Pirates Must Scale Down Their Hopes

The Pittsburgh Pirates will not reach their pre-season attendance goal of 1.2 million, but probably will surpass the 1 million mark, according to team president Malcolm Prine.

“At the start of the season, we hoped to get 1.2 million and said a million was the minimum objective,” Prine said. “Well, we won’t reach 1.2 million but we are on track for a million.”

To date, the Pirates’ season attendance ranked 11th among the 12 National League teams and the second-worst among the 26 major league teams.

The Pirates are 26% ahead of last year’s attendance pace, when they drew 735,900 fans during a 104-loss season.

Despite an encouraging pre-season sale of more than 600,000 tickets, which had some team officials optimistically hoping for 1.4 million fans, the Pirates’ attendance has dropped off in recent weeks.

The Pirates are attempting to avoid their third consecutive last-place finish in the NL East.

If the Pirates maintain their current average of 13,188 in their remaining home dates, they will draw 1,055,076. However, their attendance traditionally slips in September, after football season begins.

In an effort to boost attendance, the Pirates began selling discount price tickets last week for their remaining Monday-through-Friday games. General admission tickets that cost $2.50 for weekend games are being sold for $1, and two $6 general admission tickets purchased together cost $7, a savings of $5.

The Pirates keep the admission cost for all of the $1 tickets, since neither the National League nor visiting clubs receive a cut on any ticket sold for less than $1.01.

The discounted tickets “don’t bother us because it’s pretty insignificant dollars,” said Philadelphia Phillies President Bill Giles.