The only thing wrong with the picture was the number of empty seats that remained visible in the stands as the game progressed — and the missing names from the Yankees’ lineup.

The attendance for the game was announced as being slightly more than 41,000, or about 9,000 short of capacity. That was a solid number for a regular-season game but not as robust as it might have been in other seasons in the Bronx, where the Yankees usually reign as the most distinguished name in American sports.

Through 41 home games this season, the Yankees have drawn nearly 106,000 fewer fans than at this point a year ago, a 6.1 percent drop that is almost twice as large as the overall decline in baseball. More than half a dozen other teams have had bigger attendance losses than the Yankees, but without exception they are teams that went from good to bad, at least for a while, or from bad to worse, or that play in cities without a notably intense fan base.

The Yankees do not fit in any of those categories, which makes their attendance falloff more intriguing. And while they also experienced a decrease in attendance the last two years, the one this season is more pronounced.

Even more sobering for the team: the television ratings for their games have plummeted. Through June 25, the ratings on their YES Network were down 40 percent to 2.52 from 4.17 at this point last season, and from 4.08, 4.50 and 4.72 in the three previous seasons, with each rating point this year representing 73,843 households.

Yet the sizable drop in the number of people watching the Yankees is not reflected by the team’s performance. Battered by injuries to many of their stars, they have, for the most part, played admirably, holding on to first place until late May. Even now, while in a slump, they remain in contention with a lineup filled with castoffs and call-ups, although that could be a reason fewer people are paying attention.

In that June 21 game in the Bronx, Jayson Nix, a journeyman infielder, was playing shortstop instead of Derek Jeter, who has yet to return to action since fracturing his ankle in October. Playing third base was David Adams, an unheralded rookie filling in for Alex Rodriguez, who has yet to play this season, either, as he recovers from hip surgery in January.

No Jeter. No Rodriguez. And for that matter, no Curtis Granderson or Mark Teixeira, two other big names who were not in the lineup that night, or almost any other night this season, as they dealt with their own confounding health problems.

All of those missing boldface names, in the opinion of fans and experts alike, have translated into missing people at the ballpark and in the living room.

“The Yankees are known as a team of stars,” said Randy Levine, the team president, who acknowledged that the absence of Jeter, Rodriguez and the others was clearly having an impact “on the television side.”

“These Yankees are competitive, but they’re not the Yankees that fans have been accustomed to for the past 20 years,” said Wayne McDonnell, a professor of sports management at New York University. “Are families going to spend $500 to see Lyle Overbay at first base?”

Vince Gennaro, a consultant for several major league teams, said the Yankees were suffering from the fact that their business model differs from that of other teams — it is built on “a tradition and a history of greatness — all the things that the Yankees stand for,” Gennaro said.

“It’s not winning like the Colorado Rockies win,” he added. “It’s winning with marquee names.”

Fans interviewed at recent Yankees games pointed to what they thought were other reasons for the empty seats, most notably the high price of tickets. According to Team Marketing Report, a sports marketing publishing company, the Yankees have the second-highest average ticket price in baseball, at $51.55. Only Fenway Park, the fabled and far smaller home of the Boston Red Sox, charges more.

At another game against the Rays in late June, Tom O’Neil, a 51-year-old Yankees and Reds fan from Cincinnati, volunteered that he had paid $190 for his ticket, which was behind third base on the field level, and that he did not think it was worth the price.

“But it’s the Yankees,” he said, adding that they were the one team he thought could get away with such prices.

Then again, O’Neil and other fans took note of the expensive seats that ring the home plate area and have not seemed to be filled since the new Yankee Stadium opened in 2009.

“Behind the plate, it’s empty,” O’Neil said, exaggerating, but only a little, about seats that cost $2,500 each when the Stadium opened in 2009 and have since been cut by 50 percent or more.

“If they charged $150, maybe they could fill it,” he said.

Richard Sandomir, Ken Belson and Mary Kenney contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/sports/baseball/with-fewer-stars-at-yankee-stadium-fewer-fans-are-watching.html?partner=rss&emc=rss