New Entertainment District Coming to Am Fam?/Renovations Financing

[Jopal78]

41 minutes ago, Hopper said:

Haven't posted in a while, however, I beg to differ on a couple issues being mentioned above.

Up until 3 or 4 years ago, I had gone to an average of 10 games or so per season.  That was reduced to 2 or 3 the past 3 or 4 years, and now I'm down to one game per season.  Reason?  Cost and nothing else.  I'm about 2,5 hours away from AMFAM.  I can't take a family of 4 to a Brewers game for less than $250-$275.  Well, of course you can, but who wants to go to a game and not partake into normal game day things like food, decent tickets, etc.

The cost does stop people from attending games and I know a lot of people that have pretty much done the same thing as me.  Just plain cut down to bare bones or stopped going all together.

If the Brewers and people here think that the cost of going to games doesn't prohibit people from going, they would be incorrect.

You're absolutely correct, the cost of going to a game gets more expensive every year and there  are people who attended the games more often in the past but have backed off over price. Unfortunately its simply not that many people to really matter. 

The fact is, other than for covid restrictions, the Brewers haven't averaged less than 28, 000 fans per game in the last 18 years regardless of the quality of team on the field. If patrons have stopped attending games due to cost in the last 18 years, there have been an equal amount of other/new fans who have stepped up and gone to more games. I don't think that will change, and attracting new fans is probably half the point of an entertainment district at the stadium in the first place. 

 

[owbc]

It hasn't been proposed yet but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Brewers take out 2,000-4,000 seats in the Terrace to convert to a beer garden or another alternative type of gathering area that can generate more revenue than cheap tickets. Similar to what Cleveland and Colorado have done. 

I get the "expensive to attend a game" thing but the cheap options are still there if you want to take advantage of them. Anyone on the email list knows that they are constantly advertising $10 or less ticket deals. 

[Brewcrew82]

15 minutes ago, owbc said:

It hasn't been proposed yet but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Brewers take out 2,000-4,000 seats in the Terrace to convert to a beer garden or another alternative type of gathering area that can generate more revenue than cheap tickets. Similar to what Cleveland and Colorado have done. 

I get the "expensive to attend a game" thing but the cheap options are still there if you want to take advantage of them. Anyone on the email list knows that they are constantly advertising $10 or less ticket deals. 

Yeah, the people who are complaining about how expensive tickets are these days just aren't looking hard enough. They are definitely there, whether through team-offered promotions (e.g., 50% off Fridays) or on third party sites. 

I agree that the current Am Fam operation is becoming outdated. It was great when it first opened up in the early 2000s, but adjustments, such as a new entertainment district and/or reducing seating capacity to create more social spaces, need to be made to enhance revenue growth and keep up with the times. 

[NBBrewFan]

3 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

You're absolutely correct, the cost of going to a game gets more expensive every year and there  are people who attended the games more often in the past but have backed off over price. Unfortunately its simply not that many people to really matter. 

The fact is, other than for covid restrictions, the Brewers haven't averaged less than 28, 000 fans per game in the last 18 years regardless of the quality of team on the field. If patrons have stopped attending games due to cost in the last 18 years, there have been an equal amount of other/new fans who have stepped up and gone to more games. I don't think that will change, and attracting new fans is probably half the point of an entertainment district at the stadium in the first place. 

 

Well the Brewers can't continue to be competitive with 28,000 fans per game.  Take a look at this years attendance.  It is down 5,000 a game from 2019 (before the pandemic and the year following a playoff run).  When they drew 35,000+ per game in 2018 and spent the money they did, Attanasio said they lost money even with the playoff revenue in 2018.  Sure attendance was down last year likely due to pandemic related factors, but there are no stadium restrictions this year.  Baseball as a whole has been seeing consistent overall attendance drops.  The owners and the commissioners office ignore it because they are charging more per customer and they are generating more revenue.  I don't know how many of those fans are walking away because of cost (or attending fewer games), but what's the answer in Milwaukee is not the answer in Chicago as every other market in Baseball will have more people with disposable incomes than Milwaukee (due to being the smallest market). The Cubs could probably increase ticket prices by 30% and still see a decent increase in revenue as there will be plenty of people to take up the slack. I also don't presume companies with huge revenues do the right thing or have the right direction.  Does Netflix have access to lots of Marketing information?  Do they have their heads up their butts? I don't think there's an owner in baseball that cares about dropping attendance or people being bored with the product as long as they can increase revenue from the smaller fan base, but at some point the crap will hit the fan, but like wall street most of them will have dropped the equivalent of GE stock long before it tanks.

 

Also, back in 2018 I believe the Brewers were #1 in revenue/market size/population.  Expecting them to get even more out of that pop/market is harder and harder.

[bucks2281]

The price of the tickets isn’t the issue for most people. It’s the cost of eating and drinking inside the stadium. The quality of the food product has declined precipitously over the past five years. I wonder why these local restaurant groups want to have their product degraded by Delaware North — why have Smoke Shack, Zaffiros, etc. come and gone over the years? They didn’t even have the nacho cheese sauce for the first month of the season. Come on. Not sure what the experience of others has been, but the decline in quality is noticeable while prices have trended higher and it has detracted from my experience at the stadium. 

[patrickgpe]

You are right about that. I don’t mind spending 25-30 bucks to sit up in the terrace. But when I’m at the game, i want to have 2 beers and a brat. Bring the wife and kids, and its a 300 dollar afternoon. 

[bucks2281]

1 hour ago, patrickgpe said:

You are right about that. I don’t mind spending 25-30 bucks to sit up in the terrace. But when I’m at the game, i want to have 2 beers and a brat. Bring the wife and kids, and its a 300 dollar afternoon. 

You can probably snag a Terrace ticket for less than $10 most nights. But if you want that brat, it’ll probably be either cold, moist or the bun will be crunchy. During the month of April, if you wanted a nacho bowl, your only cheese option was cold, shredded cheese. Nasty. And, oh there’s only been one place to get a tap beer on the Terrace level for the past two seasons. Pretty sure every single concession stand at Lambeau and Fiserv serves draft beer.  So, the Brewers may have remodeled and added food offerings and new bars over the past years, but the quality of the product from Delaware North has been frankly unacceptable. It’s the same issue in the suites. It’s a problem and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.  
 

If the Brewers move forward with an entertainment district, I’m fully supportive. But I sure hope the team itself or Delaware North is not actively involved in the day to day management  or operations of any of it. 

[rickh150]

Quality team still matters too. Yearly poor teams will not bring in 2 million fans. Brewers have been fortunate to have the competitive yearly team for about 18 years now.

[Jopal78]

17 hours ago, NBBrewFan said:

Well the Brewers can't continue to be competitive with 28,000 fans per game.  Take a look at this years attendance.  It is down 5,000 a game from 2019 (before the pandemic and the year following a playoff run).  When they drew 35,000+ per game in 2018 and spent the money they did, Attanasio said they lost money even with the playoff revenue in 2018.  Sure attendance was down last year likely due to pandemic related factors, but there are no stadium restrictions this year.  Baseball as a whole has been seeing consistent overall attendance drops.  The owners and the commissioners office ignore it because they are charging more per customer and they are generating more revenue.  I don't know how many of those fans are walking away because of cost (or attending fewer games), but what's the answer in Milwaukee is not the answer in Chicago as every other market in Baseball will have more people with disposable incomes than Milwaukee (due to being the smallest market). The Cubs could probably increase ticket prices by 30% and still see a decent increase in revenue as there will be plenty of people to take up the slack. I also don't presume companies with huge revenues do the right thing or have the right direction.  Does Netflix have access to lots of Marketing information?  Do they have their heads up their butts? I don't think there's an owner in baseball that cares about dropping attendance or people being bored with the product as long as they can increase revenue from the smaller fan base, but at some point the crap will hit the fan, but like wall street most of them will have dropped the equivalent of GE stock long before it tanks.

 

Also, back in 2018 I believe the Brewers were #1 in revenue/market size/population.  Expecting them to get even more out of that pop/market is harder and harder.

The Brewers attendance numbers won't be down in 2022. School has just let out, and they have been at home only 3 weekends out of the 9 so far this season. 

As for the "Entertainment District", seems like the team wants improvements/repairs to the stadium that the Stadium District doesn't have money to pay for. In today's climate, it's doubtful a bill would pass the General Assembly restarting the sales tax, so the entertainment district is a way to generate more revenue to fund those improvements. After all, the parking lots sit empty half the year, they may as well redevelop some of the land to not only generate property taxes, but to sell beer and concessions on game days. If it  ultimately has to done at the expense of some fans who bring their own beer and food to consume before the game, I don't think that will stop anyone from tapping a potentially lucrative new revenue stream. 

[NBBrewFan]

2 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

The Brewers attendance numbers won't be down in 2022. School has just let out, and they have been at home only 3 weekends out of the 9 so far this season. 

As for the "Entertainment District", seems like the team wants improvements/repairs to the stadium that the Stadium District doesn't have money to pay for. In today's climate, it's doubtful a bill would pass the General Assembly restarting the sales tax, so the entertainment district is a way to generate more revenue to fund those improvements. After all, the parking lots sit empty half the year, they may as well redevelop some of the land to not only generate property taxes, but to sell beer and concessions on game days. If it  ultimately has to done at the expense of some fans who bring their own beer and food to consume before the game, I don't think that will stop anyone from tapping a potentially lucrative new revenue stream. 

Yes I understand attendance goes up after school lets out.  When I quoted they were down 5,000 I was using the attendance for games from thru June 6, 2019 and June 6, 2022, not for the entire 2019 to the first part of 2022.  In fact, they are down almost 8,000 when comparing all of 2019 to the first part of 2022.