Interviews & Articles
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Rangers try to reverse losses in the stands
Apr 28, 2009
Rangers trying to reverse their losses in the stands
By JEFF CAPLAN | Fort Worth Star-Telegram
ARLINGTON — Plenty of good seats remain for the next 72 home games, starting tonight against the Oakland Athletics.
The Texas Rangers want you to know that, just in case you thought those empty green seats actually belonged to fans waiting in line at the new discount concession stands.
Attracting fans to the Rangers’ palatial, red-brick ballpark never required much business acumen, but times change and dwindling crowds in recent seasons pushed the club’s marketing department to empty the bullpen, so to speak, to give fans numerous reasons to buy a ticket — and likely at a markdown.
"The best marketing is the team winning, but we’re prepared if they win and prepared if they lose," said Andrew Silverman, Rangers executive vice president of ticket sales. "People want value on three things: tickets, food and parking. We’ve answered all three."
A decade of hair-pulling pitching, eight losing seasons and ticket price hikes despite ownership’s hard-line stance on player payroll after the Alex Rodriguez era have conspired to disconnect many loyal fans from the franchise.
The Rangers last season drew 1.9 million fans, the first drop below 2 million since 1995, the season after Major League Baseball’s disastrous work stoppage.
Now the Rangers, and all of baseball, are dealing with a crippling economy. The Rangers have absorbed decreased suite renewals and a 10 percent decline in season ticket renewals, a figure Texas officials admit could have been worse.
The Rangers are also dealing with major road construction to Interstate 30 as the new Cowboys stadium adjacent to the ballpark nears completion.
Through nine home dates, six have drawn fewer than 25,000 for an average of 24,501, ranking 21st out of 30 major-league teams entering Monday’s games. However, a positive fan response to the team’s first weekend of promotions April 17-19 against the Kansas City Royals — one of many planned this season — offered early encouragement that fans will be receptive to the club’s efforts to deliver dollar-for-dollar value.
Team officials also recognize that the schedule has offered three nondescript visiting opponents and no division rivals, and that attendance typically spikes once school lets out for the summer.
"I think the interest is still there, we just have more challenges with the economy and the uncertainty of the economy," Rangers president Nolan Ryan said. "Fans are obviously concerned with their own personal situations because they didn’t step up and renew suites and season tickets at the rate we normally see."
Reasons for optimism
Jim Sundberg, the Rangers senior executive vice president of communications and public relations, and a former Rangers player, wishes he could control the results on the field. He knows he can’t.
He’s optimistic, though, that value nights will help bring fans back if the team can’t do it alone. After all, 37,635 showed up April 18 for a Josh Hamilton jersey giveaway and postgame concert one night after the worst drubbing of the season and a sixth loss in seven games.
"I think a team that is competitive is one element to it," Sundberg said, "and, in this particular time, value for their dollar, which we’re trying to give fans, and did over this last weekend."
Nearly 90,000 watched the Royals take two of three from the Rangers. Attendance more than doubled from the prior weekday series against the Orioles on April 13-15.
That series opened with a Monday night crowd of 12,184, the smallest assembly for a scheduled game in the 16-year history of Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. It followed a turnout of 14,672 for the afternoon finale of the season-opening series against Cleveland. The three-game Baltimore series averaged 14,588.
Rangers officials downplayed the dismal showings, dismissing the smallest crowd as a natural lull the night after Easter and pointing out there were no promotions. Still, crowds that sparse haven’t been seen since the early days at old Arlington Stadium and were startling enough to stir debate on sports talk radio.
The Friday night series opener against the Royals marked the start of an uptick. No coincidence, officials said, as it was also the debut of FANtastic Fireworks Friday, which offers tickets for $10 in seats normally priced up to $25, $5 parking (normally $12) and a postgame fireworks show.
The Friday offering runs throughout the season, excluding the Aug. 14 game against the Boston Red Sox. The Rangers feature many of their ticket specials and promotions on weekends, when families are more likely to attend. All promotions are detailed on the team’s Web site.
"They are doing some good things to get people out there," said Darin David, account director for Millsport, the sports marketing division of Dallas-based The Marketing Arm. "There are some good concession deals and they’re packaging tickets with concessions. Maybe if they can hurry along some prospects and get some wins, that would help a lot."
More evidence of fan interest, Sundberg said, is a significant increase in walk-up ticket sales. Some 9,000 tickets for Saturday’s game were purchased at the stadium box office on game day and 7,000 of the 27,635 tickets sold for Sunday’s series finale were walk-up sales, about double a typical Sunday, Sundberg said.
"With the renewal of season tickets being down about 10 percent we felt like the walk-up was going to be more important to us this year and it’s proven that way," Ryan said. "So it tells me the fans want to come out and see us."
A tough trend
Twelve of 30 major-league teams are averaging 30,000 or more fans in April. The Rangers are among 10 teams averaging fewer than 25,000.
It wasn’t always that way. In seven of nine seasons this decade, the Rangers averaged more than 29,000 and four times averaged more than 30,000.
In 11 of 12 seasons from 1994 to 2005, Texas outdrew the American League average. But, in the past three seasons, the Rangers finished below the AL average, including a half-million fewer fans in 2008.
Opening the 2009 season in the teeth of a grinding economy has hurt attendance across baseball, even at the new Yankee Stadium and at Citi Field, the new home of the New York Mets, where expensive premium seats sit empty.
The Boston Red Sox, owners of a record streak of 481 consecutive sellouts, are concerned that diminishing corporate sponsors and selling fewer premium seats could put the streak in jeopardy, The Boston Globe reported last week.
The Rangers wish they had the Yankees’ and Red Sox’s problems. And they’ll be happy to get both clubs in Arlington for nine games this summer, up from seven last season, plus an interleague series against the Los Angeles Dodgers and enigmatic slugger Manny Ramirez, all sure-fire boosts to attendance.
Still, bargains and top draws can only do so much to get the club back on the plus-side of 2 million.
"Our fans have gone a long time without a winning club on the field and I think that we have to prove to them that it’s not another year of expectations that don’t follow through," Ryan said. "So I think what we have to do is show them that we’re playing well, show them that we’re consistent and that we do have a product that they will enjoy watching when they come out."
