Cardinals Cutting Payroll, Blame Decrease in Ticket Sales and Sponsorships

The Cardinals will open the season with a roster making about $93.2 million, down about $8.5 million from last season.  Cardinals Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. says the team is “tightening our belts” in the “challenging economic environment.”

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This is the first season in the new Busch Stadium’s 4-year history that 3 million seats won’t be sold before Opening Day.  Things aren’t that dire in St. Louis – they’ve already sold 2.7 million tickets.

In addition to a decline in ticket sales, DeWitt reports that “sponsorship categories like automotive and financial are not as strong as they were before. We’re seeing some slippage.”

Back to ticket sales, the Cardinals have had a 92-93% renewal rate among season ticket holders, but they’re struggling to fill the all-inclusive and premium-seating areas that usually are bought by corporations and civic groups.  I think that season ticket renewals would have been even lower if the Cardinals weren’t hosting the All Star Game this year.

Angels Add Priciest Seats in the Stadium

Angel Stadium has an area set aside at field level just past each dugout for the extra photographers who show up for the playoffs.  In past years, that real estate has gone unused.  Siezing on an obvious opportunity (the Cubs did the same thing a few years ago on the first base line), the Angels have added 18 seats in each space.  The seats cost $215 each and are being sold in mini-packages of 8 games.  About 60% of the seats have been sold so far.

A’s Season Ticket Sales Are Down

Buried in this article about a potential future home for the A’s somewhere other than Oakland, owner Lew Wolff reports that season ticket sales are down “more than I’d like.”

Given that the team hasn’t been in the playoffs for a few years, plays in a horrible stadium, and is actively looking to leave the city, this should not be a surprise.  If the A’s compete (the combination of adding Matt Holliday and injuries to the Angels pitching staff makes it very possible), I expect that some fans will return.  But the A’s have had trouble drawing in fans for years and there’s no reason to think that will change this year.

Mets Ticket Sales Up, But Lines at Shea are Down

Yesterday, the Mets put tickets on sale for April and May games other than Opening Day.  While in years past, the first day tickets went on sale, there have been long lines at Shea that start forming a day ahead of time, this year a much smaller group showed up.

The reason isn’t a decrease in interest in Mets tickets.  They’re opening a new stadium this year and have a revamped bullpen that makes them a popular playoff pick.  In fact, ticket sales are up 10% over last year, when they were second in the major leagues in attendance.  And on Sunday, the Mets sold 50,000 tickets, which is about the same number they sold last year the first day tickets were on sale.  But a major difference is that last year, the entire season was on sale as opposed to beinglimited to April and May games like this year.

Yankees Continue to Struggle to Sell Remaining Premium Seats

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times went on one of the tours the Yankees gave on Sunday to anyone expressing interest in buying some of the remaining season tickets for seats ranging from $350 – $2500.   From his description, none of the people in his group were going to buy the seats and some of them were clearly on the tour only for the thrill of getting inside the New Yankee Stadium.

Opening Day at Yankee Stadium is about a month away; they will not sell out the season.  That said, I’m not convinced the Yankees erred in their seat pricing.  I’d have to know exactly how many seats are available, but if, as I suspect, they sold the overwhelming majority in this economic climate, my hunch is those seats will all be bought up next year or the year after.  And people will pay ridiculously high prices.

White Sox Ticket Sales Up, Sponsorships Going Down

In this interview, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf reports that ticket sales for the regular season are ahead of where they were last year in spite of the economy.  Of course, this year’s team is the defending 2008 AL Central Champions whereas last year they were coming off a 72-win season and few people expected them to be competitive.

As far as sponsorships, Reinsdorf reports that the White Sox lost a few this year, but he expects to lose more next year.  Apparently a number of sponsors, including Chevrolet, had deals that expire after this season and Reinsdorf does not expect them to renew.

Griffey Signing Helps Mariners Sell Tickets, Excites Local Businesses

The Seattle Times reports that local businesses are excited  about the return of Ken Griffey Jr.  One local memorabilia shop is so optimistic that they have actually raised the prices of Griffey-related memorabilia.

Local businesses will be especially happy to know that the Griffey signing led to a boost in ticket sales.   Within two days of the announcement on February 18 that Griffey was returning, the Mariners sold 23,000 tickets in full and partial season ticket packages.

New York State Considers Requiring Affordable Tickets be Sold

The New York State Assembly is considering a law that requires that 7% of tickets to any sporting event be “affordable” if the event takes place in a building that was built or rehabbed with government funds.  In New York, that includes both the new Yankee Stadium as well as Citi Field.

The bill does not include a definition of the word “affordable.”  It does say that the tickets would have to be affordable to residents of the host community.  The bill does not say how community would be identified.  The Yankees, whose stadium sits in the impoverished South Bronx, have come out against the bill.

NY Gov. Patterson Drops Ticket Tax Idea

Embattled New York Governor David Patterson has dropped his idea of adding a 4% tax to every ticket sale.  Patterson’s rationale was that since the state is getting money from the Federal Stimulus Package, the need to raise as much in tax revenue dissipated.  Whatever the reason, scalpers applauded the Governor’s decision.

MLB Says WBC is More Successful This Year

The World Baseball Classic is underway.  If you’ve been watching, you’ve seen some undeniably exciting baseball.  Of course, if you, like me, don’t have the MLB Network, then you’ve had to miss some games.  For reasons that are clear to absolutely nobody, the powers that be in MLB have decided to sell the WBC without giving Americans access to all of the games.

Despite that, the WBC is, financially, doing better this year than it did when it debuted in 2006.  For one thing, attendance is up by 38% and sponsorship revenue is up more than 50%. However, a lot of that could be due to the fact that this year, first round games were played outside the United States.  It is less clear how well the WBC is doing in the United States.

That said,  TV ratings on ESPN are up.  And a game between the U.S. and Venezuela outdrew a Cavaliers-Celtics game on TV.  While that is good news for baseball, an international battle between what was close to two All-Star teams should outdraw a regular season basketball game.  Compare that to Japan where the TV ratings for the Japan-Korea game got a higher rating than any sporting event in Japan than any sporting event since the 2006 WBC Final between Japan and Cuba, including the Beijing Olympics.

I will be attending the Semi-Finals in Los Angeles next weekend.   The games are nowhere close to sold out and ticket sales on the secondary market appear to be incredibly sluggish.   There are few listings on eBay and those that are there are either not selling or they are selling for less than face value.