Baltimore Sun article on attendance and winning the fans back

[Frobby]

24 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

The 2003 Tigers went 23-58 at home (to go with 20-61 on the road).  Hard to imagine a team doing worse than that in 81 home games.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/DET/2003-schedule-scores.shtml

I’m having a pretty easy time imagining it at the moment.  The O’s would need to go 14-29 at home the rest of the way to equal that.   

[jtschrei]

I don't understand why general admission to say 6 sections in the upper deck is not $5. Why? There are folks who would walk up for $5. The current low price of $15 is not cheap enough.

 

To me, they really are not encouraging folks to come to the ball game at $15. The team's fan policies have long been a mystery to me though, so... . 

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, jtschrei said:

I don't understand why general admission to say 6 sections in the upper deck is not $5. Why? There are folks who would walk up for $5. The current low price of $15 is not cheap enough.

 

To me, they really are not encouraging folks to come to the ball game at $15. The team's fan policies have long been a mystery to me though, so... . 

It'll be interesting to see what pricing looks like after a year of Elias' data analysis.  It could be that the difference in walkup between $15 and $5 is not nearly enough to make up for the 3x difference in revenues.  1000 walk ups at $5 brings in $5000.  400 walk ups at $15 brings in $6000.  And if you can't afford the extra $10 for a ticket, how many $10 beers and $7.50 hot dogs are you splurging for?

[JR Oriole]

9 minutes ago, jtschrei said:

I don't understand why general admission to say 6 sections in the upper deck is not $5. Why? There are folks who would walk up for $5. The current low price of $15 is not cheap enough.

 

To me, they really are not encouraging folks to come to the ball game at $15. The team's fan policies have long been a mystery to me though, so... . 

Since $5 is greater than the $0 you get from not selling a ticket, I agree with you.  Not to mention those people may actually buy things when they are there. 

[Anziyan]

They totally missed the mark on ticket prices this year.  I let the 13 game plan I had personally as well as the 29 game plan I had for my business lapse this year.  I've looked at buying tickets on 2 occasions this season and even the tickets priced under face on stubhub are too expensive in my eyes.    

[Satyr3206]

$7 tickets and $3 beers and the problem is solved.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, JR Oriole said:

What are they, 9-29 at home?  That isn't just awful....that is historically awful.

1899 Cleveland Spiders were 8-26 at home through early July when they decided to play almost the entire rest of the schedule on the road.  The finished 9-33 at home and drew 6,088 fans, or 145 a game.

Since 1901, the 1939 Browns (18-59, .234) are the only team with a worse home winning percentage than this year's O's.  On a positive note there are 163 teams including multiple Baltimore teams who had worse road winning percentages than this year's O's.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:

$7 tickets and $3 beers and the problem is solved.

What does a beer cost at Pickles?  To really spike attendance wouldn't you have to make the cost of (beer + ticket) equal or less than the cost of a beer in a bar in downtown Baltimore?  Even then the surge might be modest. And then you have to consider the security costs incurred by having 20,000 really drunk fans and 2,000 sober fans.

How many people would show up if they just gave away all the unused tickets to each game?  It wouldn't be a sellout, maybe not even close.  If you gave me a free full season plan I'd still only go to maybe 10 games, probably less than that.  I'm two hours away.  Even if you're 30 minutes away, most people wouldn't go to 81 games.  

It could be that for a 50-win team in Baltimore the price point required to get 30,000 people in the stands is negative-$15 a ticket.

[Frobby]

48 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:

$7 tickets and $3 beers and the problem is solved.

The attendance problem is solved. The revenue problem probably is exacerbated.  

[Satyr3206]

36 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The attendance problem is solved. The revenue problem probably is exacerbated.  

Maybe, maybe not. The majority of revenue comes from MASN, TV, Extra Innings, Streaming, etc. You get more people interested maybe those numbers go up. The bottom line is the Team needs to win. And that's a few years away.

[JR Oriole]

The 2003 Tigers were amazing.  18-61 through 79 games....we are actually 4 ahead of them.  And they got to 38-118, before blowing history and ending the season on a 5-1 tear.  Of course, they were in the World Series 3 years later and lost to a very inferior St. Louis team.  But nevertheless, that turnaround was impressive. 

[Orioles5258]

"Sexy Women 18 and older cheer free" might get me down to the old ballpark. I will have to leave the wife home though

 

[JR Oriole]

"Give that fan a contract.....FOR REAL" night might get more people out to the Yard. 

[Satyr3206]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

What does a beer cost at Pickles?  To really spike attendance wouldn't you have to make the cost of (beer + ticket) equal or less than the cost of a beer in a bar in downtown Baltimore?  Even then the surge might be modest. And then you have to consider the security costs incurred by having 20,000 really drunk fans and 2,000 sober fans.

How many people would show up if they just gave away all the unused tickets to each game?  It wouldn't be a sellout, maybe not even close.  If you gave me a free full season plan I'd still only go to maybe 10 games, probably less than that.  I'm two hours away.  Even if you're 30 minutes away, most people wouldn't go to 81 games.  

It could be that for a 50-win team in Baltimore the price point required to get 30,000 people in the stands is negative-$15 a ticket.

If you gave me a full season plan, would have to be for 2, I'd consider moving back to Baltimore.

[Enjoy Terror]

5 hours ago, JR Oriole said:

Since $5 is greater than the $0 you get from not selling a ticket, I agree with you.  Not to mention those people may actually buy things when they are there. 

There’s probably a break even point on staffing and utilities that would be eliminated by keeping people out of the park.

If you don’t sell a ticket its some dude who’s not going to flush the toilet or dump his half eaten plate of nachos upside down on the floor. I don’t know if that number if greater than $5, but maybe.