Sellouts in pro sports aren't always so.
In today's world of social media, fans often point out perceived inaccuracies in attendance figures, perhaps posting a photo on Twitter of vacant seats to back up their beef. What gives?
"I've been at places where they announce large crowds on a nice sunny day and the ballpark is half empty. That's when people question, and I'm OK with somebody asking me that question," said Lou DePaoli, chief marketing officer for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Teams insist they're not trying to sugarcoat a smaller-than-anticipated crowd.
Like most of the other sports leagues, Major League Baseball tracks attendance by the number of tickets sold. MLB uses these figures in revenue sharing calculations, which help the game's competitive balance between large- and small-market teams.
"Attendance becomes as much as an accounting sheet for us as anything," MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said. "We use those numbers as much internally as we do externally."
OK, so they're not trying to be sneaky, simply seeking consistency.
Lee Igel, an associate professor in the sports business and management department at New York University, doesn't quite buy this.
