Tough tickets? Sometimes sold-out games aren't so

By Dave Campbell

Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, Aug. 15 2012 1:21 a.m. MDT

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In this July 22, 2012, photo, fans watch the first inning of a baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox in Detroit. The official attendance was 41,281. Like most of the other sports leagues, Major League Baseball tracks attendance by the number of tickets sold. Though teams insist they are not trying to sugarcoat a smaller-than-anticipated crowd, fans in today's world of social media will often point out perceived inaccuracies in attendance figures, perhaps posting a photo on Twitter of vacant seats to back up their beef.

Carlos Osorio, Associated Press

Summary

s in pro sports aren't always so.

Sellouts in pro sports aren't always so.

Fans and media aren't shy about raising questions about attendance figures, perhaps posting a photo on Twitter of vacant seats during a "sold-out" game to support their skepticism.

Teams, meanwhile, insist they're not trying to sugarcoat a smaller-than-anticipated crowd. Like most of the other major sports leagues, Major League Baseball tracks attendance by the number of tickets sold.

MLB also uses these figures in revenue sharing calculations, which help the game's competitive balance between large- and small-market teams. So it's about more than just a larger-looking number in the nightly box scores.

Another impact on crowd sizes is the secondary ticket market. Sometimes those empty seats have originally been sold by teams to brokers, who weren't able to resell them by game time.

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