The New York Mets bumped up the start time of Tuesday’s game three hours to save fans from a brutal night in the wind and cold. Select fans were offered a chance to receive free tickets to ensure the Mets vs. the Arizona Diamondbacks opener didn’t look like a game from 2020 minus the cardboard cutouts.
Mets owner Steve Cohen tweeted for the first time since January 31 after the walk-off win. It wasn’t to praise Ronny Mauricio. It was to play a little game.
The free ticket giveaway was fully subscribed within hours yesterday . Guess the percentage of no shows from the ticket offer
— Steven Cohen (@StevenACohen2) April 8, 2026
The answer was revealed minutes later.
The answer is 58 percent .
— Steven Cohen (@StevenACohen2) April 8, 2026
According to Steve Cohen, 58% of fans who had free tickets to Tuesday’s Mets game didn’t show up anyway
Cohen has called out fans before for their lack of attendance. Disappointed by the 2024 numbers, fans came out much earlier and often in 2025.
Unfortunately, the way things went in 2025 didn’t have as many rushing to buy tickets this offseason. There was Juan Soto and the enjoyment of how 2024 went that had fans buying into the 2025 team. It’s back to square one with the 2026 team. The offseason was good by baseball standards, but Freddy Peralta, Luis Robert Jr., and Bo Bichette don’t sell out baseball games. Winning does. Nice weather helps, too.
Cohen’s not wrong in expressing the lack of gratitude the Mets provided by the 58% of no-shows to the game. Certainly a nice gesture by the Mets, Cohen breaking his months-long social media silence to gripe about it doesn’t seem to have him eager to give out anything for free again.
Shaming fans who didn’t show up was a strange way to discuss Mets baseball, especially with a 7-4 record and plenty of positives to take from what we’ve seen thus far. Surely, a few fans intended to attend and something came up. Others revealed their true colors and took away an opportunity from others to claim a free ticket and not show up anyway.
I wonder what percentage of fans would have satisfied Cohen. 100% is the sensible total when you’re gifted anything. Just over half is more about the thrill of winning anything at all.
“If it’s free, it’s for me” isn’t in Cohen’s dialect.
