Phillies Home Sellout Streak At Citizens Bank Park Ends At 257 Games

The Phillies' 257-game home sellout streak at Citizens Bank Park has come to an end, as last night's game against the Braves drew just 41,665 fans. The streak was the third longest in MLB history. The streak began July 7, 2009, and now trails only the Red Sox' active streak of 772 sellouts at Fenway Park and a 455-game mark the Indians set at Progressive Field from '95-'01. As the Phillies sunk early this season to what could be their first losing season in a decade, team execs seemed prepared for the end of the streak. The club at various points employed ticket sales incentives such as buy-one-get-one-free offers for certain seats. Phillies President David Montgomery said in a statement, "The number of sellouts could not have been possible without the tremendous loyalty of our fans who continue to lead all of Major League Baseball in average attendance this year." The Phillies drew a total attendance of 11.59 million fans during the streak for a per-game average of 45,082 (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal). In Philadelphia, Matt Gelb writes this day "was coming as irrelevancy swept through a franchise accustomed to success." Many purchased tickets "recently went unused and some began showing up for mere dollars on third-party resale websites" (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 8/7). Also in Philadelphia, Bob Brookover notes the Phillies "still rank first in baseball with an average attendance of 44,606" (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 8/7).

SAN FRANCISCO TREAT: MLB Giants Senior VP & CIO Bill Schlough said that dynamic pricing has "helped the team sell-out 140 straight games, the best Giants streak in almost a decade, though a 2010 World Series victory also helped." Schlough said that the team for the past three years "has used data on the popularity of opposing teams, and prices from online secondary ticket markets, to calculate the price of 20 different seating areas." Schlough: "It seems really archaic to set prices at the start of the season. You have no idea how the team is going to do and you might not even know who is going to be playing." He added that the "supply and demand pricing mimics the success of online ticket outlets, like StubHub" (WSJ.com, 8/6).