I read the articles each year after the Ironpigs opened up single game ticket sales. The same thing was stated. “We are doing better than we anticipated.” or “We are ahead of where we were last year.”
This year, I’m not buying it and it seems the fans haven’t gotten around to it yet either. The Ironpig’s website had a banner this morning showing that there are still tickets available to the Opening night game tomorrow against the Redwings. Granted, the extremely beautiful weather leading up to the start of the Lehigh Valley’s 3rd season with the Pigs may have some cautioned about impending bad weather but I still find this odd.
Last year attendence was low in early April, as temperatures were consistantly low and those April showers made themselves known. That was last year and this year is this year. I just can’t see that Opening Day isn’t sold out. Heck, even Syracuse filled their stadium on Opening Day last week.
I’m thinking that a sell out will be announced but what type of sellout will it be? In following minor league baseball there are several types of sellout crowds.
Capacity crowd – where 10,000 people actually show up. This can be calculated by looking at tickets bought AND used.
Paid Attendance Sell out -where 10,000 tickets were purchased whether they showed up or not.
Seats Sold Sell out – where every “seat” is sold for a game. This does not include the Picnic area, the 1000+ General Admission lawn seats and luxary boxes. This also does not take into account if people actually show up.
As all stats are subject to manipulation and viewpoint this does not surprise me at all. The Reading Phillies are the only team I have personally encountered who announce a Paid Attendance and Actual Attendance.
Let’s hope people come out to support our team and to plug a frequent reader… if you can’t make it to a game, share that ticket with a friend!
UPDATE******
It was brought to my attention that this week is the week for standardized testing in schools. Being a school night and the kids having to take a test the next day could impact ticket sales.
noisenation.mlblogs.com 
The IronPigs NOT sellout for Opening Day?
(sellout defined here as all available tickets having been sold)
How can the team who finished 3rd in all of 30-team AAA not sellout the SEASON OPENER?
This is baseball — Opening Day is supposed to be a special occasion…
…we’ll see.
I have great confidence that it will sell out. I plan to bring my son who has PSSA testing the next day. My cell will probably start buzzing in the sixth inning with my wife telling me to get him home. He’s a tough kid–he can handle it. Last time he didn’t miss any questions on that thing, so I don’t think a little baseball’s going to hurt.
I remember my class’s attitude when we took those. A test that didn’t go against your grade and when you were done you could go outside and play until the rest were done? ACDC ACDC ACDC ACDC…
Now that I think about it, I think IronPigs were second in AAA and third for ALL of minor league baseball last year.