How to Correctly Guess the Attendance

The Padres are big fans of the game: “guess the attendance.” They have a few variations of the game, but regardless of the exact rules, one lucky fan is asked to choose between a couple of attendance options. Prior to the fan choosing, the crowd is always asked for its input.

I find these games fascinating. There are three primary strategies the “lucky fan” is likely to follow. The three strategies are: going with one’s gut, choosing the highest number(s), and following the advice of the crowd.

I do not like strategy one-following one’s gut. Often, the difference between the various attendance options is only a couple of thousand people. I find it difficult to believe that a fan is able to recognize the difference between 35,000 people in a stadium and 33,000 people in a stadium. I can barely recognize the difference when 5 people enter a room where 15 previously stood. That is a 33% increase. Going from 33,000 to 35,000 is a mere 6% increase. Going with one’s gut is no likely to be more successful than a simple flip of the coin. Note: I always choose tails.

Strategy two-choosing the highest number(s)-is better. Although I do not keep an exact recording, it does seem that the highest number available for the fan to choose is the actual attendance more often than not. In addition, I have found that a general level of excitement fills the stadium when it is announced that the highest number available was in fact the actual attendance. I am not sure why fans care how many people are in the stadium with them. I suppose many fans feel that a larger crowd is associated with a better ballpark atmosphere. I am even more perplexed as to why fans care whether the actual attendance number was larger than a handful of other completely arbitrary numbers. Regardless of why fans get excited when the largest option turns out to be the actual attendance, the fact is that they do get excited about it. The Padres have surely recognized this phenomenon, and have decided to cater to the crowd by assigning the actual attendance to be the highest number on a very regular basis. At the same time, the Padres, for fear of making the game too predictable do not always select the highest number. While it does not guarantee victory, selecting the highest number seems to increase the odds of the fan guessing correctly compared to a random guess or “going with one’s gut.”

My favorite strategy is actually to go with the crowd. Going with the crowd takes advantage of the “wisdom of the crowds” phenomenon written about by James Surowiecki. In the opening anecdote of his book, Surowiecki discusses
“Francis Galton's surprise that the crowd at a county fair accurately guessed the weight of an ox when their individual guesses were averaged (the average was closer to the ox's true butchered weight than the estimates of most crowd members, and also closer than any of the separate estimates made by cattle experts” (Wikipedia.org).

Basically, even though the crowd had no particular expertise in raising oxen, they were able to better approximate the weight of the ox than an individual cattle expert. Likewise, the crowd at the ballgame is often correct in it’s prediction. It is likely that the crowd takes into account all relevant information including the fact that the highest number is correct quite often. To demonstrate the benefit of going with the crowd, one need look no further than Saturday night’s game against the Braves. Rather than choosing highest possible number combination, the crowd went with the second highest number combination. The reason for this deviation from the proven strategy of choosing the highest number, was that the highest number would have suggested an attendance that exceeded the capacity of Petco Park. The crowd recognized this fact, and was correct in it’s prediction. The (un)lucky contestant picked against the crowd, and lost.

In reality, if you are ever chosen to participate in the “guess the attendance” game at Petco Park, it probably does not matter what strategy you choose. Even the losers are often given the grand prize anyway. However, if you have some pride in your predictions, I recommend just going with crowd and rightfully staking claim to your ever so valuable Khalil Greene autographed baseball given away to each night's winner.