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penfield"Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines."
- Paul Brunton (British philosopher, mystic, traveler, and guru)
Last night, thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
village_twins, I attended the Pittsburgh Pirates-Washington Nationals game at brand-spanking-new Nationals Park. Since the sellout Opening Day, there has been a fair amount of hand-wringing in the nation's capital about the disappointing attendance numbers.
After 15 games, the Nats are drawing an average of 29,576 fans, about 71 percent of the park's 41,888 capacity. These numbers put the team squarely in the middle of the pack, league-wide (15th out of 30 by average attendance, 14th by percentage of capacity). While this is a significant improvement over the final season at RFK Stadium (in which the Nats' 24,000+ per game was 25th/30 in average attendance and the 53.5 percent capacity was "good" for 27th/30), it is not quite the furious orgy of commerce that the team or the city had anticipated when they greenlit the $611 million dollar expenditure.
New ballparks, after all, are supposed to at least attract people to the ballpark during the first-year honeymoon period. For example, in 2004, Philadelphia and San Diego each saw their attendance figures increase by 40 to 50 percent while the percentage of capacity more than doubled upon the debut of their new stadiums.
But the hand-wringing is very premature, for a number of reasons. First, there's still the matter of small sample size: it is dangerous to draw conclusions after only 15 of 81 scheduled home games, especially when those games were in April. Attendance ought to increase once the weather gets warmer, the pennant races get tighter and the kids are out of school.
Secondly, the team's success -- or expected success -- is always a key element in attendance. In the above example, Philadelphia and San Diego both finished their seasons at least 10 games over .500 and ostensibly within reach of a division crown. The Nationals have demonstrated little of that kind of aptitude or the promise thereof. As of this writing, the Nats are on a little bit of a roll; if they have enough fuel to stay hot, spectators will follow.
But most importantly, while dwindling attendance numbers are disappointing, they're also not a very big deal. Forget about the price tag of the ballpark -- that's a sunk cost, and it's not like the D.C. taxpayers were going to get a share of profits anyway. No one should be worrying about the team packing up and moving out again; it took ten years for them to extricate themselves from Montreal, and that was with an old crappy stadium and a million disinterested Quebecois. They're not going anywhere anytime soon. And it shouldn't be interpreted as a lack of fan interest; the team is still part of a strong media market and has a firm toehold in terms of merchandising.
Personally, I think it's great. I love going to mid-week games on cold nights featuring two crappy teams that couldn't play themselves out of Little League. It means that there's plenty of room to stretch out, no lines anywhere for anything, and room to get away from any obnoxious, drunken louts who may have accidentally gotten lost on their way to a professional wrestling event. I can find any game quite pleasurable without the roar of the crowd or waiting 20 minutes for a $5 hot dog.
That said, if the Nationals really wanted to increase their attendance, here are just a few tips.
- Make it easier for people to actually buy tickets. I couldn't have said it any better than Village_Twins himself. (In particular, regarding "best available," let me decide what the "best available" is and pick out my own damn seat. Don't we have the technology for this yet?)
- Tell Metro to get its fricking act together. They still haven't figured out how to run the trains properly, especially at the L'Enfant Plaza Green-Yellow line exchange. Even on lightly populated gamedays, getting to and from the park is an excercise in survival of the fittest: the only way you're possibly going to get home on time is by being faster, stronger and smarter than the person in front of you.
- Auction off some of those Presidential seats. These seats, which go for $325 per seat, per game are rarely full, which is doubly insulting since those seats are prominently featured behind the batter on television. Or better yet, give them away to kids or volunteers or terminal cancer patients or something. That ought to teach the pricks who are scalping those seats at a 20 percent markup on StubHub.
Like I said, I'm in no rush for attendance to increase. Maybe I'm simply built for the more intimate and pastoral crowds of minor league baseball. Someday I hope to move to a place with a nice minor league park, someplace where the game is still a game and those drunken louts I mentioned can be shot without a warrant.
Or, you know, I could take one of those Presidential seats off their hands. It sure isn't crowded down there.
- Paul Brunton (British philosopher, mystic, traveler, and guru)
Last night, thanks to
village_twins, I attended the Pittsburgh Pirates-Washington Nationals game at brand-spanking-new Nationals Park. Since the sellout Opening Day, there has been a fair amount of hand-wringing in the nation's capital about the disappointing attendance numbers.After 15 games, the Nats are drawing an average of 29,576 fans, about 71 percent of the park's 41,888 capacity. These numbers put the team squarely in the middle of the pack, league-wide (15th out of 30 by average attendance, 14th by percentage of capacity). While this is a significant improvement over the final season at RFK Stadium (in which the Nats' 24,000+ per game was 25th/30 in average attendance and the 53.5 percent capacity was "good" for 27th/30), it is not quite the furious orgy of commerce that the team or the city had anticipated when they greenlit the $611 million dollar expenditure.
New ballparks, after all, are supposed to at least attract people to the ballpark during the first-year honeymoon period. For example, in 2004, Philadelphia and San Diego each saw their attendance figures increase by 40 to 50 percent while the percentage of capacity more than doubled upon the debut of their new stadiums.
But the hand-wringing is very premature, for a number of reasons. First, there's still the matter of small sample size: it is dangerous to draw conclusions after only 15 of 81 scheduled home games, especially when those games were in April. Attendance ought to increase once the weather gets warmer, the pennant races get tighter and the kids are out of school.
Secondly, the team's success -- or expected success -- is always a key element in attendance. In the above example, Philadelphia and San Diego both finished their seasons at least 10 games over .500 and ostensibly within reach of a division crown. The Nationals have demonstrated little of that kind of aptitude or the promise thereof. As of this writing, the Nats are on a little bit of a roll; if they have enough fuel to stay hot, spectators will follow.
But most importantly, while dwindling attendance numbers are disappointing, they're also not a very big deal. Forget about the price tag of the ballpark -- that's a sunk cost, and it's not like the D.C. taxpayers were going to get a share of profits anyway. No one should be worrying about the team packing up and moving out again; it took ten years for them to extricate themselves from Montreal, and that was with an old crappy stadium and a million disinterested Quebecois. They're not going anywhere anytime soon. And it shouldn't be interpreted as a lack of fan interest; the team is still part of a strong media market and has a firm toehold in terms of merchandising.
Personally, I think it's great. I love going to mid-week games on cold nights featuring two crappy teams that couldn't play themselves out of Little League. It means that there's plenty of room to stretch out, no lines anywhere for anything, and room to get away from any obnoxious, drunken louts who may have accidentally gotten lost on their way to a professional wrestling event. I can find any game quite pleasurable without the roar of the crowd or waiting 20 minutes for a $5 hot dog.
That said, if the Nationals really wanted to increase their attendance, here are just a few tips.
- Make it easier for people to actually buy tickets. I couldn't have said it any better than Village_Twins himself. (In particular, regarding "best available," let me decide what the "best available" is and pick out my own damn seat. Don't we have the technology for this yet?)
- Tell Metro to get its fricking act together. They still haven't figured out how to run the trains properly, especially at the L'Enfant Plaza Green-Yellow line exchange. Even on lightly populated gamedays, getting to and from the park is an excercise in survival of the fittest: the only way you're possibly going to get home on time is by being faster, stronger and smarter than the person in front of you.
- Auction off some of those Presidential seats. These seats, which go for $325 per seat, per game are rarely full, which is doubly insulting since those seats are prominently featured behind the batter on television. Or better yet, give them away to kids or volunteers or terminal cancer patients or something. That ought to teach the pricks who are scalping those seats at a 20 percent markup on StubHub.
Like I said, I'm in no rush for attendance to increase. Maybe I'm simply built for the more intimate and pastoral crowds of minor league baseball. Someday I hope to move to a place with a nice minor league park, someplace where the game is still a game and those drunken louts I mentioned can be shot without a warrant.
Or, you know, I could take one of those Presidential seats off their hands. It sure isn't crowded down there.
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Re: From today's Thomas Boswell column
Date: 2008-05-05 01:45 pm (UTC)Obviously they are going to have to adjust the prices of those premium seats. But can they do it during the season? Probably not. I assume they'll have to wait until next year.
Regarding the gate proceeds, as you mentioned in your first comment, some of those gains are mitigated by whatever debt service the team is paying for construction costs. Then again, some of THAT is mitigated by the slice of concession profits, which I am quite certain have also increased.
This may have been I find it interesting that Paulson owns Presidential Seats. Obviously he's not too worried about the economy. His own, at least.
Re: From today's Thomas Boswell column
Date: 2008-05-05 04:28 pm (UTC)Re: From today's Thomas Boswell column
Date: 2008-05-05 05:38 pm (UTC)Re: From today's Thomas Boswell column
Date: 2008-05-05 04:31 pm (UTC)(An aside: I've met with offices who accept no gifts whatsoever, meaning that they've rejected a prop of a macaroni and cheese box that we like to leave behind.)
As far as the $5 seats being subsidized by anything: I call bullshit. There are $5 seats in the new park because there were $5 seats in the old ballpark and the team wanted to be able to make a statement about such seats. (The $5 seats were terrible, by the way.) It's PR. Apparently, it's working for Boswell, who is taking his lesson in economics from Hillary "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists" Clinton.
I can't really judge the quality of the new seats versus the old seats, but I'm guessing $15 bought a MUCH better view at RFK. Hopefully, they'll adjust the prices over time but I can't imagine how a team could do this mid-season. Perhaps by selling season tickets for the remaining portion of this season and next at the new prices?
I was content with RFK.
-- Josh
Re: From today's Thomas Boswell column
Date: 2008-05-05 05:37 pm (UTC)Re: From today's Thomas Boswell column
Date: 2008-05-05 07:31 pm (UTC)http://www.andrewclem.com/Baseball/RFKStadium.html
Any possibility of making RFK into a high revenue ballpark probably would have required the DC United moving out (which they will be doing) and having better, permanent seats where there was foul territory. I think they probably could have closed the upper bowl for a while and added real luxury boxes up there.
Does anyone know what portion of most teams' revenues are dependent on the stadium as opposed to TV money? Because it may be that the increases in ticket/concessions revenue actually don't matter much.