2007: The lost season
- 01.18.10, 14:56
- 91 Comments
Judging from the lack of feedback, I take it that most of you haven’t read, let alone downloaded, the Fremont conceptual approach documents. That’s okay, it’s my (second) job to parse through that. If you had the wherewithal to go through the appendices, you would’ve found a hidden gem that explains a ton about where A’s fans come from and how they perform in terms of buying tickets on a per city basis. To help foster conversation on that, I’ve taken the six key pages from the appendices and made them available here.
Before we start the debate, let’s set the table. While we remember 2006 fondly – at least until the ALCS – 2007 rarely gets a mention anymore. That season is remembered for being the start of the current decline and rebuilding phase, but that wasn’t the intention going into Opening Day. Consider the following:
- Opening Day payroll was $79 million
- The only major free agent loss was Frank Thomas, who signed a severely overpriced 2 year, $18 million deal with Toronto only to underperform, get waived and subsequently re-signed by the A’s in 2008. Thomas was initially replaced by Eric Karros, who also failed to achieve a career rebirth. gojohn10 reminded me that the A’s lost Barry Zito. All of the KNBR bashing probably devalued him in my mind.
- Beane/Forst signed Alan Embree and Shannon Stewart – all excellent, productive, low cost moves.
- It was the first – and most promising – year of Jack Cust, who ended up being a left-handed hitting, poor-man’s version of the Big Hurt.
- Milton Bradley wore out his welcome.
- Once again, injuries sunk the team. This time it was the expected high risk players: Eric Chavez (snakebit), Rich Harden (fragile), Mark Kotsay (old), and Bradley.
- The team hovered around the .500 mark for the first two months, then made a brief surge until the end of interleague play when injuries finally caught up to and ravaged the roster.
- The selloff began with Bradley in June, followed by Jason Kendall in July.
Got that? 2007 began as a season in which the A’s were expected to contend for the division crown and perhaps make the WS if the roster stayed healthy. Unfortunately that didn’t happen, so the usual selloff-for-prospects began as it does in every season the A’s aren’t competitive. At that point, the A’s farm system was bereft of big prospects, causing the front office to unload Dan Haren and Nick Swisher the following offseason.
Now, you might expect that a team coming off an appearance in the LCS, with the highest payroll in its history, would have seen measurable gains at the gate. It didn’t. It was the second year of tarping, which drove total attendance lower while the experiment in scarcity failed to bear fruit. Just so we’re clear on how this manifested itself, take a look at attendance at the opening series against the White Sox:
- 4/8 (Opening Night): 35,077
- 4/9: 15,153
- 4/10 (BART Double Play Wednesday): 19,130
That was followed by three straight sellouts with the Yankees, then 20k and 17k for a short two-game series with LAAoA. The most damning figure comes straight from the spreadsheet.
- 2007 season attendance: 1,921,844
- 2007 local credit card sales: 1,013,977
Keep in mind that credit card sales could mean advance tickets or gameday/walkup tickets paid for by credit card. Around the time the Wolff/Fisher group took control, they got rid of those kiosks on the BART plaza and outside the lower gates which sold preprinted cheap tickets for cash. A primary motivation must have been reduced staffing. Beyond that, I’m certain that ownership wanted to obtain further information on how tickets were being purchased, so driving walkup fans to the box office probably helped in that regard. We can infer from this figure that tickets purchased hours/days/weeks/months ahead of first pitch were some amount lower than 1 million.
That said, selling just over 1 million advance tickets (less than 53%) to your core audience is PISS POOR. Sure, the A’s raised ticket prices 8.1% that year, but that’s to be expected coming off a division crown, ALDS win, and an appearance in the ALCS. If you want to look for Exhibit A for the MLB panel, that’s it. The Giants have most certainly sold far more than 2 million local advance tickets every season since they moved to China Basin, and there are plenty of teams for whom 3 million advance tickets was more than a mere aspirational goal.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat in the bleachers with no one in the eight immediately adjacent seats around me. Yes, it was April or May, and it was either Monday or Tuesday, with the marine layer dropping the temperature to the low 50′s. And yes, I’m partly responsible for that low number since I often bought walkup tickets with cash (not so this year, I got a fielder’s choice plan and will buy group tickets in advance). But really, given the on-field success the A’s showed in 2006, we as a fanbase should’ve responded much better the following season. The excuse makers will point to tarping, a lack of marketing, or even the loss of the Big Hurt. The problem goes far beyond that. If there are that many fans all over the Bay Area that would respond to a competitive team, to a higher payroll, 2007 was the time it should’ve happened. It didn’t for whatever reason. It bugs me to this day.
I’m writing this post not to get an answer, because I don’t know if I’ll get one that’s satisfactory. Instead it’s mostly therapeutic. I’m tired of wondering about it, and hopefully posting this will allow me to let it go. We now know that attendance and sales for the past several years is a key piece of evidence for the panel, and it will contribute heavily to the panel’s recommendation. The thing is that we as fans could’ve done better. We should’ve done better. If the A’s leave Oakland, we need not look further than that lost season of 2007, what could’ve been. Until a new ballpark is built, we may be due for another 2006-07 cycle, possibly in 2-3 years. For the have-nots like the A’s, the window for contention is fleeting. It has to be planned diligently by Billy and David. The hardcore fans can do their part by recognizing this. If you only want to be a fan on your terms (only going when ownership respects Oakland and pays for a competitive team), in the end you will lose. It’s one thing to argue about X percentage of the team’s sales come from city Y, but what if those sales aren’t good enough? That, I think, is the real problem, and the future of the franchise is at stake.
No corporate base? Just because Oakland and the surrounding areas don’t have massive amount of tech companies doesn’t mean they have “no corporate base”.
.
Oakland Based:
Kaiser ($34.4 billion revenue)
Clorox ($4.58 billion)
Dreyer’s ($1.58 billion)
Cost Plus ($1.04 billion)
Ask.com ($277 million)
.
Oakland Metro Area:
Chevron ($273 billion)
Safeway ($42.3 billion)
.
I would say that is a pretty solid corporate base.
Yes! Conspiracy! Of course! You don’t sound crazy at all!
Aside from Chevron, which of these corporations are visibly supporting the A’s?
Dreyer’s and I do believe Safeway. However, I didn’t say “corporate support” I said “corporate base.” After all, why would any of the local corporations want to buy luxury boxes in a stadium that is billed as inadequate, etc…
Believe it or not, that wasn’t intended as an insult. It’s really quite impressive for a little burg barely over 400K in population. But it says volumes about the viability of the market area.
Ask.com? Seriously?
What is your point? Last time I checked $277 million was serious.
I disagree. What brings you attendance numbers is a large core of season ticket holders that make the individual tickets harder to come by.
San Jose is accessible to Silicon Valley; Oakland is not. That is the access that counts for purpose of this exercise.
Sorry, you can keep trying to ignore how excruciating it is to get to games in Oakland from the Peninsula and South Bay, but that doesn’t make it any less real. I know you don’t personally have to endure it, so you don’t care, but the people making the premium seat buying decisions do care.
Repeat: For a weeknight game, it takes 90 minutes to two hours to get to a game at the Coli from Palo Alto. Add fifteen to 20 minutes if you put the ballpark in downtown Oakland. By contrast, you can make AT&T Park in less than an hour by either car or train.
Where do you think the Silicon Valley execs are going to go?
Seven companies. Are you serious?
Go look at the AT&T Park seating map. Observe what percentage of the seats are club seats, charter seats or suites. There’s no way any seven companies, no matter how big they are, and even if they all bought in, are going to make a dent in that inventory.
Now go look at the NASDAQ. Nearly every company on it has a presence, if not their actual headquarters, in the South Bay.
There is a reason why the A’s want to be here and the Giants don’t want the A’s to be here.
I think his point was that ask.com is a has been internet/technology company that is owned by a larger parent.
Nav, honestly… there are not too many folks in the national media who think Oakland is a viable site. I am not arguing on their behalf, or agreeing with them… but this is what they believe.
See attached list of Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s 292 members. While not all of them are big companies with a presence in the South Bay, most of them are.
http://svlg.org/about/members.php
Nor is this list exhaustive. Both San Jose and Palo Alto have many big law firms, accounting firms, and consulting firms that would be perfect target customers for premium seats at a new ballpark. Not to mention the VCs on Sand Hill Road.
I was never arguing the fact that the south bay has a huge amount of major companies. It’s just that many people make it seem as if Oakland and the Oakland area have zero corporations.
And while we’re on the subject of the ONE year the A’s drew as many as 2.9 million fans, why don’t we talk about the ELEVEN years they failed to draw even one million. I’d say those years were more representative of the market’s performance thus far.
Or how about the 34 years (out of forty) attendance was below league average (in many cases, WAY below)?
I don’t think anyone is arguing that the number is literally zero. But the point is that it is insufficient to pay the note on a privately financed ballpark.
People forget how risky the Giants’ decision to build a privately financed ballpark was considered at the time. And they were the stronger team, with effectively no competition for corporate support.
If the A’s had built first, maybe it could have worked in Oakland. But that’ s not the current reality.
Here are the motivation questions recategorized by team influence. I’ve included my comments
Factors Not under team control
- Who is my team playing?
- What other things could I be doing?
- Do I like watching live baseball games?
-
Factors helped by new stadium
- Is my team threatening to leave town? (new stadium means commitment to the host city)
- Does my team care about the community? (see above)
- Did my team dump my favorite player? (new revenue stream means retaining players – we hope)
- Is the team trying to build a winning franchise or just reducing payroll? (see above. The new stadium will be an opportunity to turn the page on an era and reinvent the team, regardless of it they leave Oakland or not)
- How good is my team? (More money doesn’t mean a better team, but I ‘m optimistic)
- How meaningful is the game? (a better team means more meaningful games)
- Anything else to do around the park? (new stadium in downtown or associated with ancillary development)
- Is the stadium aesthetically pleasing? (it’s new, so it better be)
- Is the stadium the hip place to be? (see above)
- What is the weather like? (Most games are at night and San Jose is relatively warm. A more modest improvement with a Fremont stadium. No change with JLS park from the Coliseum)
- How many runs does my team score? (since the Coliseum is a classic pitchers park, chances are the new park will more hitter friendly)
- Who’s pitching? (This is a toss up. I suppose a better team is more likely to have better pitchers, but maybe not. Especially if the new park is a band box)
Factors hurt by new stadium
- How much is it going to cost me? (there will be a rise in ticket prices to pay for ballpark)
- What is the weather like? (Most games are at night and Oakland is cold)
- How long is it going to take me to get to the park? (even assuming realignment of the fanbase if the team heads South, most fans would be farther from the stadium)
Factors under team control that are unaffected by a new stadium
- Promotion or special event at the game today? (can have promotions in a run-down stadium)
- Anything special about the food at the park? (can have good food in a run-down stadium)
Are you kidding?
ESPN Free Agent Tracker
In 2008, the Giants signed:
Jeremy Affeldt, RP, 2yrs $8,000,000
Bob Howry, RP, 1yr $2,750,000
Randy Johnson, SP, 1yr $8,000,000
Edgar Renteria, SS, 2yrs $18,500,000
Juan Uribe, 3B, Minor Lg.
2007:
Aaron Rowand, CF, 5ys $60,000,000
huh. That’s the second time the hasn’t closed the link. Could be me.
LMAO, good one.
Wow, a whole 405 fans so far. Yeah, Go Fremont A’s of Silicon Valley!! Or is that Silicon Valley A’s of Fremont? Only 30,937 more to go to catch up to the Lets Go Oakland site.
http://www.facebook.com/letsgooakland
The SJ A’s site is kicking ass at a whopping 1089 members
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=65559831564
Does Old Lew see all this or does he even have a PC?
Many writers think SJ won’t happen because of the TR issue, and a lot of writers are still shaking their heads at a Fremont deal.
A suburban stadium? Most all the newest parks are in the the central city areas.
Fremont is opposite on what they are doing.
Who are these many writers? The fellows I have shared correspondence with on the situation have mostly pointed me to the Orioles/Expos situation as a framework for how a territorial rights deal would work. Add to that Peter Gammons mentioning San Jose specifically and Buster Olney mentioning Bud Selig negotiating a San Jose settlement and the circumstantial evidence points towards TR’s not being that big of a deal at this point.
I understand your point about central city areas, I agree, I would build it in a locale that is either downtown or adjacent to downtown (generically speaking).
So, just an observation… Why is it that the cities one might expect premium ticket holders to come from (like Pleasanton, Danville, Walnut Creek) under perform? Every time I look at this spreadsheet I find a new question that I can’t answer so easily.
If all 30k of those people actually showed up to games, we’d not be having this conversation, methinks.
Oh boy… facebook tallies as evidence of widespread support again… BULLSHIT.
Perhaps people who live in the leafier suburbs don’t want to drive their nice SUVs and well scrubbed kids into that industrial zone of the town the team currently plays in ?
I figured that could be one answer. Another is they are going to the Giants games instead. I guess those aren’t mutually exclusive.
There are plenty of reasons to explain it. I just wonder what it says about any spot in particular. Though, there is no crystal ball.
You have it backwards. I fell into the same trap. Those cities are over performing. Not only that, but those cities in the far east bay performed so well that a fudge factor was added when predicting their ticket sales.
Taking my home town for example, Pleasanton was expected to purchase 23K tickets. Adding the “TriValley” fudge factor that predicted number went up to 42K. More adjustment I don’t quite understand brings the predicted number to 47K. Actual Pleasanton ticket values was 50K.
Bartleby, I don’t care about Silicon Valley execs. I care about Oakland Athletic fans and the history and tradition of the franchise. The Silicon execs can kiss my A’ss if they don’t want to come to Oakland. Also, many people who live far from Oakland still want the team in Oakland. It’s not just about convenience. If MLB continues to ignore average fans for the rich corporate crowd, they will be contributing to their eventual demise as a major sport.
The Giants drew worse than the A’s during most of those years and yet Bud Selig saved them from moving out of San Francisco. Meanwhile, he and his frat buddy Lew Wolff have had it in for Oakland from day one. All this can be proven.
You guys are have a real anti-Oakland bias.
Walnut Creek and Danville over perform. Look at the numbers of tickets bought by credit card. Walnut Creek bought 46,912 tickets for a city of about 65,000 residents By contrast, San Jose bought 69,000 tickets for a population of 1,000,000 residents. You guys are always looking for an angle to confirm you anti-Oakland biases.
Thanks for the compliment.
No, but I can see the writing on the wall. I not willing to wait for 5-10 more years while Oakland decides to get off their asses and actually make an effort to keep the A’s, other than ‘Hey, there’s land here, here, and here.’
You forget how much harder it is to get to the Coliseum from SJ than it is from Walnut Creek, and how much easier it is to get to SF from SJ.
You are always looking for an angle to confirm your anti-SJ, anti-Fremont, anti-Lew Wolfe biases.
OK, then you need to explain how you’re going to sell all the premium seats necessary to make a privately financed ballpark pencil out.
I’m not advocating for Silicon Valley execs, but I am a realist. Premium seat sales account for a huge percentage of an MLB teams gate revenue, and an even bigger percentage of their operating margins. The fact is: corporations and their executives are the primary customers for premiums seats. A privately financed park is a difficult thing to pull off even with these sales; it is impossible with out them.
If you want to advocate for public funding to make up the difference, I will respect your viewpoint. If you want to advocate for the City of Oakland purchasing the team and running it like the Green Bay Packers, fair enough. But if all you’re going to do is rant and rave that you want billionaires to subsidize your entertainment because they owe you something, sorry, that’s unseemly. There are more worthy charitable causes.
There you go misrepresenting the facts again. The Giants had comparable attendance, relative to wins, as the Athletics pre-AT&T Park. However, they were handicapped by a worse venue and worse location than the A’s. They had a far bigger fan base (measured by TV ratings), and better demographics, and therefore greater potential in SF than the A’s in Oakland. They also got their act together and built first. These are all logical business decisions; there is no animus toward the City of Oakland.
bartleby, You have an interesting view of the Bay Area. For the purpose of relocating the A’s to San Jose, we’re a “region” where fans from the East Bay, North Bay, and San Francisco will have access to a ballpark in San Jose. On the other hand, corporations can’t get to Oakland and are strictly restricted and limited to Silicon Valley with the exception of getting to the “glamor” in San Francisco. I don’t think we’re a “region” at all. I think we’re separate markets.
So it’s difficult for south bay residents to travel to Oakland for games … but SJ boosters say East Bay residents will be able to take BART to SJ … but for some reason south bay residents won’t be able to take BART to Oakland … and they couldn’t drive because of all the traffic headed to the East Bay … and Silicon Valley executives wouldn’t want to travel to Oakland … even though they are probably among those traveling back to where they live … in the East Bay … ???
. I am getting so confused!