Empty Seats in Baseball's Opening Week

Darren Rovell, sports business reporter for CNBC (and a former ESPN reporter), makes the most of using Twitter. With over 10,000 tweets and over 70,000 followers, his combination of insight and fan interaction makes following his Twitter feed a necessity.

Recently, Rovell asked fans to either send or re-tweet photos from empty MLB stadiums from this past week. Among the usual stadium suspects: Camden Yards (Orioles), Rogers Centre (Blue Jays), Progressive Field (Indians), Sun Life Stadium (Marlins).

The Rogers Centre in Toronto. Just over 11,000 fans showed up

to see the Jays beat the Athletics. The Jays are 4-1 this season.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Less than 13,000 fans showed

as the Orioles lost to the Detroit Tigers. The Orioles are also 4-1 this season.

Empty seats at Cleveland's Progressive Field. Last night, less than

10,000 fans showed up. The team is averaging around 15,000 fans through 5 home games.

Unfortunately for MLB, which predicted an increase in attendance this season, these showings have put a damper on some of the robust ticket sales for teams like the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, and the reigning World Series champions San Francisco Giants. Worse yet, even teams like the Chicago Cubs are struggling in their attendance figures during their series against the Diamondbacks. And while some sportswriters have blamed the winter weather and others have blamed technology, namely improvements and availability of TV and Internet broadcasts, Rovell is blaming the teams.

We'll see how the attendance story develops over the course of the season, especially if teams like the Orioles and Blue Jays can keep winning. In the meantime, the following picture, perhaps, sums up the attendance potential lurking in Washington, D.C.

Uniform sighting from the opening series at Nationals Park.

Sorry, Nationals fans. You'll have to wait for #37, the phenom Stephen Strasburg - at least six more months. His impact - "the Strasburg Effect" - could surely come in handy for boosting attendance all by himself.

Do sports fans live in caves?

Just yesterday, I found out about a Major League Baseball promotion that will put two fans in a Greenwich, NYC apartment equipped with enough televisions for them to watch every regular season and playoff game for the upcoming season. Of course, they won't technically live in the apartment, but will be there to watch games from 1:05pm start times on the east coast to the 7:35pm starts on the west coast.

The promotion is called "The MLB Fan Cave," which is a reference to the 15,000 square foot, glass-walled apartment space designed by one of the lead designers of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The apartment will not only feature the two fans all season long, but will also house studio space for television interviews and drop-ins from major league players. There will also be set-ups for Internet chats, video games, and fantasy baseball referendums as well as a barbershop, tattoo parlor, pitching alley, batting cage, Pepsi-sponsored 1950s-themed restaurant, DJ booth, MLB store, graffiti wall, Steiner Sports collectibles area, and multiple fan-viewing areas that emulate "Pepsi Porches" installed in various MLB stadiums.

The Apartment Design Layout.

The two fans - a musician from NY and an actor from Baltimore - take in

the first pitch of the 2011 season. The lucky winners were plucked from nearly 10,000 entries.

Both the promotion and the cave have a variety of interesting elements to consider. First, MLB gets on the man-cave bandwagon by channeling the name "cave" to frame the space as a masculine domain. Of course, there are female baseball fans and I wonder whether or not MLB considered their place in a cave, especially since the MLB press release refers to the two winners as "cavemen," and in several videos, the two winners introduce themselves as "caveman" and "wingman."

The two "cavemen" will  watch all 2,430 regular season games, as well as

each playoff game. That's slightly less than all the games that 

Cal Ripken played consecutively from 1982-1998.

Second, the multi-screen setup is an interesting development in sports viewing that is just about reaching its zenith. Just by having multiple games on at once makes me wonder what kind of watching is happening and what kind of fandom is being cultivated. In other words, is a multi-screen setup indicative of the marriage of sports fandom and fantasy sports leagues - where the investment in watching a single game is less important than catching just the pitching performances or at-bats of your fantasy players in a slew of games.

Finally, from a promotional standpoint, kudos to MLB for extending the spectacle and making fans wonder about which is the superior option: attending the game or sitting in a cave.

You can watch videos from the cave here. And of course they are on Twitter and Facebook.

New York Stadium Documentary

The following is an internet documentary from the blog Internets Celebrities, a tandem of bloggers and a videographer who seek to "expose all sorts of injustice - economic, political, and culinary."  Their most recent effort takes aim at the two brand new baseball stadiums that opened to the Yankees and Mets, respectively, last year.

In the film, they talk to noted stadium critic, and author of the excellent blog Field of Schemes, Neil deMause, and make general observations on how crazy it is to spend billions on stadia.  Enjoy.

Stadium Status from Internets Celebrities on Vimeo.

The new Marlins Stadium officially goes off the deep end

The soon-to-be Miami Marlins are installing two custom-built saltwater aquariums in the facade of their field level wall, to the right and left of each team's dugout.  For protection, the aquariums will be constructed with bullet-proof glass, so there's no chance of a Dan Uggla foul ball destroying any precious Florida-area marine life.  Plus, destroying Florida-area marine life is BP's job.

Why watch the Marlins when you can watch smaller fish just swim around?

The new $515 million stadium will also feature lounging and pool areas in left-centerfield, a water feature in straight-away centerfield, and a some kind of $2.5 million art feature that will be used to celebrate the team's home runs.

Currently unnamed and unknown centerfield water feature.

It's an arcade-like design and the marlins will, purportedly,

jump after each Marlins' home run.

While it doesn't justify the price tag, there is no doubt that projects like these will make the new stadium one of the most intriguing facilities in Major League Baseball.  Aquariums in the field of play...what will they think of next?

The Most Watched Nationals Game Ever?

ESPN started its Stephen Strasburg coverage this morning and will begin pre-game coverage of the pitching sensation's (and top pick in the 2009 draft) MLB debut at 3.30pm this afternoon on a special edition of Baseball Tonight.  Local cable network MASN will also deliver additional pre-game coverage with a special one hour edition of Nats Xtra.  That show begins at 6pm.

ESPN is giddy.

Considering that Nationals Park sold out within two hours of the team announcement of Strasburg's first MLB start and that over 200 media credentials have been passed out (three times more than normal), it is safe to say that tonight's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates is - by far - the biggest game ever in Washington Nationals history.

Tonight's game will be just the second sellout for the Nationals this season - a fact made more special because weeknight games are usually tough draws for any MLB home game.  Currently the Nationals are 24th (out of 30 teams) in the league in home game attendance.  

Nationals Park will, undoubtedly, not look like this tonight.

The only other game to sellout at Nationals Park this year?  Opening day, when current U.S. president Barack Obama threw out the first pitch.

Huge Boondoggle on Tap for MLB

On Wednesday night, Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was set to make history against the Cleveland Indians.  Through 8 and 2/3 innings, Galarraga had pitched a perfect game.  He was just one out away from recording the third perfect game in the last month in MLB (following Dallas Braden of the Athletics on May 9th and Roy Halladay of the Phillies on May 29th).  Then this happened:

Here's the image up close.  You make the call.

And now, let the media siege - and those who scream for instant replay - begin.

Yikes.  Count this as just another in the many, many, many number of times I wouldn't want to wake up as Bud Selig tomorrow.

Sports leagues tap into Apple's latest gadget

An incredible sports Monday.  Considering that yesterday marked baseball's opening day, Tiger Woods' press conference at Augusta National, and the thrilling NCAA men's championship game, it's an incredible amount of sports fodder for consideration.

However, I cannot help thinking about the big news from this past Saturday, namely, the release of the Apple iPad.  Make whatever joke you please about the latest Apple gadget (and its' name), but I'm hard pressed not to consider mass media theorist Marshall McLuhan's famous adage: the medium is the message.  And, in concert with the recent influx of sports in 3-D, it's hard not to notice all the new and different ways that media are changing the way we watch sports.

People wait in line Saturday morning at the NYC Apple Store on 5th Avenue.

Where is Triumph the Insult Comic Dog when you need him?

Keeping that idea in mind, I look forward to seeing how the coverage of sports evolves to fit the iPad (to be fair, several other companies are initiating tablet PCs as well). While most leagues have already unveiled websites that are "optimized" for the iPad, some are developing more advanced applications for watching and keeping track of games.

It appears that Major League Baseball is the first to launch a video-capable application that is available for subscribers to MLB.tv.  Here's a look at a couple screenshots for a game between the Mets and Nationals.

These screenshots assume that you would actually 

want to watch the Mets and the Nationals.

Other leagues seem more focused on providing applications or web sites that enable a more in-depth experience for watching games by utilizing the iPad as a "second screen."  As a result, you'll notice that the MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLS (Major League Soccer - a stretch, I know) web sites are now organized to fit the screen dimensions of iPads.

Many of those league web sites have recently been re-designed, specifically for the launch of technologies such as the iPad.  Taking it one step further, however, the NBA has created the following application to lure in fans to that "second screen" experience:

I have a hard time seeing why the video asserts "you can see who's on the court and on the bench," when, presumptively, if you're watching the game you will know that information.  But, then again, maybe you won't?  I don't know.

In all, if we have learned anything about Apple and innovation, then tablet computing is apparently here to stay.  And so, the ways in which it will change how we watch sports will likely evolve over time as further iterations of tablets are produced.  But, for now, it appears that when it comes to watching sports, the various leagues are looking to provide you with as much information - and as many distractions - as possible.

To see who's on the court.  Really?

A couple questions that I'm not sure how to answer: first, is that good for sports?  And second, irrespective of the first question, does technology like iPhones and iPad lend themselves to the statistical overload that has engulfed sports fandom since the dawn of fantasy sports leagues?

And while it's hard not to believe that all of this is great for sports somehow, I am more intrigued by technologies that demonstrate how our media continues to define the message.