I think the tarping was a good idea. Made the stadium more tight knit, and it freakin' looked great, just quietly.

But the idea behind it was to create more demand for tickets, and obviously with the team being sliced and diced, that's not going to happen this season, so they're looking to another option.

I don't have an issue with that. Good for them for trying something different - and not for nothing, but I'd spend at least $20 on food and soda most games, especially if there was no limit on what that bought me.

It's a shame it doesn't cover every food item in the stadium, but obviously you can't police people getting food all over the place, and it doesn't make economic sense to have every concession up there for just three sections.

Oh, and the reason it's being done up top is obvious - easier to police. If you allowed the bleachers to do it, the place would be a giant food fight.

go somewhere else" rhetoric, having heard it in many contexts for many years.  That might not've been DF's main theme, but find "a better team to root for" were his actual words, and I replied accordingly.

I've not concluded that this move is incompetant on the A's part...I don't think it'll be that successful, but it's a pretty low risk.  Unless a bunch of malcontents go from concession stand to trash can to stand to trash can a couple hundred times a game.  But that would be wrong.

I agree, I'm getting extremely worn down with the explanations and divine-tea-leaf-readings of every management move, Beane or Lew/Fischer.  Does every move have to be nefarious at its heart?

Like I've often said to others:

________________World's Easiest Job: Critic____________________

..just keep it in mind.  Not that I don't criticize!! 8^d.

... and careful where you're pointing that "unreasonable inference" stick.

I very specifically stated that the AYCE plan "is (especially with the A's application of it, as FSU notes below) a way to maximize revenue/attendee without actually devoting any extra resources/expenditures" -- and I double-Dogfather-dare you to refute that. The reason the Dodgers and Slegna adopted this plan -- and the A's are copycatting it -- is that, on aggregate, most people who buy the tix don't max out their consumption, especially those who wouldn't have eaten that much attending on an a la carte basis; ergo, increase in revenue per attendee -- without actually providing any real value-add to most of the fans who buy those tickets.

Now, yes, FSU broke out the "Lew is targeting Milo Moneybags instead of Joe Lunchbucket" argument -- but tangentially (as is his wont), not specifically to describe this plan.

I think it's pollyannaism of steroid-denyer levels to fall back on the "Lew is just a Barnumesque crowd-pleaser and absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" arguments. It's quite clear that the new stadium as planned will target a higher (and more aggregatedly corporate) demographic; is it not the height of simplicity (yes, I know, that can be taken a different way) to presume that Lew has an overarching plan and thinks ahead and coordinates the franchise's efforts across departments? Sure, that theory and my personal rawhide chewtoy of "the A's have undermarketed for years in order to get a new stadium/location" could be wrong -- but they are simple, they do explain many otherwise disparate or unmotivated actions, and they are not necessarily indicative of evil intent (I think they're both very shrewd and apt approaches by management) merely of profit-motivated intent (which is surely the most simple, banal, and conventional of motivations for ... entrepreneurs).

Your argument isn't really that these theories aren't simple enough -- it's just that you're tired of hearing them and/or you don't like them and/or you don't agree with them.

"If you're right" -- about what? I don't see any counter-theory there.

... nowhere have I ever invoked the Grand Old Benevolent Owner theorem -- not only because I don't presume current ownership to act in such a way, but because I don't think owners ever acted in that way (on the whole, I think that sports-franchise ownership in this day and age is likely more responsive to and respectful of fan desires and experiences (or at least the ones that can be monetized) than ever before). And IIRC, FSU has made pretty much this same argument himself on more than one occasion.

And while I'm at it -- this dumb-as-a-post, implement-it-with-no-real-value-added copycattism is precisely what I was talking about in terms of the marketing/customer-relations moves the franchise makes that, were Beane to adopt analogous approaches with the roster, we'd crucify him for.

So why, exactly, is criticism of the roster open for debate along those lines, but criticism of the fan experience ain't?

I honestly think the organization will need a sea-change in attitude/approach/budgeting for these matters when/if they move into Cisco. The problem with marketing to a higher demographic with higher prices is that the new consumer demographic will be far more demanding.

1.  It's so much easier to tar arguments with the nefarious/conspiracy brush than it is to actually deal with them.  No one says here that the inconsequential View Level Pig Out idea is the linchpin of an evil master plan, just that it fits with their business model geared towards more per-fan-dollar return.  Do you dispute that's their intent?  Seems pretty obvious, most other teams already do that, and, as monkey notes, it's the simplest explanation.

2.  You may have intended to make the "there's no benevolent ownership argument."  I would have agreed (though perhaps wondered why you had to again belabor that painfully obvious truth).  But what you said was "perhaps there's another team."  If you don't want to be mis-framed, you might consider your words more carefully.  Though it may not resonate with you, and you say wasn't your intent, the "why don't you move to Russia" theme is one which I remember very clearly and painfully, and is a very sore point for me.