March 06, 2004
Keeping Out the Competition
The Orioles are launching a PR blitz to attract more fans from the Washington area. It appears they are doing this not only to increase attendance, but to show that a team in northern Virginia would eat into their ticket sales.
The thing is, it's not feasible to go to an Orioles game on a weeknight if you live in Northern VA.
I'll go to one or two Saturday games a season, but I'd do that even if the Expos (or some other team) moved to DC or NoVA.
However, if I want to go to a night game during the week, getting to Baltimore in the traffic we have just isn't going to happen. Also, since I take the subway to work, I'd have to come home to get my car first.
Frankly, Peter Angelos running this little crusade makes me less likely to go to Orioles games now, even without a team down here.
At the end of the day, though, the DC/Baltimore media market is almost as large as the Chicago one. If Chicago can support two teams, DC/Baltimore can do the same.
Concur. If you train it to B'More, you get there at 6:55. I wouldn't even think about driving up I-95 or MD-295 unless I could leave work at 5pm or earlier. It's just too unpredictable.
And, oh yeah, the O's won't pay for MARC trains after the game, so you'll be riding the bus back to Union Station at 10:30 at night for $7.
All in all, Angelos pays enough lip service to DC so that he makes it look like he relies on the market for an additional 2% of gate revenue.
