Well how about these apples:
DETROIT – Through the close of business on Wednesday, sales of Tigers tickets for the 2007 season surpassed the previous club record total, which was set in the 1984 World Championship season at Tiger Stadium.
Tickets sold for the entire season at the close of business Wednesday stood at 2,712,393. The previous record, set in 1984, was 2,704,794. Detroit has sold out 21 of its 44 home dates at Comerica Park and will open the Kansas City series on Friday night with a string of nine consecutive sellouts. The Tigers had a total of 26 sellouts on their way to the American League Championship in 2006.
“The support of Tigers fans has been tremendous and we look forward to an exciting race over the final months of the season,” said Tigers President, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager David Dombrowski. “I certainly hope fans will begin making their plans now to be at the ballpark and keep the energy level as high as it has been all year.”
WOW… Great for Tigers and for Detroit!
Doesn’t Comerica hold less people than Tiger Stadium did?
Yes, Comerica is a smaller park, by (well) over 5,000 seats. Tigers could reach 3 million fans with walkup and game-day sales. This is exciting, because the more people go to games the better the team will continue to be
The game my son and I attended on July 7 against the Red Sox had the 2nd highest attendance record for a game at Comerica. Almost 45,000.
Mike Illitch showed he was willing to spend on his team even before attendance records(and revenue records)were broken.Joe Nathan or Francisco Cordero would look good in a Tigers uniform.
Speaking of Nathan, how great was the Pierzinski for Nathan – Liriano trade? Damn.
I’ve found it to be much more of a hassle to go to games recently because of the crowds and the fact that the stadium staff still haven’t caught up to the surplus in attendance. It sucks to have to go to the concession stands, and people walk up and down the isles all game, blocking your view.
At the same time, with the introduction of FSN HD, its really not a huge loss to go to less games. I do miss it a little, but its a trade-off I’m more than willing to make to have a good team to root for.
With the attendance spikes and revenue coming into the team, there should be no reason why the Tigers don’t have a top 5 payroll in baseball in the next 2+ years.
I’ve been looking for tickets for a group to head down to the park, and most of the August dates on the weekend are Standing Room Only. Which is good for the team, good for the city, but not so great for my group 🙁
tiff – I’ve taken a group of 20 down to the first Saturday game in August every year for the last 15+ years. I usually buy the tickets the first week single game seats go on sale and not once have been unable to secure lower level.
This year, I went to the box office ( i think it was the first week of April) and the best I could do for the August 4 game were way-up Mezzanine seats! I knew then they were going to break records. These summer weekend games have been sold-out for a long time now.
Even with Anthony’s complaints about inadequate staff, I want to point out that consistently larger crowds means hiring more vendors, more people to clean up afterwards, more work for just about everyone. More work = more jobs = better economy. Not only is it good for the Tigers, it’s good for everyone.
If you’re having trouble gettitng tickets, keep trying. The last game I went, July 3 vs Cleveland, I went to the advance booth to ask for 4 tix for Aug 3. The lady told me she was pretty sure that game was SRO but she would check anyway. Well, a block of tickets had just been released and I got 4 upper reserved. Then I asked about Monday Aug 27 vs the Yankees and she said “Oh, I KNOW that one’s sold out” but checked for me anyway and same thing again–4 upper reserved. Of course I wasn’t trying for TWENTY tickets, but smaller groups may still have a chance.