• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

LAT: Oakland Athletics introduce monthly pass [$19.99]

*check's standings*

16-18 and 7.5 games out of first.

I think the best way to get fans into the ballpark would be winning more games and/or at least being within better distance of first place. That being said, the monthly pass concept is a really good idea.

Oakland's attendance wasn't even that great when they were winning in the early Moneyball years.
 

painey

Member
The Twins were doing a deal like this at the start of the season where you got into all home April & May games because the attendance had been dropping every season. They started the season amazingly and they still offered the deal, but completely hid it on the website 😅 Scummy
 

snacknuts

we all knew her
I fucking hate baseball and I still might buy this if I lived nearby. It's nice going to a ballpark for beer and a hot dog and ignoring the game.
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
*check's standings*

16-18 and 7.5 games out of first.

I think the best way to get fans into the ballpark would be winning more games and/or at least being within better distance of first place. That being said, the monthly pass concept is a really good idea.

500 is pretty solid.
 
The blue jays used to have a similar program to this a few years ago.

$100 for an access card that would get you into any home game for the entire season. No assigned seat, you'd get the "best available" in the upper deck whenever you showed up.
 

RBH

Member

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
*check's standings*

16-18 and 7.5 games out of first.

I think the best way to get fans into the ballpark would be winning more games and/or at least being within better distance of first place. That being said, the monthly pass concept is a really good idea.

Being that close to 500 this early in the season isn't that bad. There is something called the wild card. A lot of games left to play.
 

element

Member
Yeah. Braves did this last year, which made sense with last season at Turner Field. It was $70 for the first two months of the season you could sit anywhere for Monday through Thursday games.

I wish the Mariners would do it. I'd do it in a second.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
It's almost like a sub-season pack. I wonder if they could dynamically change the price month to month based on attendance.
 

shira

Member
I would buy that in a heartbeat if I lived nearby, or near any stadium that offered such a thing. Baseball is baseball even if my team sucks.

But then you would have to watch baseball in shitty seats?

Nothing like watching a guy throw 100mph from half a mile away, line up at disgusting bathrooms, listen to banter music for 4 hours, and pay 5x the rate for awful food.
 
...wait, so you're telling me that the concept of a season ticket is not a thing in US sports? That's one hell of a trick to miss, it's the cornerstone of sport attendance in soccer in Europe.
 

Chris R

Member
...wait, so you're telling me that the concept of a season ticket is not a thing in US sports? That's one hell of a trick to miss, it's the cornerstone of sport attendance in soccer in Europe.

No, season tickets exist, but the baseball season is a long one, 81 home games. Most teams offer full, half, and partial season tickets, but those fans have already purchased tickets. This deal is more to get asses in empty seats, hoping they spend $20 a head or more on beer and food once they are inside the gates.
 

Schlep

Member
the Giants have been contenders for the last 15 years.

The A's have been in the playoffs 3 of the last 5 years, and more than a lot of teams in the 2000's. Don't get me wrong. I understand the reasons why the Giants have one of the best attendance records in MLB. I just don't understand why the A's are pretty consistently near the worst.
 
No, season tickets exist, but the baseball season is a long one, 81 home games. Most teams offer full, half, and partial season tickets, but those fans have already purchased tickets. This deal is more to get asses in empty seats, hoping they spend $20 a head or more on beer and food once they are inside the gates.

Fair enough. I guess that also makes sense for these cut-price tickets. Apologies for being completely wrong in my earlier post.
 

Fatalah

Member
Yeah, that particular conversation was about the Red Sox.




While the end of it may have involved a bit of BSing, the first few years of it were legitimate.
Source: Trying to buy tickets, being unable to do so





That was 60 years ago. I would imagine most of that generation has passed on or nearly so.

Sure, but they had children, didn't they?
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
The A's have been in the playoffs 3 of the last 5 years, and more than a lot of teams in the 2000's. Don't get me wrong. I understand the reasons why the Giants have one of the best attendance records in MLB. I just don't understand why the A's are pretty consistently near the worst.

The building is THAT bad. It smelled of raw sewage for years.
 
The building is THAT bad. It smelled of raw sewage for years.

Via Wikipedia:

On June 16, 2013 following the game against the Seattle Mariners, the Coliseum experienced a severe sewage backup. This led to pipes leaking out puddles of sewage into the showers, offices, visitor training room and storage areas on the clubhouse level of the stadium, all of which are 3 feet (1 m) below sea level. After the game, the A's and Mariners were forced to share the Oakland Raiders locker room, located on the stadium's second floor. According to Coliseum officials, the stadium's aging plumbing system was overtaxed after a six-game homestand that drew close to baseball capacity crowds totaling 171,756 fans.[50]

This was not the first time sewage problems cropped up at the stadium. For instance, on one occasion the Angels complained about E. coli in the visiting team's training room after a backup. Backups occur even when no events are taking place there.[51] For instance, Wolff wanted to go to dinner on June 12, 2013 (while the A's were on the road) at one of the Coliseum's restaurants, only to find out that food service had been halted due to a sewage leak in the kitchen.[52]

But even before the place started falling apart, it wasn't considered a very good place to watch a game. If you check their attendance in the late '80s/early '90s,when they were World Series contenders every year, the stadium was still only averaging two-thirds capacity. It was even worse in the early '70s, when they had a bunch of future Hall of Famers and won three straight World Series -- they were constantly near the bottom in terms of attendance. It was so bad, it was nicknamed the Mausoleum.

In other words, you have a big stadium that looks and sounds empty even when it's nearly full, and it has issues with sewage. I've never been there, but I don't think it's hard to see why people don't flock to games there.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
No, season tickets exist, but the baseball season is a long one, 81 home games. Most teams offer full, half, and partial season tickets, but those fans have already purchased tickets. This deal is more to get asses in empty seats, hoping they spend $20 a head or more on beer and food once they are inside the gates.
I mean they don't lose money on this regardless. Those seats are otherwise empty.
 

DietRob

i've been begging for over 5 years.
This is actually a really great idea. I hope more teams start doing this. Baseball attendance isn't exactly gangbusters for a lot of teams.
 

rjinaz

Member

Just to add to this. I just found out the DBACKS have a summer pass. It's $50 for June and July. It's 25 games total so $2 per game. Quite the deal.
 
Top Bottom