Quote:
Originally Posted by djtestudo
People are still willing to pay for the product.
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Where? What cities showed growth in ticket sales this year? And maybe Milwaukee or Tampa if they did, probably peaked only because of the team this year. Milwaukee without Sheets and Sabathia doesn't stand a chance to contend.... and I seriously doubt they can outspend the big boys. So Milwaukee is pretty much done.
What cities have populations that have money to sell 2 or 3 million tix anymore? Cleveland? Cincy? Pittsburgh? Detroit? KC, Denver, Oakland, San Fran, Philly? Even St Louis, Miami, Houston, Denver and so on are hurting.
You are going to have disparity that will kill franchises, that will pretty much leave mid market to even low end high market clubs dead.
It was not that long ago, MLB was telling the press and fans that a few clubs were barely able to make payroll.
Look, you can only bleed fans so much before the money dries up, so why continue to push your luck?
You say, "there's a recession, teams are hurting, for the good of the sport and to show fans who are hurting financially respect we're not pushing the bar up this time around. When the economy gets better, we'll open our wallets again, but right now, nope."
Look, without ad revenue, the broadcasts make no money. The car companies and beer are the 2 biggest advertisers for baseball. The car companies are broke, and Busch just sold out. The advertising dollar is not going to be there. So Fox, ESPN, and to lesser degrees WGN, TBS and so on will be paying less. That's a lot of lost revenue for baseball. Revenue they will have no choice to make up for but to raise ticket prices. Once they do that, they are done.
Then, you have to look at companies that buy loges, PSL's, season tickets and so on, that just won't be willing or able to shell out the money. That revenue will need to be made up, so you raise prices more.
Pretty soon, those 25 dollar tix cost close to 100, the hot dogs, sodas and so on will cost more and the average family that may have been able to afford a couple games or a weekend series over the Summer can't afford it. The youth today aren't buying tix in droves or even as interested in the game as my generation was, so those kids won't miss it much.
Then there are fans like me, becoming more and more disenfranchised with the salaries, the total lack of respect shown the fans and just don't care anymore, don't really watch the games like I used to, don't listen to them on the radio, may follow the season online or in the papers but really, there's no fun there anymore. It's a business that has no respect or care for their fans so why should I care?
I'll go to minor league games, where for 30 bucks I can have great seats, eat some decent stadium food, be able to talk to some players before and after games and have a great time watching players trying to prove themselves and play hard.
But, MLB will eventually run them down by having to up those prices to help pay for the big league teams. Then, I'll just go watch little league and neighborhood softball leagues.
Point is, you can only disenfranchise and rob the fans so long before they leave.
And eventually when you have the same teams year after year after year in the playoffs while everyone else goes broke and they don't even have the money to sign the players they draft or put money into the minor leagues so that they may build a team..... your done.
LA, NY, Chicago and Boston will not be able to keep MLB alive.
In the end, it's all about fan respect.... and I have a feeling IF the few ultra rich teams go out and give extravagant contracts.... MLB is dead. The fans in the smaller market teams won't pay and corporate America is too poor to pay anymore.
It's just like everything else..... eventually this bubble will burst if you keep overinflating it, which you are doing. Eventually, even the richest of teams will go bust.