It's Official: Third Deck Closed for 2006

At least I should still have room to kick my feet up on the seat in front of me in the bleachers for those games. :-)

OK....breathe...find my happy place....GODDAMNIT, MY HAPPY PLACE IS IN SECTION 318!  OK, maintain...find happy place number two...banks of the Eel River in Mendocino...ahhhhhhhh........

Now that I've regained composure, here goes:  this deck closure is a terrible move for the franchise, the fans, and the chances of the team staying in Oakland, and there are a buncha reasons why.  I'm going to group them into four areas.

The Revenue Argument

The most common reason from fans in favor of the closure seems to be "anything that brings the team more revenue to compete for a title/re-sign stars/stay in town is OK by me."  (But perhaps the A's take PayPal).  It baffles me, though, why everyone seems to just assume that the move on its face will bring the A's lotsa bucks...the A's haven't said that.  There are reasons to think attendance will actually drop (more below).  Last month Devo and I traded some WAGs and seemed to loosely agree that while the deck closure isn't likely to lose the A's a bunch of bucks, nor is it likely to gain them a whole lot either.  Which makes sense...the A's will lose up to 10,000 tickets sold for each of the "premium" games (Yanks, BoSox, fireworks), while they'll save on the upkeep costs of the deck, plus they'll add some revenue from pre-bought tickets which don't get used.  It's interesting that many pro-closure folks were certain that the deck would be open for these premium games.  Apparently not.

And then there's the elusive (illusive?) scarcity quotient...the theory goes that making tickets less available will prompt more fans to buy them in advance, and actually increase the total ticket revenue.  Proponents point to Some Phone Co. Park in SF, and Minuteman...oops, Minute Maid...in Houston, where smaller stadia in higher demand led to more tickets sold.  But these were new parks, literally the next new thing, a modern smorgasbord of Krispy Kremes and wireless access.  It's not hard to imagine why they were in high demand.  The scarcity argument assumes there is an untapped fan base which will start buying seats under the new order.  But when the new order is the same old crummy Coliseum, where half the seats point away from the plate and Brezhnevian architecture rules the day...someone please tell me who these Barnum-fodder are, who will start attending games at the same old deficient place because they're harder to get into, because I've got some multi-level marketing ideas I'm dying to lay on them.  This way to the egress!

And the horrible burden of serving the walk-up customers?  Please...after all these years the A's can surely make reasonable estimates of the staffing needed to handle the walk-ups for a given game.  And c'mon, these ticket sellers just don't cost much.  Ditto the top deck security and concession staff.  Not having to pay those folks amounts to a trivial savings in revenue terms...less than a mediocre LOOGY, I'd say.

The Attendance Argument

I want a full park, believe me.  I was there on Monday 9/19, the opener of the last A's homestand versus Minnie, in the thick of the race, with perhaps 12,000 others.  It was grim.  We need more butts in the seats, but to offer 2006 attendance as a referendum on Oakland support for the team (as Wolff did two weeks ago) while decreasing the number of seats available and making the average cost of the rest higher is either blind, perverse, or in support of a different agenda.  I am willing to believe that the scarcity phenomenon will lead to some more advance sales...1,000 per game seems wildly optimistic, but some...but it seems clear to me that a decline in cheap seats available going to really be felt when KC is in town on a cold Tuesday night.  I'm quite sure we'll see some 7-8,000 fan nights this year, as folks who would've made the last minute decision to dash down and buy a 3rd deck seat decide to stay home instead.  Ain't no one planning ahead to buy that cold Tuesday night advance KC ticket because they're afraid they'll be shutout.  No way.  Subtract the up to 10,000 fewer for each premium game, and the A's will be hard pressed to match last year's total attendance even if they make more revenue at the bottom line.  And yes, I understand that the cheapest seats are still $10 face cost, just like last year.  But there are far fewer of them.  And there's another shoe left to drop for us cheapskates...what of the AAA/Chevron $4 per ticket discount?  If that goes away or is further restricted, in combination with the certainty that there will be many fewer $2 Wednesday tix made available, the cheapskates are just going to stay home on those last minute nights.

And when Lew stands up next November and decries the attendance of the A's, a solidly contending and (hopefully) playoff team, he's not going to quote revenue numbers...he's going to talk about total turnstile figures, and no one will mention that he himself reduced the top end number of turnstile spins per game.  Which takes me to...

Relocation

Everyone likes to pile on the conspiracy theorist, so I'll be brief:  start with San Jose flirtations, add a proposal for a swap meet ballpark which was set up for failure, mix in Oakland officials who cave when they should hold out and play hardball when they should cave, and you've got the makings of a tasty relocation cake.  Ice it with declining attendance, and it's pretty damn irresistible.  And remember:  the A's in Oakland are a bottom tier franchise in resale terms, but the portable A's, with MLB blessing to move and well heeled suitors, are worth a whole lot more.  Just ask the Expos cum Nationals.

Oh, and I don't imagine that timing this news release for a late December afternoon right before Christmas was a coincidence.

Disgruntled Fans

I know a lot of you think this move is a good one, so obviously, you're not going to be unhappy.  But a key tenet of marketing is to hold onto your base.  No matter how happy some might be about the new state of topdecklessness, it's not likely to make you a more enthusiastic fan in cash outlay terms.  But us disgruntled types...we're feeling burned, and even if we try to maintain our enthusiasm, its going to be hard, especially when it comes to extras, like tee shirts and family nights and buying tix for friends who'd otherwise never go to a game.  And it's not just us top deckers...watch what happens to the lower level concession stand lines, especially at the high traffic games, when there's no top deck stands to provide relief.  Those concourses, already tough through poor design, are going to be nigh on impassable.  And I'm going to say it again:  the new cheapest seats offer views that are way, way worse than the better top deck seats.  Crowley said in the press release that "we have created other seating options at the ballpark that we feel offer a better view at an affordable price." That is crap.  The A's are asking their lower budget customers to pay more money for worse seats.  Pure and simple.

I love the A's and will still go to as many games as I can afford.  But that's going to be fewer than last year, a little for me and a lot for my kids.  And I understand that putting the A's in a new park will cost more, and I'm willing to shoulder my share of that burden.  But this move doesn't offer any promise of a new park...if anything, it makes them more likely to leave town.  If the A's need revenue to prove franchise viability in Oakland then they should ask us loyalists to invest in a $5 per ticket surcharge which would be placed in an Oakland ballpark investment fund, to be re-credited down the line on future season tickets.  There are other options.  But hurting the lowest rung of fans simply to increase cashflow to Wolffisher, who are already running a profitable operation with substantially growing revenue?  Closing the top deck might be a good business move for them, but not because they expect to sell more tickets...at least not in 2006, and not in Oakland.

It's just part of our attempt to make AN more "fan friendly".

Also, given that I work a part time job without any real set schedule, the inability to get walk up tickets means FSN will get a lot more of my ratings next season.

If it leads to a new stadium at all, I suppose I'm for it. It's selfish to be dissapointed, really, but I am, nonetheless.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/12/22/SPGTTGBSU31.DTL&type=a s

But since "empty paid for seats" don't buy concessions, don't buy souvenirs, and don't get excited about coming back, that "may" looks like a "may not" in "may"'s clothing.

I cut my teeth sitting on the wooden bleachers in left center watching Dwayne Murphy's cap fly off every time he began a quick dash to the ball. Then in later years getting a head nod from Hendu to his admirers in Henduland.  The low angle and close in view of the field view gave you a feeling that you had an effect on the game(albeit tiny) for a low dollar amount, that sitting in the bleachers today don't come close to                                              

I feel for you 316-318ers because while you will go to future games and have great times, you'll always regret not seeing those same events in your old seats.

Maybe it would make more sense to cry foul over the A's closing the third deck if they routinely filled the second deck--which they don't. All of 144 season-ticket holders, out of 2,000,000+ fans, were affected by the closure, and they were offered more expensive seats at the same price.

Maybe the A's didn't cause a problem; maybe they reacted to one.

1. Fix the mess at the entrance to the BART bridge after games. The "cattle call" after games- even ones with 15,000 fans- when thousands try to cram onto the BART bridge is a major drag that could be solved quite readily with minimal manpower. Put the choke points further upstream, on the ramps, so that the merging takes place more gradually. Get stadium security to keep folks from gathering in big clots right at the bridge entrance. Have the cops clear the damn Five Dollah Hat guys off the bridge so they aren't bottlenecking things.
2. Fix the mess at the exits from the stadium parking lots. A half-dozen strategically-placed guys directing traffic with those little airport-runway flashlights would do a world of good.
3. Stop being such cheapskates with Stomper appearances and limiting the Stompster to weekends/big games only- I go to quite a few weeknight games with my little nieces & nephew and they must see Stomper!
4. Let Roy Steele cut loose with any weird gibberish that comes into his head, at any time- it's obvious that he's the Bill King of stadium announcers and it's a shame to force him to hold back in the name of Yankees-style "professionalism." If he wants to narrate Dot Racing with a lenghty tirade on The Nature Of Reality, well by God, let him do it! He's been there long enough to have earned the right. Let that boy boogie woogie! it's in him and it's got to come out!
5. Fix the radio speakers in the West Side Club men's bathroom. Come on, how much does a friggin' new radio cost? It sounds like I'm listening to Marconi's first experiments in there, and it's been that way as long as I can remember!

One thing I hadn't really thought of, though, was the impact this'll have on promotional days. It'll be quite disappointing to see people unable to get to fireworks days and events like Root Beer Float Day, but on the other hand, it'll probably help with safety concerns and general crowd control for getting on the field for fireworks and whatnot. That, at least, will be refreshing.

I do hope that if this supposed season ticket buying and increased consistancy in attendance happens, the A's might bump up the numbers for giveaways so that more people have chances to get the major ones -- bobbleheads, figurines.

And given the attedence for Eck Day, I really hope that when Rickey's time rolls around to be put on the outfield wall (or Bill King's, for his HOF moment!), they do consider opening up the upper deck for just that day -- screw profit, whoever wants to be in the park for a day like that should damn well be able to be there. Those are moments that transcend any of the other shit, IMHO.

For 61 games last season, we had under 30,000 people in attedence. Still plenty of room for walkup for those, at least. I could definitely see bleacher season tickets increasing as a replacement for the lost level... I'm really curious to see if this does have a definite impact in season ticket sales over the next three years, though. I guess decreasing walkup sales is valuable enough to them, since it will at least incite people to consider a little bit ahead of time about procuring tickets for some of the bigger games. I just hope this isn't about seriously yanking up the ticket prices in a year or two through preaching scarcity.

I hate feeling like we're the goddamn labrat on the way out of town. I don't WANT to do anything to help them make a venue in Portland or San Jose or whatever craptastic location Wolff is licking his chops over.

Just seems like it's gonna be a field day for Stubhub and scalpers with those Yankees/Giants/Red Sox games more than anything as a result of this. Which makes me sad.