Bloomberg Businessweek: The Braves Play Taxpayers Better Than They Play Baseball (Atlanta: appointed, professionals)

[arjay57]

I'd say the 41,500 at Suntrust park is plenty.

The Braves have only averaged more than that 3 times since they've been in the ATL and they've been well under that for the last 20 years.

For their first 25 years here they rarely got out of the teens.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I'd say the 41,500 at Suntrust park is plenty.

The Braves have only averaged more than that 3 times since they've been in the ATL and they've been well under that for the last 20 years.

For their first 25 years here they rarely got out of the teens.

That is average attendance for 3 years. That still a lot of games other years where some people would not be able to go if they were at STP.

Top teams today still average above the 41500 STP capacity.

All that is fine. Think we all can agree the Braves are not a top tier team today and the smaller capacity is more appropriate for today.

I think the sad truth is Liberty Media preparing more for the likelihood of the Braves seeing attendance in the teens again than they are preparing for them to be a top tier team again.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by jsvh

That is average attendance for 3 years. That still a lot of games other years where some people would not be able to go if they were at STP.

Top teams today still average above the 41500 STP capacity.

All that is fine. Think we all can agree the Braves are not a top tier team today and the smaller capacity is more appropriate for today.

I think the sad truth is Liberty Media preparing more for the likelihood of the Braves seeing attendance in the teens again than they are preparing for them to be a top tier team again.

What do you mean, LM will sell the team once the project is complete. Using taxpayer money to inflate the teams worth and selling high.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by jsvh

That is average attendance for 3 years. That still a lot of games other years where some people would not be able to go if they were at STP.

Top teams today still average above the 41500 STP capacity.

All that is fine. Think we all can agree the Braves are not a top tier team today and the smaller capacity is more appropriate for today.

I think the sad truth is Liberty Media preparing more for the likelihood of the Braves seeing attendance in the teens again than they are preparing for them to be a top tier team again.

If an average of 50K+ attendance is your criteria for "top-tier teams," than no one in the last 6 years in MLB would qualify, looking at the highest averages since 2010:

2010 Yankees: 46,691
2011 Phillies: 45,440
2012 Phillies: 44,021
2013 Dodgers: 46,216
2014 Dodgers: 46,695
2015 Dodgers: 46,679

And for the four teams that made it to at least the LCS last year:

Royals (WS Champ): 33,848 (88.2% of capacity)
Mets (NL Champ): 31,725 (75.9% of capacity)
Cubs (NL runner-up): 36,540 (88.8% of capacity)
Blue Jays (AL runner-up): 34,504 (70% of capacity)

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by Gulch

If an average of 50K+ attendance is your criteria for "top-tier teams,"

Who said 50k+ avg attendance is criteria for top tier teams? Turner Field cannot even hold 50k yet I'd still say they were top-tier many of those years in the 90s where they were selling out many games and ranked #1 in popularity.

You also seem to be imply that every game has exactly the average yearly attendance. Even those years where the Braves avg attendance was in the low 30s they were still selling out Turner for plenty of games.

Reality is, STP is built for a team that will never see the popularity / attendance that the Braves had in the 90s and teams like the Yankees and Dodgers have today.

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Yes. I agree STP is more appropriate size than Turner for what Liberty Media has planned. They took the trade off of reduced demand for games in exchange for $400M tax dollars.

There business model is no longer focused on attracting a lot of fans like they did in the 90s and other top teir teams do today, but instead milking local governments.

Leaving Turner would have made no sense without those handouts.

MLB average attendance has hovered between 30k - 32k since 2000 and the Braves have been at or below the NL average every year since 2004. The Yankees, Dodgers and Cardinals (just barely) are the only teams to average at least 40k annually since 2005. IOW, the dominant teams in the two largest markets are the only ones that can consistently break the 40k mark absent being considered a title contender. The people who work in baseball, including Braves management, understand that having a 50k seat stadium outside of the NYC and LA markets makes no sense when 40k is the upper threshold for long-term average attendance. That's why ballparks are being built with capacity within a few thousand of 40k. Every team is using the same market research.

Winning and the impression that a team is a championship contender more than anything else drive ticket sales in MLB and pro sports in general. If people think they Braves are legit contenders they'll show up to games. If not, fewer people will do so. Braves attendance started declining in the early 2000s including year over year declines in 101 win seasons in '03 and '04 and attendance hasn't recovered since then. If the Braves don't create the impression that they are championship contenders they aren't going to move much above the MLB attendance average whether the games are played in Midtown or Milton. That's how the market works.

[jsvh]

As the G-Braves head into the playoffs with ~3k average attendance, it should be clear that there are other factors besides just winning that determine popularity.

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by DJDeadParrot

Its not linear; there's a point at which over-capacity yields diminished returns. That's how you optimize supply and demand. If you have more product than there is demand for that product, it absolutely can lose value to the point that your total revenue takes a hit.

This is exactly why teams are doing things to manage game to game ticket supply other than building smaller stadiums. Teams are experimenting with restricting ticket supply in secondary markets and/or using dynamic pricing. The arrival of the secondary ticket market has had an especially large effect on MLB because each team has an inventory of millions of tickets. MLB teams are having to find ways to manage supply not unlike airline yield management.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by Gulch

And for the four teams that made it to at least the LCS last year:

Royals (WS Champ): 33,848 (88.2% of capacity)
Mets (NL Champ): 31,725 (75.9% of capacity)
Cubs (NL runner-up): 36,540 (88.8% of capacity)
Blue Jays (AL runner-up): 34,504 (70% of capacity)

If we can put those kinds of crowds into STP the house will be rocking!

There should be a nice pregame and postgame experience as well.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by jsvh

I am not denying having other baseball teams near by has a negative effect.

What I am saying is a team in the city center would be very well suited to attract fans the Braves have left on the table with this move (People that prefer walkable, connected stadium / CoA residents / CoA workers / Tourists staying in the city / OTP residents south and east (If G-Braves leave) ) and more than offset that effect. They would have no problem getting the 5k - 10k attendance levels seen at minor league games in other markets compared to the ~3k the G-Braves are bringing in.



So you are agreeing that smaller stadiums are not about profits but instead about the ego of the owners.

Instead of returning to being America's Team and attracting the same levels of fans as they have in the past and other top-tier MLB teams today, the Braves are concerned with vanity.

In a fantasyland ignoring all business sense, you might get close to Charlotte's attendance on nights the Braves don't play. But again, considering there's an MLB team (starting in 2017) <15 miles from downtown (where are you even going to put this thing?), it's not happening. Even if the G Braves never came, it's not happening. It's not just a negative effect, it's detrimental. It makes no financial sense.


I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. Profits aren't necessarily maximized with maximum revenue. I don't know where that line is, but you sure don't either.

Originally Posted by DJDeadParrot

Its not linear; there's a point at which over-capacity yields diminished returns. That's how you optimize supply and demand. If you have more product than there is demand for that product, it absolutely can lose value to the point that your total revenue takes a hit.

I should point out that you were making this very argument in the parking thread.

Thank you. As some who's actually taken a economic course in the last half year I'm glad someone came in here with some sense. Supply and demand is but a small portion of microeconomics (I don't know any place that doesn't separate macro and micro). Fundamental, but just a portion. There's been no talk about actual profit maximization; no talk about marginal revenue and marginal cost. Call the Braves organization what you want but they have done their own economic research to find the ideal # of seats in order to maximize profits. They have better knowledge and resources than any of us sitting here blabbing away on an internet forum.