Tickets to the Cleveland Indians home opener sold out in 40 minutes

At 10 a.m. EST today, the Cleveland Indians began selling single-game tickets, including an extra 10,000 available for the home opener. Naturally, the home opener sold out in less than an hour, but the other 80 home games, well...

Last season, the Indians ranked 29th in the league in average attendance; roughly 17,806 people came out to watch the Tribe play at Progressive Field for each game. The only team worse than the Indians were the Tampa Bay Rays, with 15,403 people per game making their trip out to the Tropicana Dumpster to get out of the summer Florida heat.

Per T.J. Zuppe, this is the 24th consecutive home opener sellout for the Indians. This is also the earliest the home opener has sold out, beating out the March 3 sale date in 2014 and 2015.

The Indians took the unpopular route of not spending tens of millions of dollars over the next decade in order to compete this year. Instead, they are relying on the idea that not every player on the team will slump at the same time. If that plan works, and somehow the Indians are competitive in April and through parts of May without Michael Brantley, who knows? Maybe attendance will slowly rise and for once we can watch weekday Indians games without being able to hear the crew in the broadcast booth whispering to each other over the television broadcast. We can dream.

The Indians open their season at home on April 4 against the Boston Red Sox. Tickets to their second home game on April 6, as well as every other home game, are available from the Indians. Though I am sure they will start to appear on third-party sellers soon.

Did you get tickets to the season opener? How many home games do you think you'll be attending in person this year? I live a good five hours or so away, but I am hoping to take my kids to their first couple games this season, at least.