Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 28, 2004
Flocking to the Park

Another example that signing big free agents helps the ball club at the gate:


In the week following Feb. 7, when tickets went on sale, the Orioles sold 1,200 new season ticket packages. That adds up to about 60,000 tickets and already puts the club near the amount sold for all of last season. In the next week, overall ticket sales will approach 1 million, Brightman said.

Meanwhile, the season ticket renewal rate is almost double that of last year, and the number of new season ticket sales is more than double that of last year.

Interest in tickets has been so high the team had to hire temporary staff to handle the call volume, said Don Grove, senior director of sales and fan services.

"The phone volume is out of control," he said. "The level of interest is comparable back to when the team was in the playoffs -- of the big years when there was a lot of Cal events going on."


When free agency first hit baseball, some people thought it would destroy the game. Instead, fans wanted to come out and see what these high priced players could do, and interest in the game (and revenue) grew. Once again, fan interest is following the movement of the big names (and salaries).


Posted by David Pinto at 02:08 PM | Management | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Trying to get tickets for the Cubs yesterday was a nightmare. I'm a Mets fan and finally got out of the "virtual waiting room" after eight hours waiting. I ended up with tickets for an April Mets-Cubs matchup in the farthest section of the upper deck all the way down the right field line. Still, since I've never been to Wrigley, I'm excited.

Posted by: Andrew at February 28, 2004 02:46 PM

what happens when the free agents became busts, and the team doesn't make the playoffs after a couple of years? Will the ticket sale still support the fatter end of those big contracts? I don't know the answer, but it seems the fan interest can be a fleeting thing.

Posted by: Wilson at February 28, 2004 04:43 PM

Fan interest can be fleeting, but it's easy to forget that it's highly unlikely the team won't make other free agent moves between now and the time those big contracts go bust, or current players continue to develop into superstars, or that the team hasn't generated enough goodwill with its fans that it doesn't matter that they have a few hangers-on.

Posted by: steve at February 29, 2004 01:24 PM

I think fans need hope and a sense that management is actually trying to win. If you have those things, it becomes far less important where the team actually falls in the standing (though that is obviously still very important). It is far more likely that an O's fan will head out to the ballpark to see a game, even if their team is out of it, if they know that the team is putting a competitive product on the field that has a good chance to win on any given night.

Posted by: Fat Al at February 29, 2004 02:19 PM