It’s 5 o’clock somewhere…
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Yesterday, Al Galdi, on his podcast, addressed himself to the question raised in the title above; that is, why did average attendance at Washington home games fall from Ron Rivera’s final season in 2023 to Dan Quinn & Jayden Daniels’ inaugural season in 2024?
In the podcast, Galdi said that the Commanders ranked 27th in average home attendance in 2023, falling to 30th in 2024, with an actual drop in the attendance figure of about 400 fans per game.
Galdi threw out four “working theories” about the question, even as he pointed out flaws in each of his reasons. To summarize very briefly, Galdi mentioned the stadium factor, reminding us that Northwest Stadium is probably the worst in the NFL. This theory was offset by the fact that the stadium sucked in ‘23 too, and the ownership group had actually put money into improvements between seasons. He also mentioned the excitement factor of the sale of the team in ‘23. In other words, fans were flying high in the wake of Dan Snyder’s departure. Of course, the same owners that rescued us from the Snyders were still in place in ‘24, and had the added draw of Jayden Daniels. His third theory was that some fans felt “detached” because of the name change. The logic here was a bit tricky since there didn’t seem to be any reason for fans to be more detached over the name in ‘24 than in ‘23 unless it was that time deepened the wound. Finally, he offered up the 2024 presidential election as a reason. This was legitimately different between 2023 and 2024, but Galdi pointed out that 5 of the Commanders 9 home games took place after the November 5th election.
I didn’t feel as if any of these factors — alone or in combination — would explain a home attendance drop from the abysmal 2023 season to the exciting 2024 season.
Like Galdi, I have no real idea of what caused the drop, but I’m happy to get out my fungo bat and hit a few easy fly balls for y’all to field and discuss.
Ticket prices
The Washington Post (and others) reported last year that “despite a 4-13 finish and one of the lowest home attendance averages in the NFL, the Commanders again announced an increase for 2024 that averaged 8.9 percent for season ticket holders.” A 9% increase in average ticket prices seems like it would have a direct impact on attendance.
9 home games vs 8 home games
I’ve never been a season ticket holder, so forgive my ignorance if I’m wrong, but with the 17-game schedule, the Commanders had one more home game in ‘24 than in ‘23; I presume this means that season ticket packages were more expensive because of the extra game. Again, this may have priced some fans out of a package they were able to afford a season earlier.
Really low expectations
Remember that the over/under on season wins for the Commanders last year was 6.5. New head coach, a rookie quarterback and an unimpressive roster may have meant that a lot of fans were hesitant to buy tickets to watch a team that most NFL observers expected to be pretty bad in ‘24.
Some uninspiring 2024 opponents
Last season, the Commanders played the Browns, Panthers and Titans between Weeks 5-13, and even the game against the Cowboys came on the heels of 2 consecutive Commanders losses and a visiting Dallas team that was missing Dak Prescott and other stars (and was riding a 5-game losing streak). By contrast, the Commanders opened up 2023 with a sellout vs the Cardinals, and went on to play the Bills, Bears, Dolphins and 49ers.
Opposing fans
We know the Eagles fans have made a habit of showing up and largely ‘taking over’ Washington’s home stadium in recent years. A lot of the fans who contributed to the string of 2023 sellouts were rooting for the opposing team, especially the Bills Mafia. Cowboys fans were a lot more motivated for the Week 18 game in ‘23 than they were for that Week 12 game in ‘24. Basically, there wasn’t much danger, last season, of Cleveland, Carolina or Tennessee fans ‘taking over’ Northwest Stadium.
The 2025 season
We already know that the Washington Commanders are raising season ticket prices by an average of roughly 11 percent for the 2025 season, their largest jump in more than a decade. On average, Commanders season ticket holders will see an increase of $15.58 per month on annual plans.
Home games against non-divisional opponents will be:
- Wk 3 – Sun – 1:00 – Raiders
- Wk 6 – MNF – Bears
- Wk 9 – SNF – Seahawks
- Wk 10 – Sun – 4:25 – Lions
- Wk 13 – SNF – Broncos