Has anyone else noticed The Blade removed photos

You are probably reading too much into it...in this case.

I know they sold out on May 19. A group of friends and myself decided to go on an impulse about 6 pm and had to buy standing room only tickets.

Probably an attempt to reduce server space and bandwidth usage: keeping images live on old stories costs money over time, and a relatively unimportant story like a minor league baseball game probably cannot justify eternal image links.

Given the Blade's penchant for making Toledo look like a tiny pimple on the ass of the world, I would not be upset if they engineered a story to make things seem better for once. Nevertheless, I am with the majority who think this is not the case.

I've been to six games this year (five plus the exhibition game if you want to be technical). I was actually at the 6/6 game, and it was definitely pretty dead. Possibly the most poorly attended game I've been to in the last couple years. Excluding that one and the first two games of the season (exhibition vs Tigers and the home opener) for extreme cases, I'd say attendance has still been pretty good. Not a sell-out every game like we were seeing a few years ago, but still about 2/3rds full even on the slower days. That's just based on my survey of the stands during the game though, so who knows how good of a judge of density I am!

LOL MTR

I was at the June 2nd game and it was sold out for sure.

http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?y=2012&t=l_att&lid=117&sid=l117

Averaging 6400 fans per game. Down from 7900 last year, but summer is just now beginning. Numbers will go up from here.

So if one or a few games out of a 72 game (?) home season aren't sold out or are poorly attended, we should be slashing our wrists?

Jeez, does anybody remember how many games were nearly empty...on weekends...at the old Skeldon Stadium? Let me answer for you: a helluva lot more than current games.

Sometimes, a Wednesday night game at the stadium isn't going to bring out the masses. Maybe because everyone didn't want to see the Hens' Western Division third-place asses handed to them by the IL Southern Division leaders (and it was--Hens lost).

You want a full Wednesday night? Win. A lot. Not trying to be negative, but winning-breeds-buzz-breeds-ticket sales. Even so, their ticket sales are doing just fine...people are supporting the team.

On the night of 6/06 there was a Cirque show at the Huntington, which was pretty well attended. That probably affected the Mud Hens attendance.

As a former season ticket holder for 5 years - and I mention that only to make the point that we attended a LOT of games, there were many, many nights when the official ticket sales did not match the crowds we saw.

The number of butts in the seats doesn't always give the true picture for ticket sales.

That being said, OHT is absolutely right - wanna fill it up? Win for crying out loud.

The first ten seasons at 5/3 Field has drawn an average of 557,698 fans per year.This year so far the Mud Hens have drawn 228,087 fans.They have averaged 6,517 fans per game this year.The season is about half over for home games.I would think that they should draw somewhere near their average this year.We are in the prime time for baseball now and I would think their attendance should start picking up with the warmer weather.I know that we don't go to too many games earlier in the season when it is still cold.We prefer the warmer weather to attend a baseball game which is upon us now as we head into summer.I think the Mud Hens will do okay as far as attendance goes this year,but as oldhometown says, it doesn't hurt if you are winning more games.Everybody loves a winner.

OHT: So if one or a few games out of a 72 game (?) home season aren't sold out

----

I think it's more likely that of the 72 home games, only one or a few ARE sold out than what you posted.

http://www.milb.com/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_06_06_chraaa_tolaaa_1

The posted attendance for the game 6-06 was 5,128.

Yeah ok...and donkeys fly.

Guys, you can't complain if a minor league affiliated team isn't winning. The Mud Hens do not pick their roster, it is decided for them by the Tigers. When a player gets good enough, Detroit will call him up, and we lose him. When they have an injured player who needs some rehab time, he'll play in our lineup. We dominated the league for a couple years, and what happened? All the studs are now on major league rosters. Heck, I think we're already at I think 7 call ups this year, and we're only 1/3rd the way in.

Friday June the 8th nights game was a sellout at 10,400.I don't know how many games have been sellouts this year,but the nights they have fireworks tend to draw more plus those games are usually played on the weekend.

6th:

I'm not disputing the gap between "paid" vs. "gate" attendance. It's a longstanding issue, even in the major leagues.

aid attendance does serve a purpose, albeit for the owners. If you’re a low-revenue maker such as the Indians, Pirates, or Marlins, just getting ticket revenue matters. Sure, those clubs want to have fans come to the games, but the figures help with matters such as sponsorship sales. If you tie paid attendance to what is deemed a sellout threshold number – a number that can be thousands below what the seating capacity is listed at, it can impact the number of sellouts in a season, something else key to sponsorship sales.

FWIW, Mark Cuban has stated there's no real reason to announce any attendance figures to the general public.

My larger point was that (a) the games are not desolate the vast majority of nights, such as when they were at Skeldon--so let's not get all conspiratorial with the Blade pulling pictures; (b) winning would help ease the gap between paid & gate attendance figures; and © every game does not need to be a sellout or near-sellout to be a success. Sometimes, other stuff is going on and a ballgame just ain't in the cards that night. They'll make it up and on average will be fine.

You're talking to someone who sat in Cleveland Municipal Stadium back in the 80's with (generously announced) 4,000 other "fans" to watch fat Andre Thorton chug through another loss. Even if there were 4,000 fans there (there weren't) that place (80,000 seats) really looked empty!

Weather also plays a part, my parents have season tickets, not every game but about 30 sets or so, I dont remember the actually number they get, and they dont go on the cold or rainy days.

A photo is here on the bottom left column of this "gallery":

http://www.toledoblade.com/gallery/Toledo-Mud-Hens-vs-Charlotte-June-6

Published on 6/06 from the 6/05 game - Is this what you referenced?

The "gallery" from the 6/06 game story published 06/07 is inexplicably blank.

http://www.toledoblade.com/gallery/6-06-Mud%20Hens-vs-Charlotte

I imagine this is another of their web page's glitches rather than some conspiracy theory...they are too lazy to do that sort of extra work, imo.

Also from a story published 6/03 - "Saturday’s crowd of 11,000 was the Mud Hens’ sixth sellout this season the 303rd in Fifth Third Field history."

From the top link, photo 13 of 14 is the photo, and thanks for posting it.

OHT, that photo ought to at least get you to reminisce about Andre Thorton, Bert Blyleven, Julio Franco, and Otis Nixon, eh?

Attendance for Tuesday, 6-05 was 5,017. LMFAO

We were at the game on 6/2 and we were trying to get tickets the week prior. When I looked online it said the game was sold out. When my friend looked he was able to get tickets to the "sold out game"
Turns out I would say maybe 60% of seats were filled during the entire game.

Both the Hens and Walleye are aggressive at selling season packages, All the way from full to mini plans. I had a baseball mini plan a few years ago. I have lost track of how many phone calls, emails and snail mail since then trying to get me back. For the Hens, it's more of a spur of the moment decision for me and I usually do not sit in my seat long, better to crash the suites for food and drink.
It will be very interesting to see how the Walleye do this year. Everyone who had the initial season ticket packages in the first three rows were on a 3 year contract which has now expired. Face value on these tickets are $24, which is way too high for this level of hockey.(And the poor performance of the team). I will be curious to see how many they lose both individuals and corporate.
Based on the lack of events at HC, the additional FIL benefit is not worth it at all.

Assuming 2012 attendance ends up similar to 2011, I would think this years attendance is still strong when compared to other teams. Total 2011 attendance was 549,438. Compare that to bigger markets, Columbus; 591,884, and Indianapolis; 580,082, and it would seem Toledo is doing quite well. But, don't get me wrong, I have had season tickets for a few years and there were empty games and sell out games. Weekday games and games in April/May are never as well attended as the weekends and later Summer. I don't think that is something new at 5/3 field.

btw a new article in Forbes puts the Mud Hens as Tied for the 9th most valuable franchise in Minor League Baseball:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2012/06/08/billionaires-like-warren-buffett-profit-from-minor-league-baseball-ownership/