People keep saying this here, but I'm doubtful at this point. This team had an era of about 8 years where it became the premiere team in the NL East, and one of the top franchises in all of the big leagues.
During this time, attendance never even approached 3 million for a full season, and nothing about the size or devotion of this fanbase suggested that the Nats could ever hope to be a big market team.
Next time this team becomes competitive (whenever that is), the DC area is going to have to do a lot better at supporting them, or else these pipe dreams of a consistently high payroll are just that.
As things stand, the park looks like it is in the wrong place for anything but a roaring winner that shores up a base of season-ticket holders. The park is not easy to get to if you are a casual fan. Don’t forget the shuttles that used to come from the RFK Stadium lot. The line from the DC planners about having 30K-40K ‘just take the Metro’ seemed laughable on its face at the time, and looks to be bearing out that way currently.
Interestingly, the salt line / bullpen types seem just as prone to get together around the ballpark rather than in it, even when the Nats do run the occasional Groupon-style discount. Back when I was in their main age range, I’d want to go inside to the park anyway, but that’s not gonna be the case for many of the people who would rather go other places after and target what they’re spending. If the whole area is the event and the happening, the ballpark can become a nonessential part of the mix for people just looking to eat and socialize. As that’s the main population living near the ballpark that would be interested, it then falls to finding ways to getting the traditional fan out of their houses and out to the ballpark.
For a while (such as the decade or so before the development filled in), usual core patrons would find reasonable parking within the ballpark radius. Reasonable parking is just about done except for the ultimate diehards willing to hike, park at the fed options like McNair, or use all sorts of connections to get there. How many families, groups with people with limited mobility or just people who wanted an easy, casual night out are they going to attract regularly in such a scenario? For that matter, how many singles or couples looking for something to do will be inclined to regularly pay 40–50 bucks to park (at a place that might be an effort to get in and out of) that might cost more than their ticket? I think that even factors into the fans of the away team, as even those games don’t seem to be overflowing.
As far as Metro, the ballpark stop often seems to be overwhelmed for big crowds as it is. It’s not a Stadium-Armory type stop built to handle crowds, most have to transfer if they’re coming from where most of the fan base is reportedly located, and so forth. The question of how long Metro was going to stay open for long games or rain delayed games was already an issue. When the shutdown priorities emerged on Metro a few years ago, it seemed like all bets were off.
For many years, we lived in Virginia five blocks from a blue/yellow line stop, and used it to go into Washington. When that change occurred, it became largely pointless to me. People working in 2019 coming from the area being serviced by both of those lines were already having enough of an issue of their commute that adding a ballpark excursion onto that was not that appealing. Forget about it if you wanted to take the family; how many people after a ridiculous commute are going to want to head back into the city for a casual night out? The inconsistent reliability of Metro for games for much of the potential fanbase seems to be the cherry on top.
At least at Verizon/Capital One, you’ve got half the capacity, a station not requiring nearly the number of transfers, and the parking lot and road infrastructure that seem to have helped kept the parking prices from spiraling. I did a spot hero check for August 13 where there’s a concert at the Arena, and there are scores of options close to it, including $10 and $13 in garages two blocks away. Meanwhile, the average cost for a similarly distanced parking space at Nationals Park the same night looks like $40. (There’s one garage that’s $35, and a single personal $30 currently. Better act fast.)
Of course, the time to have really dialed into this was when the ballpark was being sited initially. When it was awarded to the DC side of the Potomac, it would have made sense to go with the RFK Stadium site for so many reasons. People were used to going there, the Metro line situation with two and now three main lines feeding into a station capable of handling large crowds, loads of parking that could be held to an affordable rate and made day-of-game decisions easy (“hey, I realize they’re in town, let’s go, I got a discounted tickets, it’s not supposed to rain much, etc.”), tailgating opportunities, and so forth.
(It needs to be remembered that the current site had no end of logistical issues including environmental concerns, but even as those mounted, where there’s a will, there’s often a way in such cases.)
I’ve posted similar issues and stories related to the factors working against the ballpark attendance doing anything but hovering in the low to mid capacity barring some major, targeted changes. If the team is going to garner robust support, they’re going to have to target what they can control or improve. With I-395 Express lanes headed into the city now as well as the updated road transportation heading up from The Wilson Bridge/295 corridor, there seems to be some potential there for future improvement.
Metro has looked like such a quagmire that I’m not even gonna speculate on that improving anytime soon, but it would seem to be worth it for stakeholders to work on that end of it as well. Perhaps another dedicated garage or two that could serve both the baseball team in the soccer team on the other side of South Capitol might be smart to explore. I know if I knew that they had such a lot that wasn’t a nightmare to get in and out of and had a somewhat reasonable rate, I likely would’ve been inclined to go to more games this year rather than let the logistics make it easier for me to go or see if others wanted to go with me.