Deadspin Ranks Athletics’ Fans High on Bandwagon List

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According to an article on Deadspin, the Oakland Athletics’ fans rank 3rd in baseball as having the most fair-weather fans, behind the Phillies and Orioles. Simply put, this is completely misguided.

A’s fans may not show up in droves on a consistent basis, this is true. Part of the reason behind this may be that they play in the last facility that is still shared with an NFL team. Die hard fans love O.Co, but it is hard to grow a fan base without the amenities of a current ballpark. A jalapeño popper stand was the big addition in Oakland for 2014. Without the park being updated (scoreboards, sound system, etc.), the A’s miss out on the corporate fans that many teams benefit from.

A’s fans also have to deal with an owner that has talked about moving the team away from Oakland. That stings any fan of the team, and the borderline fans (which every team has) may have started buying panda hats instead.

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While Deadspin ranks Athletics’ fans high on the list, what do they think of River Cats’ fans? They are near the top of the minor league attendance numbers consistently. Perhaps A’s fans just live farther away than other fan bases. The commute to Oakland becomes more manageable when the team is winning I’d imagine. I don’t think that’s a bandwagon fan, that’s just life.

Every game I go to, I see the jerseys of players from all eras. Of course there are the staples with Henderson, Cespedes, Jackson and more, but there are also players that are not all-time greats or current stars. Jason Kendall, Mark Ellis and Dallas Braden are just a few of the other names that are donned at every game. This is a far cry from what you see at a Giants’ game when nearly all of the jerseys are of the current team. This may be good for jersey sales in SF, but the connection to the team is diminished when the fan base knows less about the history of their team.

Lastly, just a few months ago, Eric Sogard was in the finals for Face of MLB. How did he get there? It must have been all of those bandwagon A’s fans. He would have won the whole competition too, if it wasn’t for a big push from the bots in South Korea. Those bots must go to a lot of games, right Deadspin?

Deadspin can rank us wherever they’d like. Who cares? We already know we’re among the best in baseball. Just ask any player that isn’t Jim Johnson.