Ahhhhh Friday
DMZ · March 17, 2006 at 12:14 am · Filed Under Mariners
Team had an off day yesterday, so no game stories.
Mariners got about 2,000 fewer season ticket holders compared to last year to about 15,000. I’m curious whether that’s full-season or includes 16-game plans (you’d think it’d be full-season). That’s a lot of money disappearing (though, of course, many of those people will likely still attend some games).
Tomorrow! The hated Padres! Vina may actually play a game! Bloomquist may return! Will the excitement never stop?
the only arguement I had with Hickey’s article is that he confuses tickets sold [which is used for paid attendance figures] and actual butts in the seats.
19,486 may have been the fewest tickets sold for any game, but there have been several dates over the last 2 years where the M’s have had fewer than 20,000 actually show up for the game.
1) Tickets Sold
2) Butts In Seats
I’m sure we can all agree on which of the two the Mariners’ FO cares more about.
Hub – I don’t know about that. People who don’t actually show up for the game don’t buy beer and hotdogs there.
If You Lose, They Won’t Come…
U.S.S Mariner notes that Seattle season ticket sales are down. Baseball Musings is conducting a pledge drive in March. Click here for details…….
I can’t cite a source, but I seem to think that number includes 1/2 season tickets for sure. Otherwise they’d talk about the 1/2 season plans as “additional” season tickets sold. E.g., “13000 plus the equivalent of 4000 in plans”. And there’s something about how they did playoff tickets in the back of my mind too that affects the counting.
Either way, that’s a huge dropoff from even two years ago. No doubt ownership notices and is doing something about it. If only they were doing something intelligent about it.
They treat 16-game plan holders like season ticket holders, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re in the calcuations as well.
They really pushed the season ticket holders hard this year to sign back up. They had a “holiday party” where we got to rove the park on a frikkin’ cold Saturday in November to get a Christmas card pick with the Moose. They were also promoting this thing where season ticket holders could buy all the giveaways for the season in advance.
Oh, and as Deanna mentioned weeks ago, they didn’t raise the prices on season ticket holders, so we’re still paying 2004 per seat prices.
We signed up anyway, despite now hauling a toddler to the stadium. It’s like heroin, you know.
I wonder if the exciting new 4-game plans count as season tickets 🙂
If you figure those 2,000 people might not come back (barring contention), that puts the M’s right around 2.6 million, which is where Baltimore and Texas hang out. That’s nearly a million fans down from the peak of 2001-2002.
You’d think they’d like those million fans back…
Mychael Urban (of the A’s site) wrote about Felix a few days back … In WBC news, the ousted US players think they needed more time to “jell” as a team and so will show up earlier next time, Rob Manfred & Dick Pound are bitching each other out again, and Scott Miller wraps up the whole thing.
oh, and ESPN has a nice piece on Cameron
You’d think they’d like those million fans back…
What would someone guess the revenue dollars are from a millon additional butts in seats?
adding my glowing firmament
On the season ticket sales v butts in seats: it’s not an either/or choice. If they had their choice, the team would love to have a guaranteed sell out at day-of prices. But as with all things, it’s more complicated: having a large group of season ticket holders means that a massive amount of revenue is guaranteed no matter how badly the team does that year, and it’s paid early.
That’s worth a lot.
Dick Pound is a POS and if he fell off the earth, the world of sport would improve dramatically. His dealing in professional cycling have been heavy handed and he is at the forefront of assumption of guilt using test procedures that are not proven.
Just to back up what dw said, 16-game holders have a season ticket holder number, pay the same prices and have the same perks as the other packages, so I suspect those numbers do include 16-game holders. I only renewed this week, after avoiding it for a long time. I dropped from the weekend package to the 16-game package last year, and was strongly considering not renewing this year because the team annoys me so much. The lure of baseball proved too much, but at least they didn’t get to sit on my deposit for a while.
It’s also fair to note that WADA’s criticism of MLB has beyond the reasonable before, though I’ll also warn that when I’ve noted the possible conflict of interest inherent in WADA attacking MLB for not using and paying WADA, I’ve gotten some reallllly nasty feedback accusing me of all kinds of unsavory things (unrelated to actual unsavory things we’re engaged in here at USSM)
I am willing to forgive Mr. Pound’s behavior, as it must undeniably be the result of the merciless teasing he undoubtedly received in junior high.
The man’s name is Dick Pound. I think he has a right to be angry.
I don’t understand why he’s still ranting about hGH. They can’t test for it anyway, so who cares if it’s banned? Hey, I just saw an advertisement for hGH in a newsmagazine a couple of weeks ago.
Should we be surprised that season ticket sales are down? What about single game tickets?
I was able to get good opening day tickets after they had been on sale for an hour. I was also surprised to see great seats for games against the Yankees, which usually get bought up early even if it’s during the week. Especially since the M’s play the Yanks for only one series at The Safe.
I haven’t been back to Ticketmaster since March 1st, so I don’t know how single game ticket sales are doing now.
I never buy anything but single game tickets off the website, mostly because I hate to (and often can’t) plan far in advance. This year I’ll be buying them about a week ahead of time, whenever I can calculate with reasonable certainty which game will have Felix pitching.
All these people dropping out and we still could only move our tickets one section closer. Damn.
I like to buy my tickets off the resellers hanging out on King and Occidental. About 15 minutes before game time they’re prices start dropping.
The problem is that, as the article mentioned, it’s hard to get pre-sales to games during the week when kids are in school. (Part of the reason attendance is dismal during the week in April and September- night games in 40 degree wet weather are still pretty miserable up in the 300 level even with a roof, with winds swirling around.)
The way you make up for that is by being in a pennant race come September, so people will buy walk-up tickets. The problem is the M’s have not only been bad, but they’ve been all but eliminated by Memorial Day the last two years, ending up well below .500 with exactly no A’s-like capacity to come back from the dead.
If that happens again this year, it’s not a prescription for big sales in September.
Joser said: I never buy anything but single game tickets off the website, mostly because I hate to (and often can’t) plan far in advance. This year I’ll be buying them about a week ahead of time, whenever I can calculate with reasonable certainty which game will have Felix pitching.
Good strategy. You’ll probably get away with it. I just bought tickets today against the Yankees. Only one of three games that the Yanks will play at The Safe, and I still got seats where I wanted.
PS: YAAAAAY BUNTING
OK, let’s try that again: YAAAAAY BUNTING
“The day you see Richie bunt,” Hargrove said Friday morning, “You should get the straitjacket and put me in the paddy wagon.”
Great stuff! We’ll see if Hargrove will have to eat his words …
Was listening to the Matt Lawton love on the Ms broadcast. I was curious so I looked up his player card. I was surprised to read that Lawton had 20 HR in 591 ABs in 2004 for Cleveland. He also had a .366 OBP that year. Not trying to argue that the now 34 year old Lawton deserves to play every day. Still, his 2004 as an everyday compares favorably to what Ibanez and Beltre did last year.
I usually buy tickets the day the single games go on sale. I didn’t this year. (I’ve spent a lot of cash teaching my kids to ski this year, and will spend more on that next winter, so it was more a budget decision than a statement about the Ms. Plus, I have a baseball weekend planned in Chicago, so that impacted the cash too.)
I’ll still watch every game on TV.
As long as Carl Everett is the regular DH, Lawton deserves to play everyday.
Sherrill is not having a good spring. Doug Miller talked to him yesterday
Hickey blogs that “Right-handed pitcher Kevin Appier had a setback in his bid to win a job on the Seattle pitching staff this spring when he limped off the field in the top of the fifth inning. Appier, pitching in relief of Gil Meche, was running to cover first base … Appier never quite made it to first base, coming up limping. The initial diagnosis was that Appier had suffered a strained right calf muscle. Hickey also reports that T.J. Bohn was optioned to AAA and Pineiro is expected in camp Saturday with Puerto Rico having been eliminated from the second round.
Choska said: I was surprised to read that Lawton had 20 HR in 591 ABs in 2004 for Cleveland. He also had a .366 OBP that year. Not trying to argue that the now 34 year old Lawton deserves to play every day. Still, his 2004 as an everyday compares favorably to what Ibanez and Beltre did last year.
Keep in mind that Lawton is suspended for the first 10 games of the season for using steriods. To me, that means his production in previous seasons is questionable.
“Keep in mind that Lawton is suspended for the first 10 games of the season for using steriods. To me, that means his production in previous seasons is questionable.”
Except he admitted that he took steroids and that it was after he joined the Yankees. I understand what you are saying, but he has been pretty upfront about his steroid use once he was caught.
He’s been open about some use. That’s no reason to believe that was his only use.
But, I would also argue that we have no reason to believe that his use has stopped, so his production might continue.
But, I would also argue that we have no reason to believe that his use has stopped
well, there is the 10-game suspension at the start of the year, and the fact that he’d be out for a 100 games for a second suspension to act as a deterent….
Baseball hasn’t been clear as to whether infractions under the old system count as infractions under the new system with regard to repeat offenders.
But beyond that, there are vastly many substances players can use that avoid detection.
OK, the St. Patrick’s Day M’s caps? Not working for me.
Here’s the thing:
Lawton’s last two years runs created: 5.21, 4.77 Lifetime: 5.26
Everett’s last two years runs created: 4.14, 4.53 Lifetime: 5.61
Everett can’t play the OF any more.
BTW- Randy Winn’s 3 years in Seattle’s runs created (not including SF): 5.24, 5.03, 4.53
Lawton is basically a poor man’s Randy Winn. There’s really no reason why we couldn’t have put the money we spent on Everett towards the difference between Washburn and Millwood, and gone with Morse as the primary OF. Heck, we could have spent money on another bench player.
Urge to rant rising…
Those green caps clash horribly with the new teal.
Eeaaggh!
I’m curious about about a spot on the bench for Petagine.
Can he play any other position besides first? I keep seeing Dobbs get most of the PT at third with Beltre gone. If that last bench spot is between Morse, Dobbs and Petagine, it would probably help Petagine a bit if he could play left field or third. It seems so far that he has been limited to first base in the games thus far.
Jason Churchill seems to think that its a good bet that he will hit better than dinoman (and thus could steal some AB’s as DH) in his scouting report on Prosepect Insider.
Anyone else want to comment Petegine’s chances of making the team?
Morse as the primary outfielder? Even if he could handle it defensively, wouldn’t his .200 SLG be a little low for a corner outfielder? 😛
Hey how ’bout Meche! tonight….. his heart of a warrior performance was eclipsed only by Leone!and his monster lumber…..
That should have read “primary OF backup”. Bloomquist could cover CF, Morse could handle the corner positions.
There is some news on a Mariner. Do you think this guy is an Ichiro fan?
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2006031893928
If anyone is still checking this thread.
IIRC, a few years ago, the team said that partial packages counted as that fraction of a season. So, it would take about 5 16-game packages to make one “season ticket sold”. But who knows, maybe they’ve changed that.