Tag: Baseball

Analysis, Baseball, watch party

David Bote’s Walk-Off Grand Slam Cinderella Story

Posted on by Zachary Burd

Five months ago, not even the biggest baseball fan had heard of David Bote.

He was 25 years old and posting mediocre stats across the board as an infielder on the Cubs’ minor league affiliate teams. And despite being picked in the 18th round of the 2012 MLB draft, Bote seemed destined to end up as a minor league career journeyman, condemned to a lifetime of obscurity and the pain of watching many of his teammates make it to the spotlight of the major leagues.

Yet fast-forward to the evening of August 12th, when Bote was in the process of making MLB history with one mighty swing of the bat. What happened between March and August to catapult David Bote from anonymity to stardom?

Visit FanWide.com to find a Chicago Cubs game watch party or fan club near you.

Analysis, Baseball, Fan Data, Sports Data, Sports Fan Data

A Deeper Look into Fan Attendance by MLB Team

Posted on by Philip Garland, Ph.D.

In our last post, we explored the attendance patterns across major league baseball. In this post, we take a closer look at the attendance performance of individual teams. As the data in the table show, the Los Angeles Dodgers have the highest average attendance in baseball the past three years  (46,230) followed by the St. Louis Cardinals (42,854) and the San Francisco Giants (41,303). The Tampa Bay Rays have the lowest average attendance the last three years at 15,650.

The ticket sales departments of the high average teams are undoubtedly pleased, but even better than a high average is a consistently high average, or put differently, low variance in attendance. The Giants have the lowest attendance variance of any team in baseball the last three years, though the Cardinals and Dodgers are also in the top five. After all, it’s hard to maintain a high average without regularly selling a lot of tickets. But having a high average and low variance suggests that home team fans are supportive of their team no matter who is playing—arguably a higher degree of interest.

Analysis, Baseball, Fan Data, Sports Data, Sports Fan Data

MLB Stadium Attendance: Is America’s Pastime Experiencing a Decline in Popularity?

Posted on by Philip Garland, Ph.D.

Stadium attendance is, of course, the oldest form of fan interest and occurs whether a game is televised or not. So, as we contend in our previous post, in-stadium attendance is ultimately the highest fidelity signal available for measurement. Each stadium has a fixed capacity and standing room only ticket sales are rarely sold with the exception of the Dallas Cowboys after the construction of their home venue in 2009. Even with standing room tickets, Cowboys stadium capacity is capped at 105,000. Because one body fits in one seat on almost all cases, attendance is thus a reliable benchmark to compare television viewership. (We acknowledge that not everyone who bought a tickets makes it to the game and many teams count promotional tickets—many of which go unused—in their reported attendance numbers, but we assume that most teams that do not sell out every game do this to roughly similar degrees which makes for a bit a noise in the data, but otherwise doesn’t completely destroy our model.)

All, Analysis, Baseball, Basketball, Events, Fan Data, Football, Hockey, Soccer, Sports Data, Sports Fan Data, watch party

250,000 FanWide Game Watch Parties – Part 3: Sports Bar Hosting Data

Posted on by Symon Perriman

FanWide (https://www.FanWide.com) has promoted and collected data from over three hundred thousand events nationwide for its Sports Fan Club Data Platform.  An event is an organized meetup where a group of sports fans gets together out of their home to watch one of almost 15,000 televised games, commonly known as a “watch party”, and this blog lists the Top 100 most popular sports bars and restaurants nationwide.

FanWide helps bars and restaurants attract new customers and makes them a premier sports viewing location.  Learn more about how venues can join our network at https://www.fanwide.com/host/overview or contact Sales@FanWide.com.

All, Analysis, Baseball, Basketball, Events, Fan Data, Football, Hockey, Soccer, Sports Data, Sports Fan Data, watch party

250,000 FanWide Game Watch Parties – Part 2: Geographic Sports Fan Data

Posted on by Symon Perriman

In just under thirteen months since its launch, FanWide (http://www.FanWide.com) has promoted and collected data from over a quarter of a million events nationwide.  An event is an organized meetup where a group of sports fans gets together out of their home to watch one of almost 15,000 televised games, commonly known as a “watch party”.

All, Analysis, Baseball, Basketball, Events, Fan Data, Football, Hockey, Soccer, Sports Data, Sports Fan Data, watch party

250,000 FanWide Game Watch Parties – Part 1: Team & League Sports Fan Data

Posted on by Symon Perriman

In just under thirteen months since its launch, FanWide has promoted and collected data from over a quarter of a million events nationwide.  An event is an organized meetup where a group of sports fans gets together out of their home to watch one of almost 15,000 televised games, commonly known as a “watch party”.

All, Baseball, Events, News, watch party

The Houston Astros Rocky Road to the World Series

Posted on by Emily Vernik

The Houston Astros managed to fight their way into the World Series after beating the Yankees 4-3 in the ALCS. And what a time for the Astros to persevere, as Texas needed a reason to celebrate.

It’s been a rough couple of months for Houston after the devastation from Hurricane Harvey left thousands without homes and billions of dollars of damages in its wake. The rainfall from Harvey in Texas and Louisiana alone could have filled the Astrodome 85,000 times over.

Visit FanWide.com to find a Houston Astros game watch party or fan club near you.

Basketball, Events, Football

eSports: The Rise of an Empire

Posted on by Emily Vernik

A recent study from Limelight Networks shows that men aged 18-25 prefer to watch eSports over other, more conventional sports.

In the last few decades, eSports have become a major industry competing with traditional sports such as basketball or football. The Season 3 World Championship of League of Legends in 2014 gathered 32 million viewers, exceedingly more than the World Series or NCAA Final Four that year. The winners of The International (a tournament for Dota 2) won a combined $11 million this summer, whereas Tom Brady made a mere $183,000 for winning the Super Bowl. The International Olympic Committee even flirted with the idea of including eSports as an event in the Olympic Games to increase their appeal to millennials.