A’s Fans Are Limited To Home Games Against Yankees And Red Sox

If you are a Yankees or Red Sox fan, you are going to have a harder time seeing them play against Oakland at home.  This is due to scheduling of the 2011 season.  Now, you may be saying to yourself, “well I am an A’s fan so I am not really feeling sorry for the other teams fans”.  However, you should be concerned because it is hard enough to fill the Coliseum to capacity and this gives our wonderful owner, Lew Wolff one more reason to move the team out of Oakland.

This season there are only going to be 5 home games against the two teams, in total.  This is of course a plus for both Yankee and Red Sox franchises who seem to attract alot more fans to to their games, than Oakland does.   Yesterday, the A’s begun their two-game series with the Red Sox and will play the only three home games against the Yankees starting on May 30.

The 2011 schedule for Oakland does not help the A’s stay in Oakland, especially when they need as much notoriety as they can get.  However, according to Oakland A’s Vice President of Communications Ken Pries, there was no say on their part as to how the schedule is made.  He says, “It’s difficult, but some years are better than others.” He also says that they would like to have those teams that have a bigger fan based attendance, but sometimes you are not fortunate to get that dream schedule.

So, why is it that the A’s were given a lack luster schedule this year?  Well, it has to do with a schedule that is being created by, you guessed it, a computer.  Although, Katy Feeney, MLB’s Senior Vice President of creating the schedules says that there are adjustments made to the schedules after they are generated.  Feeney says, “there is imbalance in the system because of the lopsided number of teams between both the A.L. West and N.L central teams.  A.L. has four teams and N.L. has six.” “It makes it difficult to for teams to play the same opponent an equal number of times every season.”

The A’s have tried to increase their fan base, albeit not to the same extend as the San Francisco Giants.  The Giants have a nice park, Oakland does not.  Hopefully, that will change sooner than later but at this rate I don’t see that anytime soon.  A’s home average game attendance was a mere 17,511 during the 2010 season.  It’s counterpart teams such as the Yankees and the Red Sox saw an attendance triple fold.  It is a fact that attendance at the Coliseum would go up dramatically if they had more home games with top contenders.

Although, on a brighter note the A’s really are trying.  They have several marketing promotions going from free giveaways for the fans to fireworks to the July 16th double header against the Los Angeles Angels where fans can enjoy two games for one price.  When it comes down to it, the real issue here is that of a old dilapidated stadium and those who choose to continue to play baseball politics with it.