It’s hard to be confident in ASU’s pitching once you get past Mike Leake, Josh Satow and Ike Davis. It sure wouldn’t hurt to have a local player like Brian Matusz (from Cave Creek, AZ) on the team. My one complaint of the Pat Murphy years is a lack of talented arms, I’m hopeful he can remedy that situation in the near future.

As for the women’s softball team, they’ve been on fire this post season. Katie Burkhart is a stud and we’re lucky to have her. It’s amazing how quickly a program can turn around with a new coach as just 4 years ago our softball program was a Pac-10 bottom feeder. We lucked out getting Clint Meyers.

regarding the decision to go, or not to go, for many potential patrons. Sure, a family of four looks at $40 for four seats, and may go versus $60 for four, but IMO that is not the reason causing the diff between a typical crowd of 11,000 for a game, and a potential crowd of 22,000 for a game. IMO, no study cited.

All the talk about location and prices have an uphill climb against the next-door example:

Oracle Arena

I’ve only been in the Arena a few times, but they still get sellouts with big dollar prices. Sure they’re the only NBA team in town, but really I think the problem with the Coli, is that it is an uncomfortable place in the evening, with the marine layer, humidity, and temperature. And it is grey, concrete ugly inside the walkways. Gosh, County of Alameda, your revenue is down for the sake of unpainted concrete! Wake up, someone.

I’ve accepted seats at Giants night games, way the f**k up in the upper reaches and edges, but I certainly WOULD NEVER BUY such a seat. Just like the Coli, it is cold and uncomfortable. And, I saw plenty of empty rows of seats on so-called “sellout crowds” a couple of years ago. So, what’s with that?

Well, the Giants lined up corporate purchasers with their “new ballpark”. Corporations bought blocks of tickets, and then gave them away. So, on a given date of the “sellouts”, a lot of “butts in the seats” didn’t pay for their seats, and, many choice seats were vacant.

The seats were pre-sold because the venue is/was attractive, but there is a disparity in actual attendance versus “sold seat attendance”. Tha A’s have no such “open seating attractiveness” at the Coli. The Alameda County Coliseum is a monument to 1960s thinking and architecture, and it inherently is “dis-inviting”, and the County has no leadership to fix the problem. So you’re getting few corporate “buys” except for luxury boxes. Those no doubt pump up revenue, but do not do much for attendance figures.