Attendance and the marketing problem (with poll)

class last semester about baseball.  I ended up selecting to write it about the Washington Nationals and how they were going to get fans to come to that park...etc.  But one of my interests was of course to disect the A's weaknesses and strengths because im such a huge fan.  I cant speak from experience because Im from Detroit, but it seems like there is a deeply rooted fanbase for Oakland.  Those maybe remembering the old days, people that are facinated by Billy Beane, fans their whole lives...along those lines.  The fans that I have seen on TV and come into contact through this site (just the fact that there is a site for the A's that is so popular like this one is a huge statement) are all knowledgable, witty, and obsessed with this team.  

The A's marketing has won awards for their advertisements and they are some of the most entertaining ive seen around the league.  It encorporates players so the fans get to see them outside of the field and have a good laugh watching.  I think it is an attempt to connect the fans to these players and get them to the park in that fashion.  However, you are right in the fact that its apparent that while this market may be being tapped, others are being neglected.  I would love it if someone would inform me of what kind of family events, if any, they have at the ballpark or other target markets they are attempting to reach...

My major is marketing and ive already had an internship in the sports field (what i really want to do) and this problem is exactly what gets me going :)

...but if you look at the years that they drew over 2.5 million, they were each following years that the A's went to the World Series(almost hitting 3 mil after they won it)  They also drew 2.4m in '92 after missing the playoffs in '91, but they were still riding the momentum of the previous three years.  However, they've never hit 2.4 (or even 2.3) since.

So is it the lack of a World Series appearance?  It would appear so.  Face it, Bay Area fans have been spolied between the A's of the 70's and late 80's and all Super Bowls the Niners and Raiders have gone to.  As for the Giants, they were lucky enough to ride the Bonds/Pac Bell Park wave at the peak of the dot-com boom, but the next few years will tell the real story.

What the A's have to do is market themselves as a Bay Area team and stop this "small market" whining.  MLB's territorial rights apply only to the stadium, but the A's broadcast AND advertise on San Francisco and San Jose media outlets.  By doing that, I think they'll slowly start to get the corporate season ticket holders.

The chilly nights at the Coliseum are probably the one drawback we can't fix, and that won't change unless we go to a retractable roof stadium.

is the start.  Radio and TV broadcasts are the best marketing devices for the team.  Baseball was initially opposed to radio broadcasts because owners thought that fans would stay home and listen, rather than come to the park. It turned out that media stimulated attendance.

There's no TV in Sacramento, and we get a weak, staticky signal, and no KICU, down here in Hollister.  On the other hand, KNBR is a powerhouse, and KTVU is on the dish.  A's need better media outlets.

I read a quote from the Yankees president.  He said the team wanted to control what the fans saw, heard, and smelled at the Stadium, because it was never too late to make a bad impression.  They are zealous about protecting their brand.  It seems the A's feel that the team on the field should be the be all and end all.  Obviously, it ain't.

The Coli is all those things that SBC isn't, Vertigo hit on them in his post.  The Giants do a pretty good job of honoring their history; they have statues of their greats, and keep them involved with the team and around the park.

if it would help to have "booster" organizations in the more outlying areas of A's fandom, like Napa and Sacramento and Stockton.  A few off-season events could get everyone acquainted, and then we might be able to organize some bus trips for fans from the same area to attend games.  If I knew other fans in my area, we could talk about carpooling.  The main obstacle that keeps me from games is the drive, which is about and hour and 15 minutes one way on a good day.  Colleges do it with alumni associations.  Why not A's alums too?

beautiful ballpark is really the next step.  Lou Wolff really has the right idea here.  The Coli feels weird when you have less than 20,000 fans--you look around and there are more than 40,000 empty seats.  It has a little of that feel of going to a restaurant where there is only one or two other full tables--what's wrong with this place?  It will force more of the steady fans to buy season tickets or partial season tickets.  It will make some games "the toughest tickets to get in town"--maybe 35 of 81 games--19 angel games, 10 Yankee/Red Sox games, 3 Giant games, and at least 3 other games.  And I think that would expand the sellout games very quickly--cache factor.

Second, honor to entire A's history in the ballpark, and in some of the advertizing.  I think it's incredible that so few people know the A's are second to the Yankees in most World Series games--the A's are a truly historical and successful franchise, particularly in terms of results.  The marketing of the A's in a brand sense has just not been well done--there is so much room here for brand marketing--yes there commercials with the team members are good, but I'm talking about something different--long term marketing of the brand.

(A's and Cardinals are tied for second most world series wins at 9--four in Oakland and five in Philadelphia)

Lots of great points made in this forum.

The media issue is huge. I've posted before how I came back to the bay area for th Angels series (currently living in LA), and it took forever for me to find any radio broadcaster talk about the A's. The A's need to be affiliated with a real sports radio station, not this family network.

A new stadium may be an issue. The fact is that the ignorant fan is afraid of the Coliseum. I'm a Raiders fan but I recognize that their actions and reputation has hurt the A's more than mos tpeople realize. A friend of mine who is a Giants fan said that she went to an A's game once and referred to our fans as "gangstas"! As incorrect as this statement is, it defines the perception that the rest of the Bay Area has for the A's.

Advertising and marketing needs to wake up. People don't see the family atmosphere that is present in the Coliseum. People don't see the flag-waving, drun-beating fans that other organizations would cherish. People don't know what a great bunch of guys the A's bring out to the field, with their youth and exuberance, numerous community service activities. In LA, the Angels promoted all over the southland. I couldn't go 2 miles without seeing an annoying red bilboard promoting the Angels as "LA's team." As obnoxious as that is, it worked well. I would love to see Green and Gold billboards posted throughout the East Bay and in San Francisco. We may be the second favorite team in this area compared to the Giants, but the Angels showed that a little marketing can go a long way.

I voted for the casual fan. The casual fan goes to SBC. Our diehards probably stack up against any other teams. Just look at this website and compare it to the other teams. No comparison!

Basically, our team has a lot to offer, and no one knows about it. I just hope that this apathy does not drive the team out of Oaktown.

You thought the A's had it bad with marketing ...

If someone had volunteered to work for me yesterday, I'd have loved to have been there.

The A's are the most generous club in baseball when it comes to granting the visiting club's request to play day baseball on getaway day.  

The last comment concerning the fact that the A's don't have any bars/restaurants/shops named after them got me thinking. The only A's store I remember was the "A's dugout" in Southland Mall way back when. The Giants have the advantage of now having a stadium where there's stuff to do once you leave. All we have at the Coliseum is BART and that guy that sells cheap A's caps.

This may be impossible, but I've always wondered about having a stadium around Jack London Square. The square is a nice little area that has some decent restaurants and shops, but never really has met its full potential. Having a stadium in that area would be a huge boost to that area. I always dreamed of having a stadium by the Oakland side of the bay where we had our own splash home runs. (Didn't someone post a proposal of a "Floating Stadium"??? - brilliant).

Just a thought. I know I'm dreaming.

How to market the A's to the public at large is a bit of a trick.   The traditional path of "Barry Bonds and the Giants take on......" isn't an option due to the way the team is run.  Is this really a problem?  When I preach the gospel of green and gold, I use the constant turn over as a reason to follow the A's.  In a way it hits the same chord as college loyalty.  You can watch wave after wave of baseball evolution develop right before your eyes.  Just as many Cal fans can tell you who is a red shirt, A's fans know who is in AA and AAA.   More importantly, we get excited about them.   That is infectious.   I've brought 13 people to games this year (9 for the first time).    Most were just curious to check out the source of my madness, some began asking about the rookies and trades after the game, two (and maybe three, fingers crossed) will be season ticket holders next year.  
        If it works on a small scale, why not a big one?   New stadium - yes.  Actual radio support - damned straight.  A message if and when we get the aforementioned - it can't hurt.

It's a book about ballooning trends, among other things, about businesses figuring out which statistics really matter and examining trends to see what true, overlooked underlying factor caused them to take off. I read it for a class a few years ago and don't have it with me here at school, but Moneyball actually reminded me of it somewhat. I can't help but think there must be a method of advertisement parallel or somehow kin to Beane's brilliant methods of ballplayer acquisition. Unfortunately, I know squat about marketing, so this is all I can offer.

...I can say that I wasn't originally a big supporter of the overall "A's Brand" theme, although my friends came up with it.  I think the TV is VERY clever, especially given the fact that the A's are loathe to spend any money on it.  It's apparently not an easy account to work on.

I also think the "action figure"-like print/outdoor is great ("Curvalicious", etc.)

Given that the competition is 10 miles away, it's relevant to compare the two teams' campaigns, and Oakland's is consistently superior.  Not even close.  In fact, I'm not even sure who the Giants' agency is.  But year in and year out, the advertising is much better coming from the A's.  All this despite the fact that the A's ad budgets are very, very low.

In fact, the quality of the A's advertising is not unnoticed in the sports world:  http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050105&content_id=927924& vkey=news_oak&fext=.jsp&c_id=oak

So what's most effective in bringing the fans to the park?  Certainly the ad campaign keeps the team in the public eye.  And a new stadium creates buzz, a la the Giants (whose stadium is kind of overrated, in my view).  But it seems like it's the marquee player, who is capable of turning a game around by himself, is what people really ooh and ahh over.  Barry Bonds of course does that in SF (remember the articles in the Chronicle about declining SBC Park attendance while he was out?  Or the people at their park that just buy tees that have "Bonds 25" on the front with no mention of the Giants?), but look at other sports.  If the Miami Heat is coming to town, people come out to see Shaq.  When the Eagles came to SF last week, people came out to boo TO.  More people even came to Golden Gate Fields when Laffit Pincay was on his farewell tour and rode there.

The American public likes stars.  It's kind of dumb, really, and sad -- a star will take precedence over the quality of a team as a whole.

You can come up with clever advertising and marketing ideas  all you want (an old art director friend, rest his soul, came up with the "Croix de Candlestick", which was a GREAT idea but didn't bring many more people to Candlestick).  But with the lack of a big superstar a la the Bash Brothers, Rickey, Eck....you're going to look at some empty seats.  Great fans, but empty seats.

To cheer you, I'll repost my favorite Jason Kendall quote:

"All I know is our fans are nuts, they're crazy," said catcher Jason Kendall, who is in his first season in Oakland. "It's fun to play in front of them. They're kind of like us, they're out there. We relate to them well. They might not be the biggest crowds, but you can't fill up a football stadium. They're loud, and that's how it should be. I think this is a great sports town."

I am one year removed from The Bay Area and 2 years removed from my last marketing job, so some of this might be old news.

A's award winning advertising is farmed out, while marketing is done in house and as many of the positions, not the only job this individual does.  The Giants did (and might still do) alot of their advertizing and marketing in conjunction with KNBR as well as in house.  They had a team dedicated to this.

However, the A's do have some of the best promotions out there to bring fans in BART Wed, ANG & Merc news ticket 4 packs, Cheveron Buy one, get one, ticket deal. I also get via email many ticket deals.  I used to be the group co-ordinator for my previous company and I never got deals from the giants.  Now with a new stadium, my guess is these deals will all go away.

As far as season tickets, these are some of the best deals around, yet when the packet went out last year there were several on this board complaining about how the seat prices went up!  Even without season tickets the field level seats at $28.00 (non-mvp) are a steal, in Anaheim those seats start at $40.00 and many are obstructed.  At Petco the price is the same, but with less obstructions.  With a new ballpark the seat pricing will be much closer to Pac Bell.

I had a long discussion with Sandy Alderson as the Padres wanted to know why attendence had dropped off in late Aug. (kids going back to school) Yes, he called all Padre Season ticket holders!  First of all we only have a minimum plan as we were up north most of the summer.  Amongst other topics were why do you have a minimum plan, food, and suggestions.  I mentioned what we had in Oakland and if we could get that at Petco we might consider it, but at this time for a simular package/simular seats at Petco it is more than twice the price.  Yes, even Padres fans need to be told when to get loud, except for Trevor Time, when the place goes nuts.  The other positive thing at Padres games is promotion nights, all fans get the promotion and Sundays are kids only.  If there are leftovers, they have second chance days at Lake Elsinor Storm.