I have heard/read many people suggest that Hamilton should be resigned, in part, because he generates a significant amount of revenue simply by being on the team. I just am not sure I buy that argument.

I know that I have read a few studies that have basically concluded that winning and attendance are (obviously) directly related. And conversely, bad teams with star players typically do not generate good attendance numbers.

St. Louis is the most recent example that I can think of. Albert Pujols, Mr. Community and the greatest human in existence, left St. Louis after spending his entire career as a Cardinal. Last season, with Pujols, St. Louis averaged 38,196 fans/game.

This season, without Pujols, St. Louis averages 42,118 fans/game.

The Cardinals are coming off of a WS title, so that probably helps (as does the fact that we are just 1.5 months into the season...and attendance numbers are typically better during the first part of the season).

Having said that, I am of the belief that you never sign a baseball player for PR purposes. If you can't justify signing the player based on his on-the-field performance, you should not sign him.

Thoughts?

DUH!! WINNING!!!!!!

Only player I have ever seen that you could attribute an attendance jump to was Nolan when he signed here in 1989. Attendance would be dramatically greater on days that he pitched. I would think that everyday players would not create a jump in attendance unless they were close to achieving a major milestone. Players like Josh would probably sell more tickets for road games to fans who want to see him roll through town once or twice a year.

I have been doing this a long time. There is no substitute for winning. I have watched a lot of marketing people come through Texas thinking they had the answer. It is winning baseball, it is hope...it is having a contending team.
A new ballpark will help for a couple of years, Nolan Ryan coming helped us get to the 2 million mark in home attendance for the first time.
But the best marketing we have ever done was winning divisions in the late 1990s and now two trips to the World Series. It is a winning team.
I made a statement during the World Series, that if St. Louis had the history that we have had, they wouldn't have drawn as well over the years that we have. I grew up near there, they have to draw from folks that have to drive an hour, two or even three for their club to draw well. If they didn't have that successful tradition over the years, they would have hard time drawing.
As I told Mr. Bush, Mr. Hicks and now Nolan, when all became involved with this ballclub, that this team was a sleeping giant due to the support that we get from the fans, supporting a team that didn't have any postseason success for a long time. And that sleeping giant is now waking.
Thanks to all of you for your support of the Rangers. But it is a winning team that gets fans excited.
During my short time in KC, I had dinner with Whitey Herzog one time and we talked about attendance, he said I don't care who you are or what you do, if you don't win, you are not going to draw.
Thanks
Chuck

@ Andy Panda, Yu says whats up?!

@tublair (ha!)

Depends if youre talking about single game tix or season tix...

1. Winning
2. Stud Player - Cliff Lee caused a jump, Yu caused a jump. Josh would not cause a jump here (bc he's been with the team when he wasnt big time) but if he were to go to another team, they will have a jump in attendence
3. Opponent - Yankees, RedSox, Cubs, Stros etc... typically higher attendence for games as such. Unfortunately thats due to opponent fans. However, if its a big game, say Angels Rangers if the division lead is only a few games, attendence will jump just for the game alone.
4.Promotions - kinda lame, but dollar hot dogs do draw a bigger crowd
5.Stadium upgrades or new stadium - will draw more ppl at first, then fades away

The two biggest drivers:

1) Performance
2) Park location

The Rangers are selling out the park now that they are winning. But #2 is obviously still a drag on revenues. With #2 being improved (i.e. remoteness traded for urban density) the Rangers would still sell out... but at a much higher average ticket price, thus sustainably fueling much higher payrolls. (Our payroll is top 10 now, but Bob Simpson has already publicly acknowledged the Rangers cannot profitably sustain the current payroll level.)

The Rangers and the Angels are two of the only MLB teams with parks distantly removed from the areas of greatest population density in their metropolitan areas. (The Angels at least have the excuse of having another MLB team in the same metro area.) Performance in recent history has been strong for both, so they draw a lot of people. But they do so at a huge discount to the other side of this revenue equation: they are both in the bottom half of the league in what they are able to charge for ticket and concession prices.

The Ballpark is now the 18th oldest park in MLB, and all 17 built since the Ballpark opened have been built in urban density, with several of the newer parks having included moves toward greater density (e.g. Giants, Marlins, Brewers, etc.).

Anyway, yes, obviously the park location isn't changing any time soon (though it probably will sooner than most think), but you asked, "What drives attendance?" So there's my answer.

Not another "The Rangers need to move to downtown d-town" response.

Whether the dallasites like it or not, due to the vast size and large population of the metroplex as a whole, Arlington or any other centralized location (Irving, HEB) is the perfect spot for the Rangers. At the time that most of our local sports teams were created Dallas had a superior population to Fort Worth. The Arlington, Fort Worth side is slowly creeping up to the Dallas and surrounding areas size in population, so I don't see the Rangers ownership making a decision to alienate those fans.

However what should be considered in the near future is if its time for the metroplex to go big time, and do what we all truly want... is a new baseball team in Dallas, keep the rangers in Arlington, and let the Dallas/Ft Worth rivalry begin!

@Rangers100: Are you sure that they're in the bottom half of what they are able to charge, and not just what they currently are charging? (I seem to recall price cuts a couple years ago, but I can't be sure.)

@utblair: Question: can you justify the cost for a player even if you overpay for him, if it leads to winning?

For a moment, let's suppose there's a perfect correlation between WAR and increased winning. Your team won approximately 85 games last year, and you think if you can win about 5 more games you'll make the playoffs. You have a 0-WAR guy that needs replacing, and he's realistically the only upgradable position you have available. Now, you are considering signing a player expected to produce 5 WAR per year. For the record, no other available players are expected to produce over 2 WAR for the year.

Here's the thing, though: A 5-WAR guy will cost you around $25m/yr, per common knowledge at this point. Unfortunately, his asking price is $35m. So, basically, you can sign the guy who will get you 5 WAR, even though he'll cost you more than what he's worth, or you can sign a lesser guy who won't get you there.

Obviously this isn't in any way analogous to a real-life situation, as there are no guarantees. But I think the point is valid insomuch as showing that you can overpay for something if it's simply a means to an end for which a replacement is inadequate. Now then, would that justify signing him even if you overpaid for him?

The Root Cause is winning, but that's not the complete answer.

Winning generates attention. Attention generates Action. People want to go to where the Action is at.

I was at Game 2 for the opening series, and i had relatively cheap seat on the upper deck. During the 4th inning, four tall, model-looking ladies in their late 20's early 30's are finally getting to their seats, all with cocktails in their hands, not wearing a single Ranger's color whatsoever.

And that is when I knew. The Rangers is officially where the "action" is at. Just like when the Mavs moved in to the new arena, people wanted to be seen at the games, people who didn't know jack squat about what they were attending, but they know they wanted to be there, socially.

@dcaggie

To say Arlington is the "perfect" place for the Rangers is ludicrous. You simply cannot dispute the fact that a downtown Dallas facility would be closer to the most amount of discretionary income available in the metroplex. The most dense area of high-discetionary metroplex citizens is in North Dallas. It is a 2 hour plus trek in rush hour traffic for those folks to get to Arlington meaning many who could simply don't.

You believe what you believe....and may have emotional reasons for supporting the idea that Arlington is the "perfect" place for the Rangers stadium. But if the sole objective were to raise as much revenue as possible, the argument for Arlington rings hollow.

We all want the Rangers to field a good team and that requires a large payroll. Of course, if the Rangers move to downtown Dallas and start charging prices similar to what the Yankees charge, that will dramatically affect who attends the games. If you watch Yankee games and Red Sox games, a lot of the people sitting in the stands look very different (suits and ties, etc.) from the people in the stands at Ranger games. None of that matters much to people who rarely attend the games. But if you enjoy going to the games, you have to be careful what you wish for. You may find yourself priced out.

But that's professional sports, I guess.

Good points from most. One thing that doesn't drive attendance is a steamy 100 degree evening. We've been fortunate this year to have some great weather during the homestands and the rest of the schedule looks pretty favorable as far as popular teams coming to town when it warms up so hopefully that can offset the numbers a bit.

Something has got to be done about the heat in the stadium before someone keels over from a heat stroke and either dies or sues the crap out the ownership group.

@ Mr. Man

I have no emotional reasons to say Arlington is the perfect place (i live in dallas); its a fair compromise for all parties. Yes, some people have to drive 2 hours to get to arlington, but if you move it to dallas, other people will also have to drive 2 hours from ft worth. But to say that the most high discretionary people in dallas live in north dallas, so lets move the ballpark to downtown dallas is completely out of touch. Now don't get me wrong i'm not some Occupy nut job, but that statement is a little 1%ish. The highest income per household is in southlake/westlake TX... should we put the ballpark near TMS?

The median income in Ft. Worth vs Dallas is higher in ft. worth by approximately 9k per family. Granted there are alot of things that go into that. However, if we were to go by your argument for revenue generation, then downtown dallas would not be the best place for the ballpark.

Regardless nobody is going to agree on where the ballpark should be, and its always going to be an inconvenience to some. But right now, Arlington is the best compromise. Granted that's just my opinion

Years ago I knew a man that was the business manager for an amusement park who said the biggest driver of attendance was the cost of concessions and parking.

I must admit this idea kind of struck a cord with me in that I often feel like I am nickeled and dimed to death at an event like this (More like 2 dollared and 5 dollared). I actually think this is true of sports teams as well

I think a compelling case could be made for lowering the cost of beer, popcorn, hotdogs, cokes and peanuts, slashing the parking fees (Fat chance since those are still controlled Tom Hicks) and raising the ticket price by a $1.50 - $2.50. This would allow the casual fan to be able to better budget the cost of the games. I know the Rangers have special "family deals" with 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs and 4 coke type things. I just think they could do away with those, raise the base ticket a bit and then lower concession cost.Just make a flat rate for most concessions. 1 dollar hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts, beer and ice cream

The truth is teams make huge money on the concessions so I doubt it would happen.But I think that lower the concession cost would really boost attendance

@ dc

While the median income in Ft. Worth may exceed that of Dallas, the inclusion of Plano, Richardson, Frisco, Mckinney, Allen more than make up for that difference. When most talk about "Dallas," I believe they are referring to Dallas AND its suburbs.

There is a reason why the ownership group at the time wanted the park in downtown Dallas (before the Laura Miller fail). I'm guessing that they weren't lauding for a downtown stadium for convenience purposes.

During my short time in KC, I had dinner with Whitey Herzog one time and we talked about attendance, he said I don't care who you are or what you do, if you don't win, you are not going to draw.
Thanks
Chuck

The Cubs don't win-yet they draw.

Thanks Mr. Morgan. For everything. Snow crab? Where you been? Ants go marching. Genius.

@DC

Last I'll say on this and then I'll drop it.

Dallas County (2.4M pop; AHH income = $50k) + Collin County (0.8M pop; AHH $80k) = 3.2M pop, AHH = $56K. Much MUCH more spending capacity that Tarrant County (1.8M pop, AHH = $55K).

Yes, you're right, no matter where you put the stadium, a significant portion of the population will have a long distance to travel. But putting the stadium in Arlington forces a higher percentage of the population to travel 1.5 hrs or greater than putting it in downtown Dallas or even places like Irving, Farmers Branch or Valley Ranch.

As a rule of thumb, I just think it's better to put a business where your customers are.

Good Lord people--they are sold out nearly every night. If it's too hot for you--stay home-really simple.

I believe the thing that most drives attendance is ticket sales. :)

What drives attendance? Victories.

Obviously winning drives attendance. The primary question is would you consider a player's popularity among the fanbase when considering potential contract extensions? If so, how would you quantify the player's effect on attendance?

Ranger Ronnie has a good point about the Chicago Cubs, they have only had a few trips to the postseason, but they have that title of lovable loser, but they are one of those clubs that draws well win or lose.
I have always said when a baby is born in Chicago, they are told from day 1 that they will love the Cubs, whether they win or lose.
There are some years that the Rangers have out drawn the Cubs, but not many.
Its baseball tradition in Chicago. Its Wrigley Field. Its WGN. It was Harry Caray. They have done a great job in marketing over the years.

There are a hand full of teams that can go awhile without winning and still draw. Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, a few but not many.

Those Chicago Cubs fans just have the mentality that a team is going to have a bad century every now and then and they accept that.

Thanks again for all your support

Chuck

@MrMan:

To say Arlington is the "perfect" place for the Rangers is ludicrous. You simply cannot dispute the fact that a downtown Dallas facility would be closer to the most amount of discretionary income available in the metroplex. The most dense area of high-discetionary metroplex citizens is in North Dallas. It is a 2 hour plus trek in rush hour traffic for those folks to get to Arlington meaning many who could simply don't.

You believe what you believe....and may have emotional reasons for supporting the idea that Arlington is the "perfect" place for the Rangers stadium. But if the sole objective were to raise as much revenue as possible, the argument for Arlington rings hollow.

Spot on.

Lot of people just wanting a shorter drive.

That's fine and their choice. But pretending that isn't a huge hit to revenues demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of how this stuff works.

Again, all 17 stadiums built since ours have gone in densely populated neighborhoods (all of them additionally connected to public transit options). Tarrant County isn't some magical place that makes the Ballpark immune to the basic economic and demographic laws these teams all intentionally made sure to observe in building their parks.

The only honest and logical argument for supporting the Rangers being in Arlington is this: "Tarrant County fans having a shorter drive is worth the significant discount to Rangers' finances that the location includes." That's actually an argument I'm somewhat sympathetic to.

We all want the Rangers to field a good team and that requires a large payroll. Of course, if the Rangers move to downtown Dallas and start charging prices similar to what the Yankees charge, that will dramatically affect who attends the games. If you watch Yankee games and Red Sox games, a lot of the people sitting in the stands look very different (suits and ties, etc.) from the people in the stands at Ranger games. None of that matters much to people who rarely attend the games. But if you enjoy going to the games, you have to be careful what you wish for. You may find yourself priced out.

But that's professional sports, I guess.

Very true, RFan.

My family has had our exact same season seats consecutively for 30 years (going back to Arlington Stadium). The face value of our seats in Arlington is $50/ticket. There are only a handful of stadiums in the league where the same seat is not $150 or more. In several the equivalent of our seats is now over $300, topping out at over $1,000 per ticket in Yankee Stadium.

What we pay for our seats is a total joke, relative to the rest of the league. I sat next to a guy from Manhattan at Game 2 of the 2010 ALCS who explained he flew his family of 4 from NYC to Dallas, stayed at Hotel Zaza, toured the area, took the family to the game, and did it all for less than 1 single ticket in the same row of Yankee Stadium would have cost him on StubHub for Game 3 a couple nights later.

Our seats would cost 3-4x as much in a central Dallas park. Why? Because suddenly a few hundred law firms, hedge funds, private equity funds, investment banks, marketing firms, etc. - that now have zero interest in shlepping clients out to some stadium in the boonies (preferring to just take them to Nick & Sam's for the post-work outing) - would be demanding seats such as ours.