NYTimes.com:
Citi Field was so empty as the Mets took the field Thursday night, it looked as if every spectator could have fit comfortably in the lower bowl. Even then, people would have had room to spread out. When Curtis Granderson casually tossed a ball into the stands, it landed rows from the nearest fan.“It’s been a ghost town,” one elevator operator said.This scene has become more common in the six years since the Mets left Shea Stadium. As the team kept losing, average attendance slowly dropped. Mets games in September have become a punch line.The Mets’ dwindling crowds are the backdrop to the federal lawsuit filed last week by Leigh Castergine, a ticket sales executive fired by the team last month.Castergine accused the Mets and Jeff Wilpon, their chief operating officer and son of their owner, of discriminating against her because she was having a child out of wedlock. The Mets apparently indicated to her that she was fired for failing to meet sales goals.“The claims are without merit,” the team said in a statement. “Our organization maintains strong policies against any and all forms of discrimination.”Castergine’s suit, in part, attempts to show how difficult her job was by likening it to selling “deck chairs on the Titanic” or “tickets to a funeral.”The Mets hired Castergine in December 2010 to help curb a steep decline in attendance. It was a crucial time as the trustee seeking assets for victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme sued the Wilpon family, which had invested hundreds of millions of dollars with Madoff.In 2008, the Mets’ last year at 57,000-seat Shea and the last time they finished with a winning record, they sold more than 51,000 tickets a game, second in the major leagues behind the Yankees. During the inaugural season in 42,000-seat Citi Field, the Mets’ average attendance was about 39,000, although they lost 92 games. The next year, the average dipped to almost 32,500, and the Mets brought in Castergine.Attendance represents the number of tickets sold, not the turnstile count, so, in reality, Citi Field has had plenty of empty seats.
