Orioles vs White Sox, April 29, 2015; attendance: 0

[Undertoad]

YOU are the WINNER today because you get to enjoy this page about what it was like, the day when two major league baseball teams played a game and nobody was allowed in.

(If you are in a non-baseball culture you will have to translate this to another sport.)

This sort of multimedia presentation in a single page is all the new way now; that link up there leads to a whole BUNCH of Tweets, images, anigifs, and Vines. But even if you didn't understand a single word I just said, you'll still enjoy the experience of this wonderful collection of stuff.

Baseball can still conjure up some marvelous things! So don't miss:

- "Orioles catcher Caleb Joseph had fun with the strange atmosphere, pretending to sign autographs and receive applause from nonexistent fans."

- A homerun ball leaves the stands and nobody notices. It lands, rolls, and then sits, lonely and unattended to, at the entrance of a men's bathroom.

- Definitely do not miss: the TV announcers briefly pretended like they were announcing a golf match. It's marvelous. And... dare I say it... it might even be the right way to call this game.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Once again MBL proves it's not about the fans, it's about the rich guys and their TV contract revenues.

[BigV]

I liked the element that let us hear the pop of the pitch into the catcher's glove.

xoB, you're wrong about it not being about the fans, because it's about the money, firstly, and without fans, there is no money. Why they played this one with no paying fans in attendance is historically unprecedented, but fans *are* a crucial part of the game, still.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Bullshit, those ticket sales are a drop in the bucket compared to the other revenue streams.

From concessions and parking alone, the Orioles could end up losing almost $940,000 in total over the four games. The team is averaging 33,288 fans per game this season and the average fan at Camden Yards spent $5.94 per game on concessions in 2013, which comes out to less than $200,000 per game. As for parking, Camden Yards has about 4,200 parking spaces on-site, according to the Maryland Stadium Authority. Parking passes cost between $8 and $10 for each game, which adds up to about $37,800 per game. Of course, the team could also offset that lost revenue, in part, by forgoing pay to stadium staff for those four games. But, really, forfeiting just under $1 million over four games is not a huge loss for a team that Forbes values at around $1 billion with roughly $245 million in annual revenue last year. Those numbers place the Orioles in the middle of the pack compared with the rest of the MLB.

[BigV]

right.

who's paying? the tooth fairy?

[xoxoxoBruce]

TV.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Once again MBL proves it's not about the fans, it's about the rich guys and their TV contract revenues.