And in other news:
- MLB attendance is down 4.2% this year, something commissioner Rob Manfred blames on bad weather but which can more reasonably be blamed on bad teams — in particular bad teams in cities that were previously drawing well (Toronto, Baltimore, Detroit, Texas). The Oakland A’s have been good this year, but their attendance has barely risen, something team president Dave Kaval says he hopes a new stadium will fix by encouraging “new people to engage our product”; that has worked out extremely poorly for the Miami Marlins, but then, engaging the Marlins’ product right now will probably make you less likely to attend games, not more so.
- The Detroit Red Wings‘ and Pistons‘ new arena has turned its area of Detroit into “a dynamic, connected stretch that has grown and attracted new businesses and investment with the promise of much more to come,” according to a press release by the Red Wings’ ownership group that the Detroit Free Press seemingly just up and reprinted, seriously, are they even trying?
- German soccer fans protested high ticket prices this week by staging 20 minutes of silence at the start of games, as well as unfurling a giant banner reading (in English) “Football is for you and me — not for fucking pay-TV.”
- The government of Manitoba has written off the entire $200 million cost of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers‘ stadium, saying there’s no way the team (which is owned by a nonprofit corporation with no shareholders) will ever repay it. When the stadium was approved in 2010, I noted that “the public is taking on a fair bit of risk” by loaning the team the money; guess that was a bit of an understatement.
- The defunct Camden Riversharks‘ stadium is set to be torn down just 17 years after it was built, something we already covered here last year, but this gives the Associated Press the opportunity to run the headline “Baseball stadium built 17 years ago to boost tourism faces wrecking ball,” so more power to ’em.
- There’s a petition drive in Austin to block the new stadium for the soon-to-be-erstwhile Columbus Crew, which was already approved but not contractually finalized, so more power to ’em, too, I guess.
- Ha ha ha ha, Oakland Raiders execs are really considering playing a season in San Diego as part of their hissy fit over Oakland’s possible antitrust suit, though CBS Sports notes that it’s pretty unlikely given that the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers owners would almost certainly raise objections.
- People who want an NBA franchise in Louisville say they’d consider building a new arena for it, despite Louisville already having two perfectly good basketball arenas, which is arguably even more crazy than the idea of Louisville getting an NBA franchise at all.
- Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham F.C. owner Shad Khan has had his purchase of London’s Wembley Stadium from England’s Football Association for $800 million approved, but he says he’s not moving either team into it, he just wants to rake in the money from concerts and such. The stadium turned a £5.5million profit last year, which would be a dismal return on an $800 million investment, so who the hell knows what Khan is thinking, but “This will scare Jacksonville into giving me more stadium upgrade money” has to be at least part of it.
Excellent Friday Roundup today!!!
Agree
Wow, so with the news from Camden, now three stadiums built in the early 2000s for the independent Atlantic League in distressed northeastern cities (Camden, Bridgeport, Newark) are in the process of demolition. There’s probably a lesson to not base your city’s “renaissance” on a palace for fly-by-night independent baseball, but I doubt anyone will listen.
In fairness to Bridgeport they are converting their park into a “boutique” amphitheater…..in a market with already established outdoor venues.
May end up being a dumb idea for other reasons but at least its more forward thinking than Newark & Camden….
The stadium protests in Germany are primarily about kickoff times, not ticket prices. German fans (who follow teams) do not like late weeknight starts that make it hard in particular to travel as an away fan.
German tickets are available at low prices and people know this, so not sure why the article tries to describe fans as whiny. I was shocked to see beer cost 5 bucks this year.
MLBs ticket pricing is absolutely broken. After a number of years away returned to usually-mediocre Philadelphia and found a decent ticket costs $38 bucks. Given the StubHub glut in most towns, and the atrocious product put out by self-imploded teams, most teams won’t see a lot of repeat business. I certainly passed and went to a AAA game.
Boras is probably right. For every Houston there’s probably five teams playing fans for suckers and not paying for competent, established fans layers—all while taking the public’s tax money. And perhaps with these conditions 16-20k is what a small city team is going to draw.
Speed up games, start play-off games earlier, lower ticket prices, ( you can keep controllable prices, like food and beer, high), shorten season. Those are my tips for baseball. Most kids simply don’t grow up with the word series or play-offs because the games start so late and are so slow, kids never seen the end.
All good ideas. It’s funny to watch debates on speed of play because the majority love the idea of speeding things up but there are a few old-timers (just like there always are in baseball) who think the sky is falling. We have a minor league team in my city so I was probably more aware than some others that they’d been experimenting with pitch clocks for the past several years but it really blew me away to see how many supposedly big-time MLB fans had never even heard of the idea before Manfred mentioned it. Just another example of how in-the-box and head-in-the-sand some of those old time fans are.
I believe the biggest attendance drops we’re in cities playing under a roof. So Manfred continues the lies. Tanking and high prices are the problem.
A referendum was filed to force SafeCo field’s $135M in funding to be put to a public vote. It has to be filed before they collect signatures (they’d need over 40,000) and nobody knows if this group has any backing to pay people to collect signatures.
https://ballparkdigest.com/2018/09/28/petition-filed-for-potential-safeco-field-funding-referendum/
I’ve said it before, “The Raiders should play up the pirate theme and not have a home stadium.”
It’s come out that part of the Raiders’ negotiation for another year at OACC was relinquishing any rights to sue the team. Also, the legal group filing suit against the Raiders/NFL has promised to defend Oakland in any countersuits, free of charge, should they sign on. I’ve not heard that any continuing lease talks are in progress.
Feels like the Raiders started burning bridges before they were all the way across.