More on South Florida Baseball Failing
By Mike Silva ~ November 27th, 2009. Filed under: Outside the Apple.
Mike Newman of Scouting the Sally joined me during the back half of Wednesday’s show to discuss some of the Mets and Yanks top prospects in the South Atlantic League. Today he provided interesting insight about my skepticism of South Florida baseball sustaining success. Keep in mind Mike is only talking about the Marlins. He did not give any insight into Tampa which I realize may be in the same state, but is a different situation. Also, keep in mind that Mike isn’t just opining on this from a research perspective, but actually spent time in the marketplace during the World Series wins and subsequent fire sales. He also played college ball in the SEC against amateur stars such as Pat Burrell and Jason Michaels. This guy knows the game and the market.
To summarize Mike’s “tweets” here are his thoughts:
They have never had the right model for success in place. That stadium makes it like asking a 3-legged dog to win a greyhound race. The new stadium probably won’t be better because you all but alienate the Broward/West Palm Beach fan base.
Obviously the stadium situation is poor. For nearly two decades the Marlins are playing baseball in a football stadium. The larger issue to me is fan support. In 2003, the year they won the World Series, an average of 16, 290 visited then Pro Players Stadium. To be fair the Marlins got off to a slow start and picked up the pace during the second half. Even the year after they only increased six thousand per game! The Phillies drew over three million fans the year after their World Championship. The year after a title should be a “layup” when it comes to attendance. You could add the Rays into the mix with disappointing attendance post World Series appearance.
The best benchmark of success might be the San Francisco market. I realize this isn’t a small or inexpensive market to live, but from a baseball revenue standpoint the Giants were in trouble during the last decade of Candlestick Park. At one point there was talk of moving them to Toronto, San Jose and, believe it or not, Florida. They Giants almost were the original Tampa Bay Rays! Since they moved to their new ballpark they are now considered, by baseball standards, a large revenue market. Since the new ballpark in 2000 they Giants have been in the top 10 in attendance every year except one (2008). They also have been as high as number two outdrawing the Mets and Yankees.
Maybe it’s unfair to compare San Francisco and Florida, but if you look at the Giants attendance in San Francisco up until 1999 it looks an awful like the Marlins. San Francisco fans passed the test as they still had solid attendance post Bonds and during seasons of non competitive baseball. Maybe the new stadium turns things around and this debate is moot in the coming years. You can see that the skepticism is not just from this corner of the web, but on a larger scale.
