The Lakewood BlueClaws (Low Class A; Sally League) are capping crowds at FirstEnergy Park this season at 8,000 fans, in a shrewd marketing move for the team.
Lakewood is a solid draw: the team has had five seasons in which they have exceeded 8,000-person crowds on at least 14 occasions. The team has also led the South Atlantic League and New Jersey in attendance in all 11 years of existence, totaling 4,838,623 to date.
But after meeting with focus groups this offseason, team officials decided to act on a common complaint: that large crowds were negatively impacting the game-day experience. So the decision was made to cap crowds at 8,000.
“This was a decision that we came to only with significant thought and a lot of factors being considered,” said BlueClaws General Manager Geoff Brown. “Ultimately, we decided that we can make the fan experience better, and our fans agreed.”
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