DC this week. It may be a bias, but if I’m correct, that certainly didn’t help.