Melvin Bobblehead Day

[TabbertBB]

How bad did the Brewers Marketing team goof on the game yesterday? All other Bobblehead games are sellouts or near sellout (40,000 plus) with the sausages. Yesterday the game for Doug Melvin was lucky to have 30,000. They should have created some interest and used the date for the Bobblehead of Braun or Fielder. They should have been able to pull in 40,000 (even with a Packer Game) yesterday. The marketing team just goofed by thinking that people would get excited about Doug Melvin Bobblehead and it cost them 10,000 tickets being sold.

[Invader3K]

I think it's just the fact that the team is out of contention, coupled with the Packers game yesterday. I'm not sure a Fielder or Braun (which they did earlier this year) would have drawn many more at this point in the season.

[mothershipconnection]

They probably didn't figure in that the team would be completely out of it during a Packers' game day.

[pretendastronaut]

Ya, I echo what is already said, the state of the season has a lot more to do with it then a Melvin bobble does. The attendance was higher for the Suppan bobble, but that game wasn't sold out either. I'm not sure I saw the official attendance that day, but it wasn't as packed in the stadium has been on bobble days.

 

I don't think a Melvin bobble is all that great of a choice, especially for the casual fan, but I don't think the attendance was entirely due to being a Melvin bobble.

[owbc]

Maybe people are getting sick of bobbleheads?

[Invader3K]

Maybe people are getting sick of bobbleheads?

I wonder if people are getting a bit tired of them. I think the crazy collecting of them has certainly slacked off. People realize that unless it's a rare variant or something, it's not really going to be that valuable, because everyone else is hoarding them too.

 

Maybe it's time for them to come up with a new collectible item. It's too bad Starting Lineup figures are no longer made, because I thought those were way cooler than any bobblehead.

[pretendastronaut]

I looked it up, and the Suppan bobble day did sell over 40,000 tickets still. I don't think near that many actually showed up, but they sold the tickets still. Suppan's bobble day was the lowest sold bobble day other than Melvin.

Sunday's attendance was easily the lowest attendance for the weekend series, which is unusual. I can't imagine people didn't come just because there was a Melvin bobble. I think that shows how much the Packers game influenced attendance.

[endaround]

It was also a Milwaukee Packer game.

[hawing]

How far in advance is the NFL schedule released? It was last October or so that the Brewers committed to September 20 being an all-fan giveaway day, and I'm guessing February or so when they committed to the giveaway being a Melvin bobble.

 

The information on how far in advance weekend games sell out is surely proprietary, but that data would probably shed some light on how much yesterday's attendance depended on the Brewers' position in the standings vs. the existence of a home Packer game vs. the selection of bobblehead.

 

I could see more people turning out for a bobble with broader appeal (for lack of a better phrase), but I don't think Sunday's attendance should be perceived as a fan referendum on Doug Melvin. (I admit I did wonder during the game whether anyone was posting such a thought on this forum.)

 

In any case, if I've read the 2010 schedule correctly, next year the last all-fan giveaway is in August, which will make the bobble factor moot if Sunday games next September sell poorly.

[TabbertBB]

Correct Hawing-- The Packers schedule comes out in April. The Brewers season has already started and fans have purchased tickets. The Packer game would have nothinbg to do with advanced sales if the bobblehead was of "value".

Again, I say that the Marketing crew at the Brewers goofed and didn't pick a good bobblehead for the day. There would have been hundreds of fans that would have purchased tickets if the bobblehead would have had value.

Again, the Marketing crew should have picked Fielder or Braun or such if they really wanted tickets sold.

[RightFieldCoder]

The Brewers knew that 9/20 would be a Packer game, but they would not know if it was at home or that it was a Gold Pack game.

 

They also have to pick people that will be on the team at that point. With all of the Cam trade rumors, he was probably ruled out. We've already had Weeks, Hardy, Prince, Counsell, and Hart. Nobody was talking about McGee. They chose Kendall, Braun, Soup, and Hoffman. The only other choices would be Yo and Parra. Both were questionable coming into the year.

 

I think they're doing too many a year and have run out of ideas.

[pretendastronaut]

That stance doesn't make any sense. I take from that, you're implying that if it were a Braun or Fielder bobble, that game would have been sold out before April? The Cubs games these next three days aren't sold out, you can still go online and buy tickets today right behind home plate. If high value, late season games where going to sell out in April, these would have been included, but they're not sold out. I'll be curious to see if attendance is any more these next three days, than it was yesterday.

 

Look at the attendance for this weekend;

 

Friday: 39,057

Saturday: 36,399

Sunday: 30,024

 

You're essentially arguing that the bobble did nothing to draw attendance, but what then drove the numbers down so dramatically on Sunday? Where did all of those people go on Sunday? Did they decide to boycott the game because of the bobble? That's a drastic dip for Sunday, which says a ton about the effect of the Packers game in my opinion. Looking at Saturday's attendance tells you about the standings. If we're in contention, Saturday's game is a 42,000+ attendance as well, no bobble needed.

 

I don't disagree that a better bobble choice brings in more fans, but even a premium bobble doesn't bring in 40,000+ for this weekend with the season in the state it's in. The failure of yesterday's attendance isn't the bobble, it's the standings and the Packers.

[bucks2281]

I would argue that bobblehead days don't even affect attendance nowadays. As long as the team is competitive, the weekend games are going to be sold out. I agree that the bobblehead concept has become stale, and they should become more creative with the all-fan giveaways. I don't know how much bobbleheads cost to produce, but I'd like to see a ball-day (yeah, fat chance after Opening Day 1997), a mini-bat day, and maybe something different like a Brewers frisbee.

 

If the Brewers were in first place, yesterday's game would be sold-out, no doubt. If yesterday was a Green package game or if the Packers played at night, I think there'd be a few thousand more people there. The Melvin bobble was actually kind of a cool idea, IMO, and I would have gone if there was no Packer game yesterday. However, I think it comes down to: 1) The Brewers are out of the race; 2) Yesterday was a Gold Package Packer game.

[JohnBriggs12]

Look most Brewer fans follow the Packers with the same passion they follow the Brewers. Packers play 16 regular season games. Brewers play 10 times that many. It's simple math. The more meaningful game by far is the Packer game and that was clearly going to be the case for the past 6 weeks at least. 30,000 is a rather remarkable turnout if you ask me.

[TabbertBB]

The Brewers didn't know that 9/20 would be a Packers game!!!! The Packers could have played on Monday night 9/21 or on Sunday night. Both would not have conflicted with the Packers. Again, the schedule for the Packers didn't come out until April, about 2 months after tickets went on sale to the Brewers public. If it would have been Ryan Braun on September 20-- people lined up for tickets in February would have been purchasing tickets and extras of the cheap seats and doing the circle game to collect his bobblehead. It just wasn't being done yesterday for Melvin.

Again, the Brewers Marketing staff goofed on NOT having a GOOD bobblehead. They could have held off on having the Braun or Fielder Bobblehead until September.

Heck, they could have had a Hank Aaron Bobblehead and it would have done better than Doug Melvin. Doug Melvin has little or no value.

The Cubs games are on WeekDay nights== not convient for families to attend the games on School nights. Plus the Cubs and their fans realize they are out of it and not going to travel north.

[Bikeage77]

TabbertBB wrote:

Heck, they could have had a Hank Aaron Bobblehead and it would have done better than Doug Melvin.

Hank Aaron having a second bobble released would be as good of a ticket as Braun or Fielder. He's a HOFer, Milwaukee hero, and his first bobble is one of the more valued SGA's the Brewers have released. That statement, is just silly. A Craig Counsell bobble woulda probably drawn the same crowd. Suppan and Kendall woulda been pretty close in numbers as well.

[bucks2281]

I disagree. I don't believe people care about the bobbleheads as much as you think. IMO, it was the Packers and the fact that the Brewers are playing for pride. They sell out Sunday games April-August, bobblehead or no bobblehead.

 

I doubt that thousands of people chose not to attend the game because of who the bobblehead was. People like free stuff. Heck, I consider the Jason Kendall bobblehead much more offensive/unattractive than the Melvin bobblehead.

[dadofandrew]

They do not come close to selling out Sunday games in April or May with no promotion.

 

Ironically, I'd rather have the Melvin bobble than almost any other. I think this might be a casual versus non-casual thing.

[TracyThom]

The interest in the team is directly related to the attendance. Since they are not playing for anything but pride, the attendance the rest of the year will be down. I couldn't even sell 2 of my tickets to tonight's Cubs game on Ebay for $15 total. Face value was $90.

[pretendastronaut]

The Cubs games are on WeekDay nights== not convient for families to attend the games on School nights. Plus the Cubs and their fans realize they are out of it and not going to travel north.

 

Like I said, this statement makes no sense though. You're reacting the situation today for the Cubs series, but not for the bobble giveaway? How is that fair? Cubs and Brewers fans alike don't want to go this series because their teams are out of it, but a Braun bobble would have made everyone come to the park regardless of the season standings? That doesn't add up.

You're stating a belief that people would have lined up in February for tickets to a Braun bobble in late September, ensuring the sell-out, because that would be deemed a high value game/item/ticket, but the Cubs series wouldn't? The big story the past two years was how much money Milwaukee fans where making scalping tickets to the Cubs games, so those tickets had a far higher perceived value back in February than any bobble head day would have.

If you want to insist this was a huge marketing failure, more power to you, but it doesn't appear you have anything to back up that notion.

[bucks2281]

They do not come close to selling out Sunday games in April or May with no promotion.

 

Not so sure about that. The past two years, they've sold out all of their April and May Sunday games. In 2007, yes, they had some ~32k Sunday crowds during those months, but that was before the team became the draw they currently are.

[pretendastronaut]

They do not come close to selling out Sunday games in April or May with no promotion.

 

Not so sure about that. The past two years, they've sold out all of their April and May Sunday games. In 2007, yes, they had some ~32k Sunday crowds during those months, but that was before the team became the draw they currently are.

 

For this year at least, that's not a fair assessment though, as the schedule was set up to drive attendance. The April/May Sunday games this year were:

Sun, Apr 12 : vs Cubs : 40,168

Sun, May 3 : vs Arizona : 44,727 : Braun Bobblehead

Sun, May 10 : vs Cubs : 41,646

Sun, May 31 : vs Cincinnati : 44,594 : Hoffman Bobblehead

So all Sunday games where great, and the bobbles did draw more than the Cubs.

The general belief is that families don't come until after the school year is over, and this is true enough, however, that said, they also did great on the Saturdays preceding the bobble days;

Sat, May 2 : vs Arizona : 42,422 Sat, May 30 : vs Cincinnati : 44,172

Again, this shows a decent addition for bobbles, but at the time expectations where still much higher, and how much did that assists those numbers versus a premium?

[Invader3K]

I think it just goes to show the old adage that Milwaukee baseball fans will support a winner, but not a loser.

[dadofandrew]

That is hiher than I would have thought. It must have been '07 when they drew 28K on Easter vs. the Cubs. 2-3 years ago, we went to Turn Back The Clock weekend and they had about 25K there on Sunday.

[BrewCrewForever]

I'm in the camp that it did not sellout because of the Packers game being on at Noon and the Brewers being out of the race. I'm sure some were not as excited for a Melvin bobble compared to a player, but I think the other two reasons are much more the reason behind the low attendance yesterday. I was at the game and glad to get a Melvin bobble. I think it's cool, doing a bobble of someone other then a player or a sausage for once.