Never took it the wrong way about your love for Shea.

BTW – Those Yankee attendance figures I spoke about were paid admissions and not no-shows. In turn, we don’t have any idea how many no-shows there actually were, both with the Yankees and the Mets. And I didn’t quote figures for this season – those I used were from last season and 2010 – when the Yankees were the reigning world champions.

So the bottom line is that there is only so much a team can charge the fans for tickets, processing fees, parking and concessions before more simply stop coming.

BTW – even though the cost of parking at Yankee Stadium is outrageous, there are private parking lots within a half mile from the Stadium that one could get for $25. Though cheaper that is still a lot to ask for and they are not exactly convenient., either.

http://nyc.centralparking.com/New-York-Yankee-Parking.html

But that wouldn’t bother me at all. I can park where I work and simply take the Metro North which is right by us.

I mean we lost the Jets because of the old tired bathrooms, It was not what you would call a pretty stadium by any measure and the main reason people loved it is because of what happened there not because of the site itself.

I knew the stadium like the back of my hand and still get lost sometimes in Citi, But thats what happens when your a season ticket holder for 10 years and learn the public spaces then work close to 200 Games in all the backstage service areas doing baseball broadcasts.

It will always be a place I fondly remember but it was not what you would call a particularly great venue in and of itself.

Yankees attendance problems stem from thier recent losing and the fact it costs 35+ to park there (even if you just work there!)

Food prices are sky high ticket prices are top dollar…
Yet you don’t hear about them needing a loan from the MLB to pay the bills!
Remember just because you see empty seats doesn’t mean those tickets went unsold!
The seats you see on TV are all the reserved Season Ticket seats and if a company snaps them up they will go empty more than filled!
But the check to pay them still cleared!

But of course, that is sentiment and just like Ruben Tejada should not be compared to Jose Reyes, Citi Field should not be compared to Shea, either.

But I’m just wondering about a winner filling the ball park each day. The Yankees have yet to sell those expensive season plans and we see so many empty field level seats between the bases. Last season they played to an average 8,000 empty seats per game and this season attendance is dwindling even more (even in 2010 they had only a few sellouts, averaging about 4,000 empty seats a game. Is it becoming too expensive for many to even go see this championship team anymore?

Of course, the Yankees can afford these “smaller” crowds (the Mets should be so lucky LOL). Probably because the Steinbrenners are not having the financial problems that the Wilpons have and with YES can “float” things like with the Red Sox in Boston with NESN.

So perhaps it’s a matter of if the Wilpons will get their financial affairs back on the right track so they too can float the Mets for I don’t know if fans will be willing to spend so much, even on a winner, to sustain a club depending upon such high costs. Don’t forget, there are enough Met fans who are excited about this team now that would love to go. I saw something a while back where both Met and Yankee fans said they couldn’t afford to go to as many games as in the past because it was just too expensive. And even holdouts like my wife and I gave into our innate love affair with this club and were looking to take advantage of special ticket pricing to go to a game until we found the total cost with those additional fees made it not worth the money.

As for their decision with CitiField, Lets face facts we all have a lot of great memories about Shea but it was hardly what you would call a beloved stadium and considering the Yankees were also building a new stadium it’s hard to say they had much of a choice in the matter.

There were a ton of issues with the design and financing of CitiField, for one the City kicked in much less money than the original plan had requested and that led to major revisions to the design of CitiField as well. I remember the original proposal had a retractable field to transition the field for concerts and possibly the return of the Jets. That got squashed as soon as the Budget needed to be cut. I think there was even talk about a retractable roof!

I would bet that the seating was also scaled back a bit due to the budget but also because they did want that intimate ebbets field feel.

It’s hard to say that the reduced number of seats is the problem since they have not yet sold out those reduced number of seats.
Whatever they projected for the average attendance needed was probably based on playing competitive baseball that hasn’t happened since it opened and higher ticket prices which have not been able to be maintained in order to get people to go.

It’s a new stadium in a bad economy and they have yet to get to the point in that stadium where there is a wait list for season tickets. Once they do (and it will probably take a WS to do that) all thier financial and attendance issues will be over!
Even if they aren’t winning WS’ anymore…The wait list will fill in for the STH that leave and there will be plenty of money to spend because they can raise the prices without losing anyone.

Just a lot of bad timing for building a new statdium and the Team Injury timing didn’t help at all!

Wonder if your thoughts are the same as mine on this.

Based on the points you correctly bring out and the assumption there still won’t be money to “float” around at least for the immediate future, do you think the Wilpons painted themselves into a corner in regards to Citi Field?

I have read various quotes that in 2009 ownership projected being able to break even financially with an average attendance of 38,000 based on the ticket prices established at the time (and the consumption of concessions as you mentioned). Well, they have been unable to come close to that mark now going on three seasons and the ticket prices have been reduced so the revenue from both ticket sales and concessions has dropped tremendously. In addition, they counted on revenue from those high priced luxury suites and boxes that have both not been sold and also go for much less (also notice they are now heavily advertising the champions section for individual game seats which I believe they were counting to be gobbled up mostly by season ticket holders).

So how will they be able to both invest in certain free agents and retain some of their younger players when becoming eligible for arbitration or free agency with this tremendous drop in projected resources? Even if they meet their 38,000 average attendance mark, it will be achieved with less revenue coming in from the ticket prices (which I don’t think will be reached due to dynamic pricing). And the increase in additional fees to make up for some of this decrease will still turn away those who were complaining about the ticket prices to be too high to begin with (for example, I was looking at those special ticket prices for certain games and found it still not worth it when the add-on fees made what appeared to be a good deal still too costly).

So, did building a smaller capacity park backfire on them, especially without their other options to keep it “afloat”? That might be why there were no takers for the minority shares.

LGM

As for the float, What I was getting at is even if they had the money it would have been difficult from a business standpoint to give it to the team to float the bills. Wilpon Money isn’t Met money! So the transaction has to be recorded in some way.

Either as the Wilpons giving the Mets a loan….
or in a stock buy which I don’t think was possible at the time since they already owned the stock! You can’t repurchase what you already own.

Thier money situation was not a cause of the Met problems just left one less option to solve it.
They took the stock SELL instead which generated the money they needed just as if they had bought stock that was available and put thier own money up.

So they solved the issue of paying the Bill that existed, made some cuts to be sure the bills would not be as much as they were in years previous and the only thing that can hurt them now is if attendance drops to the point that all the cut made were offset by further loss of revenue.

Which Means Sandy had better find a way to get fannies in the seats or they will need another loan or have to sell more stock to pay the bills.

Only two ways to do that I see…
Win enough games that you convince the fans you really have a shot at winning something or…
Get a player who convinces them that could happen.

Since FA’s are few and far between at this point in the season and anyone worth signing is signed that leaves only one option a trade for someone good who gives everyone hope that the losing days are done and the competitive seasons are here!

Can tell you have a contractual mind by the way you are so “meticulous” to insure there is no chance of ambiguity with even the slightest of words!

“The only affect you could say affected that was that the Wilpons were not in a position to float the team.”

That was more or less the point I wanted to make so my layman’s wording might have not been able to “float” with ya!.

It was not meant to slap all the business holdings together as it was indeed meant to say that had things been going better for the Wilpons in the other areas, they could have been able “float” the losses experienced by the Mets.

Same with the “open checkbook” – not to imply that it was unlimited but rather that there was a real hefty balance for him to work with. And, of course, that was not meant to imply that Omar was just a free spending general manager – no matter what the results of some of his signings might have been.

As far as attendance, you are right of course that breaking even was assumed a combination of ticket and concession sales.

Would like your thoughts as to “dynamic pricing” actually hurting the Mets ticket sales wise than helping them due to fans hesitant to pay for something they might get cheaper. I know that has made me hesitant, considering the expensive add-on fees.

First off the Wilpons didn’t:
1 – Give Omar an open Checkbook he never spent what the Yankees spent. When Omar wanted to go after FAs they let him but they still set budgets and they were not the Sky is the limit budgets. He never signed more than two major contracts in any given year and the two biggest were in 2005 (Martinez and Beltran) when Omar first got there and the reason for the spending was to Increase the attendance…Which it did!

2 – You can’t just slap all the various businesses (and their debt) together just because they all have Sterling’s name on it. The team, the stadium and the Network are all separate entities! Run by different people, with separate accounts, including different partners with different goals and circumstances. The Team itself didn’t go into debt until 2010 when it lost 50 Million and had to take a loan from the MLB to pay expenses. People look at the BoA loan as a debt but that was a bridge loan to cover the 70 Mil of losses in 2011 until the sales went through. The Mets (the Team) are currently Debt free with the exception of what they owe Players (which technically isn’t debt just expenses).
The Stadium has a lot of Debt associated with it but even if that did not exist that money would not be used to pay for the team. Being a Majority owner of any business does not mean you have to use your own personal worth to pay the bills. You have other partners as well and if the Wilpons put money into the team it would be either as a loan to the team (with interest) or they would need to get more stock in the Team for thier money. Since they owned the team for the most part there was no way to put money in and increase their stock. Now that they have sold pieces that option opens up.
In the end the Wilpons situation did not cause the financial issues the team had, Attendance did. The only affect you could say affected that was that the Wilpons were not in a position to float the team.

But it’s hardly thier actions or bad financial planning that is at fault here.
The Economy tanked, the Key players were hurt two years in a row, and all that talk about rebuilding has led to people waiting to go until they see a damn good reason to do so.

And maybe if they play well from here on out, Maybe if they make a move that makes people say HMMM…That will change and then the finances are no longer the issue.

Oh one last point on the stadium, Yes it HAD fewer seats than Shea but it also has much better concessions to make money off of as well. They tried to raise the ticket prices to compensate even more but the team wasn’t good enough to get away with that!

Now with the fences brought in, extra seating added and the team playing well this summer could be the turning point that finally puts all this MONEYTALK to rest!

If it was written to bash the organization for the rebuilding mode we are in……why?

Sure that’s real fair. Let’s compare the stats of a guy who has been with the Mets since 2004 to other players on the Mets that have been here since 2009 (Murph had a cup of coffee in 2008 – he had it standing on 3B w/Wright at bat) – and the rest since 2010.

This was just such a stupid piece. This proves nothing and if he were not here it would depended who we got for him and I HIGHLY doubt that if he did leave the Mets they would not be good for years to come. I HIGHLY doubt that very much..

It’s good that he’s hitting now in April and May, in a nice no pressure atmosphere but in the strange event that the Mets somehow stayed in the hunt – and a lot of that depends on the resurgence of Ike Davis because if he finds himself – then this team is going to turn around and if that happened i would like to see Wright perform in games that mean something again.
We haven’t seen that since 2008 and we know the results. Maybe he’s turned it around for good? We don’t know and we won’t know until we see him play in meaningful games and only then will we be able to tell.

Not really surprising to see Duda on that triples list – except for Wright, nobody on the current roster has even played for more than one full season.

Jose was a helluva player here for many years, especially 2005-2008 and also 2010-2011. Where would he wind up on the all-time leader board?

It’s more than being a success in the field as we can see by both last season’s and this season’s club playing great and exciting baseball as reflected by today’s attendance – the start of three three day Memorial Holiday weekend, the Mets could only draw drew about 3,000 more than the amount of Rusty Staub bobble head dolls they were going to give away.

Another guess is that “dynamic” pricing is hurting them even more at the box office with fans unwilling to buy tickets in advance knowing there is a good chance they could pay less – and by the time those prices go down, they’ve then made other plans instead.

OK, just to clarify the chain of events – technically from a non-technical perspective – LOL.

- The Wilpons had the money when they took over as majority owners in 2005 and gave the front office extreme leverage with spending that money with basically an edict of don’t give us the details, just give us a championship.
- The Wilpons accumulate mounting debt based on long-term projections for the revenue stream from their many holdings (not just the Mets).
- That revenue stream included the assumption that the same amount required to at least break even would come from an average 38,000 patrons annually in a smaller stadium willing to pay more per individual than larger crowds paying individually less.
- The real estate market begins to crumble.
- The Madoff scandal is uncovered in December, 2008
- Fans aren’t willing to pay such money and both attendance and ticket prices start to go down.
- The Wilpons find themselves with large debt, large overhead and less revenue coming in from all sources.
- The Wilpons’ relatively large open check book slowly begins to shrink as the front office signs only one high priced player in Bay and suddenly begins going after the likes of Gary Matthews, Junior, Mike Jacobs, the virtually free Gary Sheffield, Rod Barrahas, etc.
- The financial situation becomes even worse after 2010 and the team is forced to take out a $25 million loan from MLB just to meet it’s monthly operating costs.
- The parent company, Sterling Equities, is now in such a bad financial shape that one who is not interested in becoming the team’s general manager to begin with is urged to do so by the Commissioner and (though not confirmed) the Wilpons are pressured to hire him.
- The Wilpons no longer have anything near the money they had when they took over as majority owners in 2005 and gave the front office no leverage with spending and basically an edict of don’t give us the details, just cut down expenses as much as possible and help us hold onto the ball club.

Sandy’s job was to get their financial house in order no matter what the consequences whereas Omar’s job was to bring them a championship no matter what the consequences. While both want to bring home a winner, one was first concerned with the team on the field than the ledger book while the other is first concerned with the bottom line figures in the ledger book and allowing the business to stay afloat for the current ownership.

A simple time line of events from obviously not a businessperson’s but rather an “observer”.

Good OR Bad…

I don’t think they actually pay all that much attention to what happens on a daily basis I really don’t.
They let the guys they hire run the team and only in cases where they need permission to spend a significant amount of money do they even get consulted and there is far more evidence and precedent that says the Wilpons usually say Hey if you think thats the move go for it!

Most of the examples given to say the Wilpons turned someone down were in cases where the issue was not even brought up to them!

Like the attempt to say Ramirez was nixed despite the fact Omar never asked for permission to go after him.

I really think people make too much out of the input from the Wilpons.

I think Sandy may have realized that he has gotten rid of just about all the fan favorites he is going to get away with!
And Wright would be counter productive because you lose him and whatever you think you saved on him is lost on reduced revenue.

Perhaps the decline in revenue fromk last year showed him just how star driven attendance is in NY with all the competing things there are to do instead!

Bottomline Baseball is an entertainment business. And in the entertainment business star power rules!

You can do shakespere with no names and it will never draw as much as it would with a big name actor playing the lead.

Doesn’t matter how good the product is in that example.
Baseball is different only in the fact that if your getting the good performance you are also CREATING big stars while doing so.
But having a big star will always draw more!

Wright is the biggest star on this team and looking at the rest of the roster there is none bar Santana who only plays one game in 5!

So they Lose Wright they lose a major part of the draw.