Attendance 2019

[Redskins Rick]

34 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Look at the premium seating at Yankee Stadium behind home plate. Whenever I see it, it's mostly empty. Football pricing is never going to work in baseball when there 10X the number of home games.  

Yankees also charge PSLs to their season ticket holder, not sure too many others in MLB can get away with that.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

6 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

Yankees also charge PSLs to their season ticket holder, not sure too many others in MLB can get away with that.

Dodgers, Red Sox. Cubs and Cardinals could probably do it as well, but that's it. PSLs are starting to backfire in the NFL too as a majority of teams do not sell out their home games now.

Ravens were running commercials nonstop this summer advertising season ticket packages. The only other time this happened in their existence was the team's first few years in Baltimore. 

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Dodgers, Red Sox. Cubs and Cardinals could probably do it as well, but that's it. PSLs are starting to backfire in the NFL too as a majority of teams do not sell out their home games now.

Ravens were running commercials nonstop this summer advertising season ticket packages. The only other time this happened in their existence was the team's first few years in Baltimore. 

PSLs are just a greedy way for the team to make more money from the fans.

[atomic]

13 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

PSLs are just a greedy way for the team to make more money from the fans.

Especially for the Ravens who had a taxpayer built stadium.  But they don't have any issue getting people to pay for them.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

2 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

PSLs are just a greedy way for the team to make more money from the fans.

I hate it, you're paying for the right to buy season tickets.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

41 minutes ago, atomic said:

The Capitals charge that and they averaged more fans per game than the Orioles this year. They only play 41 home games but I think that is a good scenario where lower capacity works.  The Capitals seem to be in the middle of the range of NHL tickets. 

I'm not saying it couldn't work for MLB, but the price point needs to be lower than $100 a ticket for most markets. Capitals are a bit different too, they make the playoffs annually and have a passionate core fanbase. 

Also most municipalities are not going to stand for funding new stadium construction these days. 

[Redskins Rick]

47 minutes ago, atomic said:

The Capitals charge that and they averaged more fans per game than the Orioles this year. They only play 41 home games but I think that is a good scenario where lower capacity works.  The Capitals seem to be in the middle of the range of NHL tickets. 

How well did it work for them, when they was in Landover, losing more than they won?

[DrungoHazewood]

9 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I hate it, you're paying for the right to buy season tickets.

I don't get the point.  Is there some logical reason they're not just lumping the PSA fee into the cost of the tickets? Why have two separate charges?

[DrungoHazewood]

8 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I'm not saying it couldn't work for MLB, but the price point needs to be lower than $100 a ticket for most markets. Capitals are a bit different too, they make the playoffs annually and have a passionate core fanbase. 

Also most municipalities are not going to stand for funding new stadium construction these days. 

Every time I think that's it, cities and localities have come to their senses, another referendum passes to give $800M in taxpayer funding (which ends up being $1.2B after overruns) to replace a $600M stadium they just built with taxpayer money in 1998.  See: Rangers and Braves. I think there is no end to cities being blackmailed by closed leagues and their teams threatening to move.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

8 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't get the point.  Is there some logical reason they're not just lumping the PSA fee into the cost of the tickets? Why have two separate charges?

The way I understand PSL's, it is a one time fee you pay up front. And if you sell your season tickets then you list your PSL's on the secondary market. From what I have read,  a lot of fans have trouble selling their PSL's and often have to sell them for less than what was initially paid upfront. 

[Larry18]

For me the All-or-nothing brand of baseball is unwatchable. MLB can juice the ball to their hearts content but I’m not going to support it financially.Manfred’s assertion that the ball was within limits is disingenuous at best. 

[atomic]

13 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

The way I understand PSL's, it is a one time fee you pay up front. And if you sell your season tickets then you list your PSL's on the secondary market. From what I have read,  a lot of fans have trouble selling their PSL's and often have to sell them for less than what was initially paid upfront. 

The issue is when fans want to sell their PSLs.  If the team is doing well fans don't sell PSLs because they can just sell the tickets on the re-sale market and make a profit.  The time they want to sell them is when the team is doing poorly and they can't get buyers for their tickets on the re-sale market.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Larry18 said:

For me the All-or-nothing brand of baseball is unwatchable. MLB can juice the ball to their hearts content but I’m not going to support it financially.Manfred’s assertion that the ball was within limits is disingenuous at best. 

Honestly it may be.  The standards are written with huge tolerances.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, atomic said:

I think another thing they could do is shorten the season.  Cut out Monday and Thursday games and play 5 games a week.  Shorten the regular season and have 16 teams in the playoffs.    7 game playoffs for all rounds.  I think 120 game season would be enough  You could eliminate a 5th starter and the quality of the pitchers would improve. 

Teams care about revenues way more than quality of 5th starters.  You're proposing cutting 25% off the length of the schedule.  That means increasing ticket, concessions, parking, media, merchandising revenues by 25% per game to keep overall revenues where they are today.  I doubt per-game attendance is going to go up if an average Orioles ticket goes from $30 to $38.  The Yankees' premium seats aren't going to sell any better at another 25% premium.  Advertisers might be a hard sell on paying 25% more for each commercial minute with 25% less time on the air.

Having more rounds of playoffs has a lot of implications.  Increases the revenue gap between playoff and non-playoff teams.  Randomizes outcomes even more - you will eventually get a 16th-best team winning the Series while a 108-win team goes home after the first round.  With 30 teams in the league and 16 playoff teams you will regularly get sub-.500 teams in the playoffs.  And you'll get the NBA/NHL effect, where for 14 teams the season ends in August or early September, while other teams get to play into November. Most fans tune out the season when their team is done, so 2/3rds of baseball fans will have moved on to some other activity by mid-September.

And remember the DH controversy?  The one that still goes on today, nearly 50 years later?  Now think of how people will respond to never having a single-season record ever broken again.  What's Ichiro's hit record, 262?  In a 120-game schedule that works out to 194.  Now a good starter might get 32 starts and 160 innings.  In 120 games that's 24 starts and 120 innings.

[atomic]

29 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

How well did it work for them, when they was in Landover, losing more than they won?

Even when they were winning a lot of games in Landover the games were mostly filled with opposing fans.  One game I went to was full of Islanders fans.  I didn't understand it as Islanders weren't selling tickets at their home arena.

Attendance didn't take off until Bruce Bodreau became coach and they ditched the trap and played run and gun hockey.  Plus they had the Rock the Red thing.  The attendance has stuck since then even with a losing season and boring team's under Hunter and Oates.  

Note, Ovechkin did not turn the team attendance around. It was a new style of play, combined, with lights and loud music and winning.