Sunday, March 31, 2002
Reds' ticket sales down 10 percent from last season
By John Byczkowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Coming off their worst season since 1982, the Cincinnati Reds are facing a decline in ticket sales for the 2002 season.
An Enquirer analysis of tickets available from the team's Web site shows sales are down 10 percent compared to the same time last year.
An uninspiring team, a late and lackluster schedule and higher ticket prices may all be to blame for slow sales in both season and individual game tickets.
The good news is that baseball fans can still find good seats for every game this season, except Monday's Opening Day, which is sold out. Also, the Reds have yet to sell tickets for the final three games at Cinergy Field, Sept. 20-22. Those tickets go on sale May 18 and are expected to sell out, too.
The bad news is that the Reds may be hard-pressed to match last year's 1.8 million in attendance — itself a 27 percent drop from the year before.
John Allen, Reds chief operating officer, is unfazed by the slow sales and predicts they'll pick up. “We're expecting more than last year, but we're not expecting to lose 96 games this year, either,” he says.
The team also is promoting this season as the last in Cinergy, hoping to pull in fans for a final look at the historic stadium.
But if attendance doesn't pick up, will it affect the team's payroll? Mr. Allen says poor attendance won't force the team to trade its stars and prospects. But if the Reds find themselves in a pennant race, the lack of ticket revenue might prevent the acquisition of players who could help the team win.
Other teams hurting
With few exceptions, Major League Baseball teams are seeing ticket sales decline this year, Mr. Allen says. The Pittsburgh Pirates, for instance, report they lost 7,000 season ticket-holders. If they are not replaced, that would translate into a decline of more than 550,000 in attendance over 81 home games for the Pirates.
One factor may have been the late release of the playing schedule, which gave teams less time to sell tickets.
Teams typically begin selling tickets in late December and January. This year, Major League Baseball's debate over whether to fold two franchises delayed release of schedules until January, and most teams didn't begin selling tickets until February.
Another factor may be the schedule itself. Most important, the Reds don't play the Cleveland Indians this year. The Reds drew 108,400 fans for a three-day weekend series against the Indians last July and 159,000 for a three-game series in July 2000.
Without the Indians, the Reds don't have a blockbuster weekend series on the schedule:
• The Chicago Cubs, historically a strong draw here, come to town for just seven games, three fewer than in 2001. Their first trip here is for Opening Day, and the team doesn't return until mid-September, when the Reds compete for fans with high school football. Instead, the Reds get 10 games with the Milwaukee Brewers and 10 with the Houston Astros, two teams that aren't huge attractions.
• The Seattle Mariners might be a strong draw, considering the team won a record-tying 116 games last year, has a superstar in Ichiro Suzuki, and marks the return of former Reds manager Lou Piniella. But the series is scheduled for three weeknights in June, not a weekend.
• World Series champs, the Arizona Diamondbacks, come to town just once — for three weeknights in August. Reds rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers come to town just once as well, for three weeknights July 30-Aug. 1.
Higher ticket prices this year may be hurting sales, too. The Reds raised the prices of 14,000 of the best seats in Cinergy. Prices of the best “zone A” blue seats rose to $32 from $28, while “zone b” blues and “zone A” greens on the concourse level rose to $24 from $21.
Blue seats available
By Opening Day 2001, blue seats were available for just four games. For another 34 games, the best seat available was an upper deck “red” seat.
This year, take your pick. According to the Web site (www.reds.mlb.com), $24 blue seats, mostly near the left-field foul pole, are still available for 77 of the season's 81 home games. There are also $24 “green A” seats — second level, between the bases — for 31 games.
Mr. Allen says there are reasons for optimism. First, fans have had a year to learn the new traffic and parking patterns around the riverfront. The construction on Fort Washington Way hurt attendance for two years, he says, and that's finished. Second, sales of tickets to groups appear to be rebounding. They were hurt last year by the April riots.
Mr. Allen also has faith the Reds can win ballgames this season. Fans just need to be convinced it's not the same team that lost 96 games last year.
“We've got one of the best bullpens in baseball, and our starting eight are healthy, and they match up with anybody and we think our starting pitching will be pretty good,” he says.
The wild card for the season is this: Just how nostalgic will baseball fans be for one last look at Cinergy Field before the Reds move into the new Great American Ball Park in 2003?
“That's the $64,000 question,” says Jeff McDonald of Riverfront Choice ticket brokers.
In their last year in historic Tiger Stadium in 1999, the Detroit Tigers drew an additional 600,000 fans. By contrast, the Pittsburgh Pirates saw attendance jump just 110,000 in 2000, their last season in Three Rivers Stadium.
Laurel Prieb, vice president of marketing for the Milwaukee Brewers, says fans in that city woke up during the 2000 season to the fact that it was County Stadium's last year. Sales strengthened as the season progressed.
The final year at Cinergy may be the same, Mr. Prieb says:
“It's going to be a tremendous end of an era for the Reds and their fans. And I'm sure it'll be reflected in the attendance figures.”
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Reds' ticket sales down 10 percent from last season
