Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Jays Early Season Attendance

Given the economic situation I thought I'd keep an eye on the Jays attendance this year. We'd all like the payroll to go back up next year, and I figure this years attendance will be a factor in that decision.

Through the first ten games, attendance is down about 60,000. However, last year the home season opened with a weekend series against the Red Sox, normally amongst the season's biggest gates so that skews the totals a little.

As with examining anything in April it's too early to reach any kind of conclusions, but I'll be keeping an eye on this as the season progresses. Hopefully, the Jays presence at the top of the AL East will spark some interest in the next few weeks.

Posted by Gwyn on Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 02:59 PM EDT.

Jays Early Season Attendance | 24 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

whiterasta80 - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 03:11 PM EDT (#199118) #

More specifically, hopefully attendance will go up such that we can be buyers soon (doubt it though).

Flex - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 03:18 PM EDT (#199120) #

Well, one thing is there are two weekends to factor into 2008 and only one in 2009. Also, I believe they're counting attendance differently this year, not factoring in any discounted or comp tickets.

But besides that, the Jays braintrust is partly to blame for any decline. All off-season fans were told this was a "reloading" year, that nothing much was to be expected, that so little was expected, in fact, that it wasn't worth shopping for even bargain free-agents who might help the team. Even in spring training we were essentially being told, "wait till next year."

So of course attendance is down. Any other result would be inexplicable.

MatO - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 03:18 PM EDT (#199121) #

I don't think attendance figures will be comparable this year as the Jays are reporting actual paid attendance. Freebies will not be included. This was a new directive by Paul Beeston I believe.

christaylor - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 04:13 PM EDT (#199126) #

MatO - do you have a link?

The only information I could find relating to this question suggested that the Jays are going to announce paid attendance rather than those marching through the turnstiles, which I'd suggest is going to inflate attendance this year.

My reasoning is: even if the Jays were giving away thousands of freebies I doubt all of those ticket holders went to the games. I'd bet many freebies (I know of at least one set that went unused) were unused. Also, all those paid seasons tickets that often go unused will now be counted as they are paid.

Caveat: I don't know what those little scanners are able to discern - were the Jays actually measuring the rate of "freebie usage", were they even able to tell a free ticket from a paid ticket (my freebies had a price on them of $25).

At any rate, the current system is more in line with how most teams announce attendance or at least in line with how I think most teams announce attendance (across the major NA sports).

MatO - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 04:21 PM EDT (#199127) #

http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/614846

I see your point about the turnstile count but I've heard this stated a number of times on the radio as well.

Moe - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 05:00 PM EDT (#199132) #

Keep in mind what matters is average ticket price and we have no info on that. So even if it's all paid tickets and these are all $2 or $5 seats it's not going to help much.

But I agree, it's their own fault. Announcing they would be bad in a year in which the economy is going down and everyone is thinking twice before spending money on entertainment wasn't a smart move. Nevertheless, if the Jays are still in it by the time NHL playoffs are over, the numbers will go up. Also, I would think that if the feeling is that the Jays would be contenders next year, these early season numbers won't matter too much. But if they think they won't be in it and need an excuse to cut spending they will come in handy.

John Northey - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 05:04 PM EDT (#199133) #

In the past the AL was the league that counted tickets sold/given away (thus the number of seats that could have a butt in them) while the NL was total who actually showed up. In the late 90's, iirc, the NL shifted to the AL method.

I suspect the Star article is incorrect, that the Jays are basically saying that they won't count free tickets anymore. In truth, during the JP era we have seen the free ticket cut down drastically. Back in the Ash years the Jays tickets were being given away like mad - perhaps he was going by the movie theater theory where you hope for food sales to more than cover the ticket cost. When JP came in, be it via him or Godfrey, there was an announcement that those days were ending. Thus explaining why Rogers likes JP so much - he cut out the free stuff in exchange for money without seeing an attendance hit.

China fan - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 06:54 PM EDT (#199135) #

To be accurate about it, the Jays never "announced" that "we will be bad in 2009." This is a big distortion. What they actually said was, "We've decided to go with the youngsters, so that we'll find out what we have for 2010." The heavy negativism, in fact, came mostly from the media and from web forums such as Da Box itself. Everyone assumed that the failure to sign any big-name free agents was some kind of admission of defeat in 2008. But the Jays never admitted defeat -- they just avoided the excessive hype that resulted in overblown expectations in previous years. The Jays expressed faith in their younger players (Snider, Lind, the pitchers) and they expressed faith in a bounce-back by veterans such as Rolen, Overbay, Wells etc. I would argue that the Jays were being optimistic, not pessimistic, and it was actually us, not them, who assumed that they would be a bad team in 2009.

VBF - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 08:51 PM EDT (#199140) #

Even in the Godfrey era leading up to last year there were significant amounts of tickets given out, and you could tell. If the 200 level is packed for no particular reason (other than toonie Tuesday or AYCE Weekends) there's a pretty good chance those are all free ticket giveaways. Last year the Jays would give away 500 level tickets on weekends to entire baseball organizations--and if you're going to give away your product (which is stupid and assinine) you may as well prospect WHO you're giving them away to.

$1 dogs don't have the same branding value as 'toonie Tuesdays' but making people buy their ticket in exchange for a discounted item isn't bad. Getting rid of Toonie Tuesdays was a great idea from a marketing point of view: the average toonie Tuesday purchaser found the game to be an afterthought of the experience--those people have no value to the organization and there's no indication that the experience will stimulate future purchasing.

I've noticed Baltimore, Cleveland, KC, Washington all drawing hideous attendance figures. The Jays haven't had any competition that would entice people to come out anyways. Things will pick up.

VBF - Wednesday, April 29 2009 @ 11:02 PM EDT (#199144) #

More specifically, hopefully attendance will go up such that we can be buyers soon (doubt it though).

I would wager that current attendance doesn't factor too much into being buyers or sellers. It can be assumed that competitive (not the faking stuff we saw last September) September baseball will sell tickets. All competitive Septembers in franchise history have sold tickets. If the Jays are showing serious signs of contention by the deadline, the questions Rogers will ask themselves are the same ones they've always asked themselves. I suspect that in that situation they will want to be buyers. Contention + Player X will sell tickets.

The Jays financial success in their ability to buy free agents doesn't (or shouldn't!)play as much a role with Rogers ownership simply because Rogers gets its value through their branding. They put their logo on the broadcasts, on the stadium, in the stadium, just about everywhere. It's unknown what the monetary value is on that, but I'd be willing to bet that if the Jays sold all that branding space to other companies they'd be making a nice coin. This is why it's frustrating to see payroll going down and people in the organization losing their jobs. The Blue Jays might be one of Rogers best marketing tools.

I wonder what the value of branding a new Blue Jays stadium would be for Rogers, though I think you'll see the conglomeration of MLSE and Rogers Sports and Ent. for that.

Richard S.S. - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 03:43 AM EDT (#199152) #

Toronto is down 6307.7 fans per games. Average ticket price will be $20.00 - $25.00 per person ($22.50 avg.). Concessions: $10.00 - $15.00 per person ($12.50 avg.). Programs and souvenirs: $12.50 - $17.50 ($15.00). Toronto is down $315,385.00 per game, $25,546,185.00 this season. This is significant money. Of course they are making $1,019,830.00 per game, $82,606,230.00 this season. With $22,500,000.00 in T.V. revenues ($105,106,230.00) Toronto is doing OK, but is still shy $27,346,185.00 this season. Consider: Team Salaries: ($85.0M.); Coaching/Managerial staff: (?); Office staff/ Executive structure (?); Operatings costs/ devaluations (?); Dollar equalization (Exchange Rate?). Costs are considerably, so attendance is key.

Richard S.S. - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 04:22 AM EDT (#199153) #

To figure out average ticket prices try http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/tor/ballpark/seating_pricing.jsp; maybe you'll get a better idea of value.

Moe - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 10:01 AM EDT (#199160) #

Richard, I don't think the calculation is this easy.

The question is what is the average price of the tickets that people don't buy any more. A lot of the expensive seats are sold as season tickets so unless season ticket sales are down a lot what could happen is that the average paid price is actually up (extreme case: all the lost seats are $5 seats, no change elsewhere). Unless we have that breakdown, it is hard to know what the actual loss in revenue is.

With respect to concessions etc, the question is how many less people are actually in the dome relative to last year. Not everyone with a ticket shows up, so even if announced attendance is 25000, it could easily be that there are only 20000 at the game. From TV, it looks like the dome is not as full as last year, so this part could actually be worse than you estimate, especially is people also buy less if they are at the game (true for me).

Also, I think you are mixing up Can$ and US$. Most revenue is in Can$, salaries are in US$.

I agree with your conclusion, attandance is key, but at this point it's hard to know how bad it is (a) b/c we don't have the info and (b) there were very few games (only one weekend, no Boston, Detroit, NY...)

Pistol - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 10:13 AM EDT (#199161) #

To be accurate about it, the Jays never "announced" that "we will be bad in 2009." This is a big distortion. What they actually said was, "We've decided to go with the youngsters, so that we'll find out what we have for 2010."

I think that's called 'spin'. When you're looking forward to 2010 prior to 2009 beginning (which all of Jays management was talking about in spring training) that's a pretty clear sign that you don't expect to be a playoff contender in 2009. Were the Rays, Sox, or Yankees talking about 2010 in spring training? Of course not. Why? Because they expect to win now (and every year for that matter).

Magpie even said team officials gave him odd looks at the beginning of the year when he told them he expected the team to be good this year.

It's great that the team is off to a great start, but I think it's a stretch to think the Jays thought they would be in playoff contention. I don't think they thought they would be bad, but I don't think they had any expectations above 85 wins.

christaylor - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 10:17 AM EDT (#199162) #

While this is an interesting discussion, as others have said, it is way to early to look at how a single team is doing economically; not enough data. The Jays year over year make for a particularly bad comparison as the teams that have played at the dome thus far are, I'd bet, pretty bad historical draws (with the possible exception of Detroit but memories of 1987 only take us so far) compared to BOS who was in last year.

I find that our Buddy the commissioner has already felt the need to comment that Yankee ticket prices need to be lowered a far, far, more interesting story than any dent in Jays attendance.

Also, the mess in the NHL is also somewhat more compelling as well (as I've been rooting for that league to implode for quite some time).

I can see a huge Argonaut/CFL mess in the future.

The goodwill handed to TFC will dry-up because the on-field product is so terminally lame.

I wonder what the drop will be in Raptor seasons tickets this year?

There are a ton of interesting business of sport stories, sure, but in this economic context, even with the down estimates, it is hard not to say that the Jays are doing well for a sports team, in this town, despite the times.

VBF - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 02:54 PM EDT (#199164) #

To say that revenues are down $300,000 doesn't account for the difference in teams through the same amount of games. The Jays drew 30,000+ for the weekend Red Sox series to open the home schedule, but a Red Sox series any other weekend draws 40,000+.

As well, the attendance figures this far into the season last year, took into account two Toonie Tuesday games which have been discontinued. 6,000 fans paying five bucks, is better than 12,000 fans paying two bucks, which is what it was last year. And the free tickets for Wednesdays and Thursdays against bad teams really haven't been continued at all, either.

Attendance is a big part of the puzzle, no doubt, but the Jays draw relatively huge TV ratings (compared to the Indians and the Cleveland area or Oakland and the Oakland area) which make up a pretty big chunk of revenue and branding space. That's the value for Rogers and the only reason why they're in this whole baseball thing.

Thomas - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 03:25 PM EDT (#199166) #

The goodwill handed to TFC will dry-up because the on-field product is so terminally lame.

Do tell. What is so lame about the on-field product of TFC so far this season? The fact that they have the 3rd best point total in all over Major League Soccer or that they are leading the Eastern Conference?

christaylor - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 08:23 PM EDT (#199174) #

Good for TFC, but I ought to have been more specific -- the on-field product I was referring to wasn't a claim about the relative ability of TFC to other MLS clubs, but a claim about the quality of the play in MLS as a whole.

Thomas - Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 08:44 PM EDT (#199178) #

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. That the quality of play in the MLS isn't equivalent to the English Premier League or La Liga isn't news to anyone. Regardless of what the quality of play is like compared to other leagues, it is the best live soccer in North America and many soccer enthusiasts seem to have embraced it. That the MLS has expanded in each of the past three seasons and will in the next two seasons indicates that the MLS appears to be rising in popularity, not declining as people suddenly realize that the best players in the world are found in England and Spain.

Furthermore, TFC has sold over 16,000 season tickets and there are 14,000 people on the season tickets waiting list, all of whom I'm sure are exactly aware of the quality of play of the MLS. So, I'm not sure why you think that an erosion of the "goodwill" granted to the franchise is about to occur, given that the team is finally showing the beginnings of on-field success.

christaylor - Friday, May 01 2009 @ 12:24 AM EDT (#199188) #

If you'd like chalk this up to a matter of taste - I can't bear to watch MLS (unlike my attitude toward watching EPL or the World Cup) and have had zero interest in attending a game but I have caught one on television. If people want to watch what amounts to worse than minor-league soccer then so-be-it. By erosion of goodwill what I was getting at simply this: MLS in Toronto is a fad and a novelty. It'll end and probably sooner rather than later. Only time will tell but colour me surprised if the TFC is around in its current form a decade from now.

On the league itself, the fact that there's a drive to expand without as far as I can tell, a solid base throughout NA shows merely that MLS is eager to repeat the mistakes of the NASL. Expansion isn't necessarily a sign of a healthy league (see the NHL).

Full disclosure: I thought the building of a single-use soccer-only stadium on the CNE grounds was a lousy idea and a boondoggle. 20,000/game at TFC games doesn't change my opinion in the slightest.

Thomas - Friday, May 01 2009 @ 01:40 AM EDT (#199196) #

If people want to watch what amounts to worse than minor-league soccer then so-be-it. By erosion of goodwill what I was getting at simply this: MLS in Toronto is a fad and a novelty. It'll end and probably sooner rather than later. Only time will tell but colour me surprised if the TFC is around in its current form a decade from now.

Most estimates I've read (and my own observations) would place MLS soccer somewhere between Championship and First Division soccer. I would expect a good MLS team could probably finish below mid-table but comfortably out of the relegation zone in the Championship and a poor one could probably finish mid-table in the First Division. I disagree that this amounts to "minor league soccer", but regardless of how you want to classify it, there are dozens of clubs in England who play in the Championship or lower and have rabid fanbases. And this is despite the availability of EPL soccer likely within an hour's drive or train ride.

As for the last sentence, I'd wait until the waiting list of season ticket holders equals the current number of season ticket holders or until what is likely the best fanbase in the MLS shows some signs of eroding before declaring the likely demise of TFC. It may happen, but their first two and a half years could hardly have gone better, save for the on-field product at times.

China fan - Friday, May 01 2009 @ 04:36 AM EDT (#199198) #

Pistol, you make some good points, but I never said that the Jays believed they would be in playoff contention this year. My point was simply that it is inaccurate for people to blame the reduced attendance on the Jays having "written off the season" because they never did that. The Jays never "announced they will be bad." They never said "wait until next season." It was the fans (many of them) who took that attitude, not the team. The Jays essentially said: we're going to try out the young players (the Romeros, Richmonds, Sniders and Linds) and see how they do. They took a gamble that the younger players would be better than the mid-range free agents. Yes, that was partly motivated by financial reasons, but it was also a praiseworthy decision to give a chance to the kids.

In 2007 and 2008, we were bashing the Jays for bringing in mediocre veterans (the Stewarts, Ohkas, Wilkersons, Menches, etc) instead of giving the kids a chance. So this season, when the Jays finally go with the kids, we shouldn't accuse them of "writing off the season." I think Ricciardi had a hunch that the kids would be good. I think he didn't mind if the expectations were lowered, if the fans weren't expecting a playoff contender this year, but I don't think he ever said "wait until next season" and he certainly never "announced that the Jays would be bad."

VBF - Friday, May 01 2009 @ 11:45 AM EDT (#199210) #

Toronto FC does well at the gate, but their television ratings and I imagine radio ratings leave much to be desired. This indicates to me that apart from the 20,000 people at the stadium, and the 14,000 who want to be at the stadium, people aren't as interested in the actual games, and moreso the scene.

There is no question that they are a fad, with some exceptions. They have developed a very strong core of 2,000 die-hard fans and support groups which jump started this whole 'crazy TFC fan' kind of thing. Those fans will likely never lose their loyalty to the brand. As well, when a team only plays 16 home games, or whatever it is, season ticket sales aren't as much as an investment as the Jays or Raptors are--it's a fairly affordable ticket. People don't need to question if they want to renew, because it's basically nothing for great entertainment. These factors may keep people in the stands for longer than Tigers fans kept buying season tickets (season ticket sales this year decreased from about 28,000 to 15,000), but it will eventiually decrease.

ComebyDeanChance - Sunday, May 03 2009 @ 12:37 AM EDT (#199297) #

Thus explaining why Rogers likes JP so much - he cut out the free stuff in exchange for money without seeing an attendance hit.

Ricciardi and every other major league GM has absolutely nothing to do with ticket prices, sales, promotions, or marketing. Completely outside of their bailiwick.

Attendance Saturday was the lowest in baseball. (18,300). For a first place team.

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