Red Sox hit shocking attendance number in matinee finale vs. Pirates

BOSTON -- It's no secret that enthusiasm for the Boston Red Sox is nowhere near an all-time high. Still, the attendance number from Wednesday's series finale against the Pirates is more than a little bit shocking.

According to The Boston Globe's Peter Abraham, the announced crowd of 24,477 on hand for the weekday matinee game marked the lowest attendance number at Fenway Park since the 2000 season. (That obviously excluded the 2020 season with no fans and the 2021 season with capacity limits.)

In a fitting performance for that sparse crowd, the Red Sox lost 4-1, with the Pirates completing a three-game sweep in Boston.

That's a number that is sure to catch the attention of John Henry and the rest of Red Sox management, as fans are seemingly speaking with their wallets in expressing their displeasure with the state of the team.

It's not a development that has sprung up out of nowhere. Opening Day, which is typically a tough ticket no matter what the enthusiasm level may be for the team, saw plenty of cheap tickets available on the secondary market leading up to the game. The Red Sox were also selling tickets to Opening Day in the hours leading up to the game, though the team announced a sellout. Wednesday's game had plenty of tickets with prices in the single digits before first pitch.

The chilly weather and 1:30 p.m. first pitch time certainly didn't help draw a large crowd on Wednesday, but there have been plenty of chilly midweek games between 2000 and 2023 that drew more fans to Fenway.

While the raw number for this one game may mark a 23-year low, it's a continuation of last season, when the Red Sox averaged just 32,409 fans per game. That was the team's lowest average (again, excluding 2020 and 2021) since the year 2000.

The average attendance from 2006-2019 was roughly 36,600 per game. In the three years leading up to the pandemic, the Red Sox averaged a tick under 36,000 fans per game. That number was 32,409 last year, and it's at 29,114 in the very early portion of this season.

It's unclear exactly how the market may shift in the coming weeks and days, though the team's 2-4 start won't help. The Red Sox are currently on the road for three games in Detroit and four games in Tampa Bay. They return home to host the Angles, which figures to be a well-attended series, considering the star power involved with Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout visiting Boston for the four-game set over Patriots' Day weekend. After that, the Red Sox will finish out that homestand with three games against Minnesota from April 18-20.

And while the interest level in the team may be hard to gauge objectively, the attendance number provides a concrete number that serves as perhaps the greatest indicator. And it will be a number that bears watching as the Red Sox move forward in 2023.