The A’s hosted the Guardians on Tuesday night for their fifth game of the 2023 MLB season, though just about no one in Oakland was watching. The RingCentral Coliseum drew a shockingly low attendance for the A’s clash against Cleveland, with a recorded 3,407 fans “filling” the stadium.
According to JJ Cooper of Baseball America, the attendance in Oakland was fewer than that of 11 of the 13 Triple A games that took place on the same evening. Of those 11, four drew more than twice the in-attendance audience than the Athletics.
For reference, the Oakland Coliseum has a capacity of 56,782, per Sportsnaut, making it the largest stadium in MLB. The 3,407 fans in attendance on Tuesday represented just 6% of the stadium’s maximum capacity.
Of the 13 AAA games yesterday, 11 drew more fans than the Oakland A's announced attendance of 3,407. Four more than doubled the A's attendance.
— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) April 5, 2023
Attendance for baseball games on April 4, 2023 👀
— Sporting News MLB (@sn_mlb) April 5, 2023
AAA game: 9548
AAA game: 9229
AAA game: 8305
AAA game: 8222
AAA game: 6950
AAA game: 6915
AAA game: 6639
AAA game: 6382
AAA game: 5953
AAA game: 5172
AAA game: 3835
Oakland A's: 3407
AAA game: 3200
AAA game: 2453
h/t @jjcoop36 pic.twitter.com/f2o7tesXa5
After seating over 26,000 fans for their season-opener against the Angels, attendance levels dropped dramatically for their following series versus the Guardians.
This isn’t exactly a new trend in Oakland. Last season, the team set a new 40-year low when only 2,488 fans showed up to a game in May. That was roughly one month into the season. Now, in 2023, they’re logging similarly low numbers in the very first week of the campaign.
The A’s are set to start a seven-game road trip on Friday, after which they’ll return to Oakland on Friday, April 14 for a weekend series with the Mets.