Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinFans watch as the Bend Elks play against Medford at Vince Genna Stadium last week.

Since becoming one of the founding members of the West Coast League 10 years ago, the Bend Elks have been one of the more recognizable franchises in the league — the Joe of DiMaggios, the Kim of Kardashians, the top dog and hottest ticket in the WCL.

In three of the last four seasons, Bend has led the Northwest-based summer collegiate league in overall and average attendance. In each of the last five years, the Elks have finished no lower than second in those categories. During the past offseason, as the franchise was being bought by Portland-based Let’s Play Ball LLC, the Elks sold more season tickets than in the offseason before the 2014 season.

The team has torched WCL opponents this season, rocketing to a 27-6 record, the best mark in the league and easily (by 101⁄2 games) better than any South Division foe. The Elks have produced three different streaks of at least seven wins and are on pace to raze the West Coast League’s offensive records.

Yet as Bend crests the midpoint of the season, as the Elks begin to see the playoff horizon and strive toward a No. 1 postseason seed, something is lacking in the stands at Vince Genna Stadium — someone, really.

Between 2010-14, Bend averaged as many as 1,700 fans per game and no fewer than 1,100 per contest through 18 home games. In 2011, the Elks set home attendance records for season total (50,513) and average (1,820). This season, however, despite their explosion out of the starting blocks, the Elks rank 10th in the 12-team league, drawing just 876 fans per game.

Though the Elks sit in the bottom three of the WCL in attendance, that average attendance figure is of no real particular concern to Elks general manager Casey Powell or team director of marketing and sales Kelsie Marick, especially considering the heated perfect storm of crowd-attracting competition — or simply the heat — the Elks faced at the beginning of their schedule, including high school graduations and the Sisters Rodeo.

“Those are always, no matter what, hard weekends for us,” Marick says, adding that the uncommonly hot weather has more than likely played a role in limiting the crowds at Vince Genna Stadium.

“Between having games during all the big events in Central Oregon, and then when it’s not a big event it’s a hundred degrees and there’s no wind, so you’re just sitting directly in that heat … we really have been just struggling against it. I know that’s a factor that other teams have too, but man, Central Oregon and Bend really has it made for everyone, where there’s always something to do.”

Those challenges are things the two first-year, day-to-day operators of the Elks were already well aware of before the season started: Bend is a haven for all types of activities not involving a trip to the ballpark. In return, Powell and Marick attempted to counteract with Sunday afternoon start times for all home contests, a way, Marick says, for adults to spend an afternoon before heading home to relax and prepare for the workweek ahead. But, as Marick puts it, “I don’t know if it’s quite caught on as well as we hoped.”

All five of Bend’s Sunday home games so far — all but two of which peaked in 90-degree temperatures — account for the team’s lowest attendance totals of 2015, the Elks drawing no more than 540 spectators in any of those contests. In six day games so far this season, those that start before 5 p.m., teams not including Bend averaged nearly 1,400 fans compared with an average of 762 fans over 19 night games leaguewide. After averaging at least 1,000 fans for Sunday games at this point in recent seasons, Bend is now hovering around 500.

Do not let these numbers fool you, Elks officials emphasize.

Sure, only eight home dates — including a July 29 doubleheader against Bellingham — remain for the Elks on the regular-season schedule. But this is the best team in the WCL, on the verge of a high seed for the playoffs and an inside track toward the franchise’s first league title. Ticket and concession prices remain the same as they have been in recent years. During those Sunday games, Marick noted, 16-ounce beers are just $3 during the first four innings, and snow cones are $1. And over the next four weeks, Genna Stadium will be home to several of the Elks’ most popular promotions: three $2 Tuesdays and two Free Kids Wednesdays — after hosting just one of each so far in 2015.

All of this provides Marick with optimism that those attendance figures will soon be spiking.

“I’m pretty confident that those numbers are about to start going up,” she says. “especially now that we’re getting later into the summer and the weather is starting to even out and people will start hearing more and more about how great our team is doing, maybe get more invested.”

Powell’s outlook is just as rosy. There is still tonight’s baseball giveaway promotion — a free baseball featuring the Bend Elks’ logo to the first 1,000 fans through the gate — followed in a few weeks by cap night on August 3. In two weeks, the Elks host a three-game series against the reigning league champion Bellingham Bells. For good measure, Powell emphasizes the coming $2 Tuesdays, noting that Bend’s largest 2015 crowd — more than 2,500 fans — was at the only Tuesday home game earlier this season.

Then, Powell adds, consider that Bend’s home contests on July 3 and 4 drew the second- and third-largest crowds of the season. Combine that with the fact that the Elks are in line to host several playoff games in August and the homestretch could be quite the attendance boost for the league’s top team.

“I’m not too worried,” Powell says. “My biggest concern is if we’re beating teams by too much, are fans even going to want to come out if we’re just thumping them? Hopefully fans would want to back a winner, too, though.”

“Obviously I want as many people as possible to come to the games, but once the games get started, my focus is making sure the people who come are having a great time so that they want to come back,” Marick says. “I figure word of mouth is the best type of advertising you could ever have, so making sure everyone in your ballpark is having a great time, even if it’s not as many people as you might want, then I’m doing the right thing. I keep an eye on the attendance, and it’s definitely something I’ll hit in the offseason when I start thinking of how to market us for the next year.”

—Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com.