Take Me Out To The Ballgame!

HOUSTON: YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

(Overused, yes. Appropriate, yes.)

As I read more and more about the financial aspects of MLB it appears that they might not care too much about my filling the stadium $24mil/year bonus plan. I understand this business, as any business, is about the bottom line, money and maximizing profits and it seems that ticket sales are a minimal variable in the MLB equation. TV money is now the big momma and the more research I do the less I hear organizations talk about fans bringing money to the ball parks. As a lifelong baseball fan this makes me more disappointed than I can express.

My goal in starting this research was to inform the Houston Astros of how to maximize profits by putting fans in seats and I will continue to protect that point although I may detour more than I had previously intended.

Every year I try to make it to as many Astros games as time and money allow. Lately, I’ve managed only two or three per season but win or lose I ALWAYS enjoy the experience. I love baseball at every level and ballparks have an amazing all American feel that is unparalleled to any other place on earth. My dad took me to games growing up and I hope my son continues enjoys them as much as I do.

Lately, I have watched the average game attendance decline year after year and game after game. I noticed it as a casual fan and had the numbers confirmed through research. In 2006, the season after the Astros made their first ever world series appearance the average game was 91.1% full….this has fallen every year to a horrible less than half (48.5%) in 2012. The Astros average attendance was 28^th in the league out of 30. Abysmal for a city the size of Houston.

FIELD OF DREAMS:

Now, let’s fix this. There are two good ways to get fans into the park to support a program. 1) Win and 2) Give them a good deal. If you don’t have 1, then 2 is a necessity. Finishing last in the MLB last year doesn’t really send fans running to pay your average $27 a ticket and drink a $10 beer to watch their extremely sub-par team.

The basic baby laws of supply and demand are easy to understand here.

Every game will be played regardless of the number of people in the stands. If you have to hire event staff, pay players and turn on the electricity for every game it only makes since to get every dollar you can. Empty seats make no money. Empty seats buy no t-shirts, ball caps, hot dogs, popcorn, or $10 beers. Get a person into that seat for a minimal price and no doubt concessions will be bought, their kids will want baseballs, mom will want a yardstick margarita and profits will be made. It really is that simple.

THE NUMBERS GAME:

Here’s my math and how at LEAST 24 million can appear per year:

40, 963. That is the total number of seats available per game.

19,848. That is the average attendance per game in 2012.

21,115. That is the average number of VACANT seats per game.

According to sportsfan.org the Astros have the 10^th highest average ticket price in MLB with the 3^rd lowest average attendance and worst team record in 2012.  I love my ‘Stros and consider myself a fan through thick and thin but I don’t have a lot of money to spend on extras, especially when there is a good chance I won’t be witnessing my team come out victorious.

Let’s say you charge $5 average per unsold ticket. (Maybe $7-10 for the better seats and only $1 or $2 for the nosebleeds.) That alone equals over $100k/game in ticket sales. Then the people are there. They are hungry, thirsty and they feel good because they got a great bargain on the ticket price. From there let’s pretend every ticket buyer spends $10 on food and/or drink (again, I feel this is a little low, but an easy number to multiply). That is over $200k in food and drink for those previous empty seats. Now you are looking at your per game ticket and concession total at over $300k just for filling these cheap seats. At 81 home games a year that puts you at a minimum of an additional 24.3 million, not even including any souvenirs. That, to me, looks like a very pretty penny.

IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

Sure, math looks great, but is this feasible? Can we really expect to fill the stands just by lowering ticket prices? YES! Americans love baseball games and in Houston giving them a family friendly place an outdoorsy feel, with air conditioning in the summer for a good price they will come. It takes me an hour and a half to get to Minute Maid Park and I would squeeze in many more games if I wasn’t paying $17 for my 4^th level ticket. Drop ticket prices and I’m there more often, drop beer prices and I’m buying my beer at the stadium instead of trying to load up at the home plate and leaving early and heading downtown. I know you dropped beer prices last year, but going from 10.50 to 9.50, a ten dollar beer is still a ten dollar beer no matter what way you round that. I’m not sure what kind of profits you are making off that but I fell like the supply and demand curve would move a little if you could make it a little more affordable. I would rather buy three $6 beers than one $10 beer and look, you’ve magically made more money off me and I’m a happier fan and customer.

When you sell out tickets on a regular basis (consecutive years, not games) AND you win more games than you lose you may rethink prices and move them up. For now, Houston, you’ve made the city fall out of love with baseball. You’ve had four consecutive losing seasons, had to deal with franchise players retire and then trading all the ‘new’ big names, and then are charging those that continue to give you support way too much to see this debacle. Fans are fickle; they want a reason to fall in love again. Give them one.

Astros owner Jim Crane on his hard times trying to buy a MLB team, "I'm accustomed to winning. So we set our sights on winning and we never gave up."