Consider the latest suggestion regarding the Fan Survey…
My biggest issue with the Fan Survey these days is the part about “The team played well in our last league game”. I understand that fans can have mood swings. I was thinking about going out to Citi Park once or twice this week to watch my beloved Cubs play the Mets, but the Cubs have been so miserable so far that I didn’t not to waste my money (a wise choice, the Cubs looked miserable in the series). The Mets also set a new record low for attendance one game during the series since the Mets are looking so good, either.
But here’s my beef. The survey only takes the last game into account. I have two main issues with this (but don’t worry, I also have a simple suggestion to address my issues). First, fans memories may be mostly attached to the last game, but there’s also a mood attached to the last few games. Right now, if a team wins 3 games in a row but then loses a though road game, that part of the fan survey drops down to one ball and if the next game is a home game, attendance drops. While a team’s place in the standings should counter that somewhat (i.e. a 3 game-winning streak will also help a team in the standings, which also increases attendance), it just seems that fans generally have a longer memory than just the last game.
And my second issue with this is that the result of this part of the Fan Survey causes wild swings in attendance, and puts too much ticket revenue emphasis on the schedule. I’ve had seasons where most of my schedule had me alternating between home and away every game. I could win at home with the help of home court advantage, but the boost in the Fan Survey wouldn’t translate into increased revenue from increased attendance since the follow-up game would be on the road. Then I’d have to try to win on the road to get that revenue bonus after a win for the next home game. This sort of schedule is disadvantageous to one that has back-to-back home games where a team is more likely to be able to better capitalize on home wins at the ticket office.
So here is my suggestion. I’m not going to suggest toning down this part of the Fan Survey since I agree with the notion that fans do respond to recent success by going to games, and they stay home when a team has been playing badly. What I will suggest, though, is that the “The team played well in our last league game” part of the Fan Survey be modified to “The team played well in our few league games” and include the last, say, 3 games in the survey. I’d then weight the survey so that the most recent game is worth about 50-60% of this rating, the game before that worth about 25-35% of this rating, and the 3 games previous worth about 15-25% of this rating.
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