Magic Ticket: Sales Up For Some Clubs
1st March 2006
It’s always hard to gauge how well overall ticket sales for MLB are going to be season to season. For one — and how can you blame MLB for this? — press releases on ticket sales are always of the rosy variety. I’m sure that flag waving over a decrease in ticket sales isn’t anything you’re going to be seeing anytime soon on MLB.com.That said, there are some indications that sales are up for some clubs… some have simple explanations that are tied to events that are not strictly a side-effect of winning ballgames, or off-season player personnel acquisitions. Some, however, show that there may be changes for some clubs that have been… well, morbid in the past.
The Mets
The sense of optimism is high in the land of Met Fan. The signings of Billy Wagner and Carlos Delgado in the off-season coupled with last year’s signings of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran have ticket sales booming. The Mets are projected to have an increase of 22% in ticket sales over last season. On the first day of individual game ticket sales, the Mets sold 130,000. By Friday of last week, they had already sold 1.43 million.
Jeff Wilpon, the Mets senior VP has said that it’s not unreasonable to think that total sales of 3.5 million for ‘06. This on top of last year’s increase of 500,000 over the year prior.
The Brewers
New owner Mark Attanasio was a hit last year when he threw open the doors of Miller Park for the last game of the season as a sign of appreciation to the fans for coming over the course of the year. The team also got out of the cellar in the standings positing an 81-81 record after being 67-94 the year prior. Is “average” a selling point? Apparently so.
Saturday evening the Brewers had sold 94,000 tickets in 8 hours. Expectation by Rick Schlesinger, the team’s executive vice president for business operations is in excess of last year’s 2.2 million mark. In addition to the 94,000 single game tickets, the Brewers have sold 5,500 of the new “4 Packs”, a new ticket package that targets “marquee” games against teams like the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs.
The Cubs
Speaking of the Cubs… On Friday, the 24th, the Cubs set a franchise and MLB single day record for tickets sold at 597,571. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are some reasons that sales will be up for some clubs that have to do with more than just wins and losses, and the hope for better things in the standings for ‘06.
For the Cubs, and Wrigley a large part of it will be the addition of more bleacher seating, bumping total seated attendance from 39,538 last season to 41,118 for ‘06.
The Blue Jays
Amazing what the increased value of the Canadian Dollar, and ownership’s willingness to open the purse strings will do. Arguably, the biggest movers and shakers in the off-season free agency wheeling and dealings have been the Blue Jays. This has increased hope for better things for Toronto club.
Ticket sales for the Blue Jays are up 41% over 2005, and not content to go about marketing the team through traditional channels, single tickets will be available through Rogers video stores. Rogers is the parent company of the Blue Jays. While last season the chain sold Blue Jays tickets through 40 stores, Rogers plans to double the outlets to 80 for this season. The club expects revenue generated from such sales to triple beyond $1 million from last year.
The Pirates
What the All-Star game will do for you…
As of the end of January, the Pirates had sold more than 9,100 FSE’s (full season equivalents), as compared to a total of 9,251 FSE’s for all of 2005.
The White Sox
What winning a World Series will do for you…
For the first time in club history, the season ticket base will surpass 20,000 in 2006.
The Cardinals
What a brand new ballpark will do for you…
According to team President Mark Lamping, 3,020,500 of 3,531,377 tickets available — or nearly 85 percent of tickets available for the 2006 season — already have been spoken for.
As I mentioned in my article yesterday (The Incredible Shrinking Stadium Design), Busch III will start off with capacity at 40,713 from 4/10 until 7/2. After July 2nd, and the completion of construction in the Left Field seating area, capacity will jump to 46,816.
What Clubs Have Sales Down?
Time will tell on those not in the “rosy” column. As mentioned, teams aren’t exactly excited about announcing that business is down. One club that will likely see a drop off is the Seattle Mariners where the club has posted sub-90 loss seasons back-to-back. Last season the Mariners sold 17,100 season tickets.