Congratulations to the Nationals!

[TonySoprano]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

But, could they ever get back to 3 mm again?   I don’t know.    I was pretty surprised we didn’t do better in 2014-16.    

Your last sentence basically answers your question.  Never say never, but I'd say, "no,"  They were anywhere from -10% to -18% below 3M each of the 3 seasons before the Nats arrived.  Even with 3 straight years of success, the 2014 number was under 2.5M.   Baltimore has never been the type of baseball town that St. Louis is, but then again that's true for 25 other clubs.

[Mondo Trasho]

We're probably never going to know exactly what would happen if the Nationals didn't exist (or if either of the two Senators incarnations never moved), but another factor to keep in mind re: DC and NoVa folks: the traffic. The traffic has gotten remarkably worse in the past 10-15 years, especially in western Fairfax and Loudoun counties. A trip to Baltimore to see the Orioles in 1998 was a lot easier to make than it is now. 

In theory, those who weren't going to games would at least be watching on TV, so I don't know how to factor that in. But I'm sure it's a factor. 

[DrungoHazewood]

33 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

1. Attendance for the most part is down all across MLB.

2. Even playoff teams have seen a decline in ticket sales. So I agree that W/L is a factor in the equation, its not the only factor.

No Baseball isnt dying tomorrow.

But, Baseball has issues that need to be address if they want to survive another 100+ years.

Baseball once operated on a model that included 25 cent tickets and no media revenues whatsoever.  Indoor box lacrosse and 3rd division Arena Football and Pecos League Baseball all survive on 1/10,000th the revenues of MLB. People play cricket in the US with essentially no revenues, they just built an oval in suburban DC that cost $7M.

Baseball will exist in 100 years, we just don't quite know what form it will take.

[TonySoprano]

7 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Baseball once operated on a model that included 25 cent tickets and no media revenues whatsoever.  Indoor box lacrosse and 3rd division Arena Football and Pecos League Baseball all survive on 1/10,000th the revenues of MLB. People play cricket in the US with essentially no revenues, they just built an oval in suburban DC that cost $7M.

Baseball will exist in 100 years, we just don't quite know what form it will take.

Call it going out on a limb, but I'd say salaries are quite a lot different today than in the pre-free agency days, let alone for box lunch lacrosse.  I do remember going to a Maryland Arrows box (lunch) lacrosse game at the Capital Centre in 1975.

[Redskins Rick]

9 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Baseball once operated on a model that included 25 cent tickets and no media revenues whatsoever.  Indoor box lacrosse and 3rd division Arena Football and Pecos League Baseball all survive on 1/10,000th the revenues of MLB. People play cricket in the US with essentially no revenues, they just built an oval in suburban DC that cost $7M.

Baseball will exist in 100 years, we just don't quite know what form it will take.

True, but salaries and costs were not what they are today, either.

Young people are just not into the game, they show no desire to play or even watch the games. I think thats a pretty safe thing to say and hard to argue.

DC has never been fiscally responsibility with spending within their means, so hard to use their 7M cricket field as evidence.

As we get older, I doubt we hear the word expansion for MLB, if anything contraction and a reduction of teams, IMO is more likely down the road to happen.

[DrungoHazewood]

39 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

True, but salaries and costs were not what they are today, either.

Young people are just not into the game, they show no desire to play or even watch the games. I think thats a pretty safe thing to say and hard to argue.

DC has never been fiscally responsibility with spending within their means, so hard to use their 7M cricket field as evidence.

As we get older, I doubt we hear the word expansion for MLB, if anything contraction and a reduction of teams, IMO is more likely down the road to happen.

There are 330 million people in the US.  There are, what, 7 billion people in the world.  It doesn't take all that many of them as fans to have a viable sports league.  There are many young people who play and watch baseball, just not the percentage there were in 1950 or 1910.  For a lot of reasons.  

St, Mary's County probably has more kids playing soccer, but it's not by a lot, and they have no problem fielding a robust Little League program.  I just had a coach and two of the better players on my son's RecPlus soccer champs announce that they're not coming back in the spring because they want to concentrate on baseball.  

Baseball can decline in overall popularity and still be a very robust thing.  Part of this is we need to get over the idea that everyone was a baseball fan in 1950 and it's all downhill from there.  Forget 1950.  Baseball can do just fine in 2030 as long as your baseline for "just fine" isn't "everyone likes us more than all the other sports".

[DrungoHazewood]

50 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

Call it going out on a limb, but I'd say salaries are quite a lot different today than in the pre-free agency days, let alone for box lunch lacrosse.  I do remember going to a Maryland Arrows box (lunch) lacrosse game at the Capital Centre in 1975.

Sure, a lot different.  But salaries are driven by popularity and revenues, not the other way around.  If revenues go down, so do salaries.  But I doubt baseball will fall off a cliff and people will laugh if the average salary ends up at $1.5M instead of $4M or whatever it currently is.

[Redskins Rick]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

There are 330 million people in the US.  There are, what, 7 billion people in the world.  It doesn't take all that many of them as fans to have a viable sports league.  There are many young people who play and watch baseball, just not the percentage there were in 1950 or 1910.  For a lot of reasons.  

St, Mary's County probably has more kids playing soccer, but it's not by a lot, and they have no problem fielding a robust Little League program.  I just had a coach and two of the better players on my son's RecPlus soccer champs announce that they're not coming back in the spring because they want to concentrate on baseball.  

Baseball can decline in overall popularity and still be a very robust thing.  Part of this is we need to get over the idea that everyone was a baseball fan in 1950 and it's all downhill from there.  Forget 1950.  Baseball can do just fine in 2030 as long as your baseline for "just fine" isn't "everyone likes us more than all the other sports".

I could care less about baseball in 1950s.

Heck, 1960s was a good memory, but thats not my baseball model of idea. Heck, not even show what my model of idea is.

I see my grandkids and their friends with no interest in baseball. I see rec leagues still offer baseball, but not at the sizes they used to burst out at.

I see attendance declining at MLB games for 12 straight years.

Yes, baseball will be around in 2030.

Is baseball perfect?

No.

What does baseball have to do, to tweak the game?

Who know, but IMO, juicing the ball for HRs, isnt going to work.

[Redskins Rick]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Sure, a lot different.  But salaries are driven by popularity and revenues, not the other way around.  If revenues go down, so do salaries.  But I doubt baseball will fall off a cliff and people will laugh if the average salary ends up at $1.5M instead of $4M or whatever it currently is.

When popularity slacks off, then you will see cable TV dollars start to reflect that, and then you will see owners go into a panic mode.

 

[Redskins Rick]

my apologies for derailing the congrats to the Nationals.

We can have this sidebar discussion in another more appropriate thread.

[DrungoHazewood]

25 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

When popularity slacks off, then you will see cable TV dollars start to reflect that, and then you will see owners go into a panic mode.

It will be interesting to watch what happens if the cable bubble bursts and the streaming revenues don't make up for it and attendance continues to decline.  It's been a very long time since baseball has had significant declines in revenues.  Briefly after the '94-95 lockout, but previously it was before free agency.

We could see bad blood between the MLBPA and the owners, as the owners try to hold on to their revenues, and the players finally trying to go to the mat for a fixed percentage of them.  I don't think a MLB team has declined in value in my lifetime, but it could happen I suppose.

[DrungoHazewood]

36 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

What does baseball have to do, to tweak the game?

Who know, but IMO, juicing the ball for HRs, isnt going to work.

I want them to tweak the game so that it's more engaging to me, which means more balls in play, fewer homers and strikeouts, more athletic action on the field.  And games that take closer to two hours than four.

But I think what really has always been the biggest thing is knowing that your team has a chance.  Competitive imbalance might be the most important thing to fix.  But it's also very, very hard, because wins and losses are a zero-sum game.  If you make everyone who isn't competitive today moreso, then the teams that are (predominantly the teams with more resources) become worse.  So you have to convince the richest and most powerful that they need to give up some of that for the good of all.  Good luck with that.

[SouthRider]

Out here in Loudoun Co. VA  little league is alive and well.  You may have heard the Loudoun South league represented Virginia at the Little League World Series in Williamsport this year.  On a side note, my kids had a soccer game on a field next to some Loudoun South baseball games.  My jaw dropped when I saw these kids in full major league replica jerseys on multiple fields with nice grand stands and PA announcerments for the players coming to bat.  It was a twelve year old's dream.  Loudoun is one of the richest counties in America, so I'm sure money has a lot to due with the popularity of the sport here.  Same with hockey which I have my kids in.  Very expensive.

Back on topic. Glad the Nats won.  It was great having a rooting interest for a baseball team again in a World Series.  

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, TonySoprano said:

Your last sentence basically answers your question.  Never say never, but I'd say, "no,"  They were anywhere from -10% to -18% below 3M each of the 3 seasons before the Nats arrived.  Even with 3 straight years of success, the 2014 number was under 2.5M.   Baltimore has never been the type of baseball town that St. Louis is, but then again that's true for 25 other clubs.

The only scenario I see where 3 mm might be possible is if the O’s are very good several years in a row, and maybe go to a World Series and come into the next season as a favorite to again make the playoffs.    Even during our five year run, the team always surprised the pundits and so there wasn’t a lot of preseason hype to spur season ticket sales.    And, the five year run still kind of paled in comparison to the 14 years of ineptitude.    Maybe it would take 7-8 years instead of 5, and with a higher degree of predicted and postseason success.    Even then, I’m not convinced they’d get to 3 mm.     But I’m hoping to find out!

[nevadaO]

On 10/31/2019 at 8:22 AM, TonySoprano said:

Hondo is a very big man, 6'7", or 3" taller than Boog Powell, who wasn't exactly tiny in those days.   One story I heard was someone tried to barehand catch one of Frank's HRs and ended up with a busted finger.  If my father had his way, we would have lived in NoVA, but instead we were in PG County, same as my mother's family and his.  My father was a lifelong Senators fan and didn't jump on the Yankees bandwagon like his older brother.    I totally get the whole point about how obnoxious bandwagon "fans" are; I have a Joysey in-law who ditched the Mets for the Sawx in '04.  

BTW, Snyder is doing his worst to kill football in DC.

I tried to bare hand a Canseco batting practice HR back when the Devil Rays visited OPACY. Couldn't use my hand properly for 2 days.