Attendance Question

[HomeRunHomer]

If anyone is an old-school A's fan or has seen the S.I. Vault, you'll understand this question.

I was reading an article that said that the A's had severe attendance problems in 1969 despite the fact that:

A. Reggie Jackson had a super-hot bat

B. They were compeititive for the first time in a long time

What the hell was the problem? Were fans simply more turned off by Charlie Finley then they were interested in the team?

[raiderjohn]

1969 was the A's 2nd season in Oakland. The A's were a new team, fans did not know much about the squad prior to 1968, so if the team sucked, in KC, most fans did not know. The A's were the new guys in town.

With much more established franchises in the Raiders, Giants and 49ers in addition to the D1 schools, the A's had a hard time carving out their own niche. Oakland was also a blue collar town, so extra money was hard to find. Just like you mentioned, Finley never really turned off the fans, he just never made an effort to bring the game to the fans. I think the Haas family took over the A's in 1980 and look at the attendance jump from 1980-1981:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/athlatte.shtml

I started to attend games in 1980 and noticed the differnce in marketing the team. The A's in 1981, did so much more promotional giveaways, then in 1980. Throw in the bit that the 1981 A's started the season 11-0, thus providing an additional boost.