Motor City Sonics Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 2 hours ago, IdahoBert said: My new T-shirt arrived today. I like how it’s reminiscent of the road jerseys from the 60s. Related? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerNation Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 2 hours ago, Sports_Freak said: I read the stadium in Sacramento has to be updated to hold 14,000 fans. It will probably be the smallest crowds in MLB. Or maybe in all 4 major sports. It will also probably result in a 300% increase in attendance from this year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sports_Freak Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 2 minutes ago, TigerNation said: It will also probably result in a 300% increase in attendance from this year. The A's didn't even get 14k for their season opener. The Tigers have had some really bad years but our opening days are always a massive celebration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toddwert Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 14 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said: The A's didn't even get 14k for their season opener. The Tigers have had some really bad years but our opening days are always a massive celebration. they also had a boycott going on by their diehard fans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1776 Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 23 minutes ago, Toddwert said: they also had a boycott going on by their diehard fans That the powers that be have allowed it to come to this is a shame. The players have to be wondering what they ever did to be stuck in such a lost situation. Owner doesn’t give a crap-commissioner doesn’t give a crap-city doesn’t give a crap. Pretty much bottom of the barrel deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casimir Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 11 hours ago, 1776 said: That the powers that be have allowed it to come to this is a shame. The players have to be wondering what they ever did to be stuck in such a lost situation. Owner doesn’t give a crap-commissioner doesn’t give a crap-city doesn’t give a crap. Pretty much bottom of the barrel deal. The commissioner is too busy looking at the valuation of a team being in Las Vegas as opposed to being in Oakland. One fan base might be alienated, but (1) they can follow the team and/or have another geographically easy accessible team to follow and (2) another fan base can be created. Additionally, this clears a hurdle for expansion (the Tampa stadium issue being the other), which will bring in more valuation for the league. And it gives a potential questionable expansion option a trial run, which, the more expansion options, the higher that purchase price will be for the next expansion teams. What’s a little short term bad press going to do when you’re busy counting all of that extra cash coming into the league? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 5 hours ago, casimir said: The commissioner is too busy looking at the valuation of a team being in Las Vegas as opposed to being in Oakland. One fan base might be alienated, but (1) they can follow the team and/or have another geographically easy accessible team to follow and (2) another fan base can be created. Additionally, this clears a hurdle for expansion (the Tampa stadium issue being the other), which will bring in more valuation for the league. And it gives a potential questionable expansion option a trial run, which, the more expansion options, the higher that purchase price will be for the next expansion teams. What’s a little short term bad press going to do when you’re busy counting all of that extra cash coming into the league? I don’t think this can be stressed strongly enough. The job of the Commissioner is to maximize the value of Baseball and its franchises to the benefit of all relevant stakeholders, mainly, the owners, but also, broadcast and corporate partners. It’s not like they don’t consider traditional fans at all. They do, but only as an adjunct constituency, and even then, their base level of fandom is assumed to be immutable. The real consumer constituency they have discovered and are actively courting are gambl … er, betting enthusiasts. That’s because it’s a constituency that has a chance to grow substantially whereas traditional fandom is considered static. Or, even better, they can convert traditional fans to betting enthusiasts in order to separate them from more from their money. Bettors can circulate far more money through the system than fans attending games can. Which is why playing at a minor league park with a geographically-unbranded team is not considered a problem given the current environment of the game. Any revenue shortfall at the ballpark, and even loss of goodwill among the non-gambling public, will be made up through the increasing revenue generated by betting enthusiasts. Plus, with Vegas certain to get a team one way or the other—90% chance it being the A’s—there’s a whole market of betting enthusiasts who will embrace them in a way Oakland or Sacramento can’t, even before they move to Vegas. And I promise you that once the dust settles and the team become the Las Vegas A’s-or-whatever, that team may well become the second most-popular team in the entire country, behind the Yankees. Because there’s a whole subculture of Americans who love love love everything about Vegas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalTiger Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 Terrible owner - bureaucratic government and rapidly declining city equals FUBAR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casimir Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 3 hours ago, chasfh said: And I promise you that once the dust settles and the team become the Las Vegas A’s-or-whatever, that team may well become the second most-popular team in the entire country, behind the Yankees. Because there’s a whole subculture of Americans who love love love everything about Vegas. That seems like a stretch. I think Las Vegas home games might have a considerable amount of away fans in attendance because of it being in Las Vegas. But second most popular team in the country behind the Yankees? Ahead of the Red Sox and Cubs? And Cardinals and Dodgers? And will the stranded fans in Oakland follow the Giants out of necessity (unless the have MLB.TV and have to deal with blackout rules)? Are the Raiders the second most popular team in the NFL? They had a leg up on the A’s in national popularity when they moved from Oakland. I’m not sure that they’re more popular than the Cowboys, Chiefs, Packers, Steelers. If they were, they’d have the national TV exposure that those other teams do. It’d also be easier to accomplish that with the Raiders being in a western time zone and the national Sunday afternoon games getting the 4pm slot. Are the Golden Knights the second most popular team in the NHL? That might not be a fair comparison because of Canadian fandom and the following that Toronto and Montreal have in Canada. But they’ve also been highly successful for an expansion team (honestly it seems quite unfair to be a winner right away), and we know how popularity can ebb and flow with winning percentage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 On 4/6/2024 at 6:33 PM, casimir said: That seems like a stretch. I think Las Vegas home games might have a considerable amount of away fans in attendance because of it being in Las Vegas. But second most popular team in the country behind the Yankees? Ahead of the Red Sox and Cubs? And Cardinals and Dodgers? And will the stranded fans in Oakland follow the Giants out of necessity (unless the have MLB.TV and have to deal with blackout rules)? Are the Raiders the second most popular team in the NFL? They had a leg up on the A’s in national popularity when they moved from Oakland. I’m not sure that they’re more popular than the Cowboys, Chiefs, Packers, Steelers. If they were, they’d have the national TV exposure that those other teams do. It’d also be easier to accomplish that with the Raiders being in a western time zone and the national Sunday afternoon games getting the 4pm slot. Are the Golden Knights the second most popular team in the NHL? That might not be a fair comparison because of Canadian fandom and the following that Toronto and Montreal have in Canada. But they’ve also been highly successful for an expansion team (honestly it seems quite unfair to be a winner right away), and we know how popularity can ebb and flow with winning percentage. You make some good points, and we are talking about a Fisher team, so they might have already blown their chance. An expansion team there probably stands a better chance of carving out a national fan profile. I feel as though the baseball team may have more opportunity to pick up people as fans who are Vegas-crazy and don't care much about baseball in their hearts. People who don't really care about baseball tend to be Yankee fans when they do well; a Vegas team could fill that niche somewhat. I think one difference might be that most everyone has an NFL team they follow more than a baseball team, since NFL football is so much more popular than any level of baseball. And hardly anyone in America cares about hockey, so who cares about any team. I have no evidence for any of this beyond my general feel based on my living in America as a sports fan for a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casimir Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 5 hours ago, chasfh said: You make some good points, and we are talking about a Fisher team, so they might have already blown their chance. An expansion team there probably stands a better chance of carving out a national fan profile. I feel as though the baseball team may have more opportunity to pick up people as fans who are Vegas-crazy and don't care much about baseball in their hearts. People who don't really care about baseball tend to be Yankee fans when they do well; a Vegas team could fill that niche somewhat. I think one difference might be that most everyone has an NFL team they follow more than a baseball team, since NFL football is so much more popular than any level of baseball. And hardly anyone in America cares about hockey, so who cares about any team. I have no evidence for any of this beyond my general feel based on my living in America as a sports fan for a long time. If we want to guesstimate visiting fans at Las Vegas games, baseball is probably closer to football in terms of popularity. I want to say baseball is probably closer to hockey in terms of a schedule, but we’re also talking different times of the calendar, and hockey games are more individual with few back to backs whereas baseball is more day to day and in series. I don’t know, maybe the typical baseball traveling fan and typical Las Vegas visitor do or don’t share much of a commonality with each other? I would think those in the trenches of this relocation have probably done some research on this, but this situation is such a mess that maybe it hasn’t been taken into consideration much at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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