Brewers Group Tickets Down 600,000 to 400,000?

[rickh150]

https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-struggling-attendance-back-pre-025414185.html
I would buy a 20 game package if the prices were at 50-60% of reg prices. It isn’t close. Stubhub and spring deals make it a lot easier to attend for less.
Parking your car for $40 preferred day of game is excessive too… and gas to get there. That is the biggie in my mind, the cost to drive your vehicle an hour plus there and back $40-$50 already.

[Frisbee Slider]

Small distinction, article mentions it is actually group ticket sales down from 600,000 to 400,000. No mention of season ticket sales.

[PeaveyFury]

13 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Small distinction, article mentions it is actually group ticket sales down from 600,000 to 400,000. No mention of season ticket sales.

An important distinction. A lot of companies still aren’t doing employee outings, customer entertainment, etc. much at all following the pandemic, which would directly affect group numbers, fairly logically.

[rickh150]

From a month ago… interesting stuff about the future of baseball in Milwaukee, costs of improvements.
 

[sveumrules]

Obviously last year’s numbers were still held down league wide due to lingering COVID concerns, but the Brewers still came in 10th at 22,522 per game.

That has bounced back nicely to 29,908 so far this season, but other teams (BOS, NYM, LAA, SFG, TOR) in substantially larger markets have bounced back better so the Brewers ranking has slipped to 14th.

For reference here are Crew’s the pre-COVID per game numbers: 2015 (31,389 | 13th), 2016 (28,575 | 16th), 2017 (31,589 | 10th), 2018 (35,195 | 10th) and 2019 (36,090 | 8th).

[NBBrewFan]

Attanasio claimed in 2019 that with attendance of roughly 36,000 per game plus a playoff run that the Brewers lost money.  The Brewers are under 30K per game after 42 home dates and even if they sell out every remaining game will not get to 36,000 per game.  The extra money from revenue sharing, MLB.com and their own TV deal is likely to be offset by higher payroll this year (compared to 2018) so by the owners guidance the Brewers are looking to lose money in 2022 after likely losses in 2021 and definite losses in 2020.  Attendance isn't down a tad.  It's down a lot and that will limit what the team does at the deadline and likely next year.  Plus they have already been running big discounts and against the Cardinals no less (their biggest rival for the Division Crown).  We still have another 3 games against the Cubs so the Chicago invaders will help those sell out, but the final homestand (9 games) against the Marlins and Dbacks (plus 2 against the Cardinals) will likely be heavily discounted to get butts in the seats. And the lack of info on season ticket sales is more than likely hiding bad news.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Maybe more people would come if tickets weren't $40 for mediocre seats and bottles of water weren't literally $7 apiece. My family does just fine for itself but even I feel prices are wildly out of control. I wouldn't go to more than a couple of games a year if I didn't have a company paying for most of my tickets.

[rickh150]

Lots of big questions to answer about the future of this club…. 

[sveumrules]

2 hours ago, rickh150 said:

Lots of big questions to answer about the future of this club…. 

They’ll get who pays for what at the stadium figured out with plenty of time to spare.

The Brewers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

[LaprilOne]

22 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Maybe more people would come if tickets weren't $40 for mediocre seats and bottles of water weren't literally $7 apiece. My family does just fine for itself but even I feel prices are wildly out of control. I wouldn't go to more than a couple of games a year if I didn't have a company paying for most of my tickets.

Yep, I will not buy a 7 buck bottle of water (concession prices have gotten ridiculous overall).  But you can bring your own 85 cent bottle, and now they let you bring your own water bottle and refill in the Bubblers.  Save when you can!

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

47 minutes ago, LaprilOne said:

Yep, I will not buy a 7 buck bottle of water (concession prices have gotten ridiculous overall).  But you can bring your own 85 cent bottle, and now they let you bring your own water bottle and refill in the Bubblers.  Save when you can!

Yeah, I just happened to forget a water bottle at our Brewer Fanatic event a few weeks ago so I had to pay the iron price of a concession stand water bottle...

[Hopper]

No one (Brewers and fans) wants to admit it, but it is just too expensive to go to multiple games anymore.  I used to go to 10+ per season (pre 2020 all the way back to the 80's), and that is with a 2 hour drive one way.  Now, I plan to go to one this year.  One game, with 95% of the reasoning being cost.  That isn't just because gas is so high, it's because tickets are so high, parking is so high, concessions are so high, and I'm tired of once I get to my seats, the constant streaming of people in and out of their seats in front of me the entire freaking game.

A long time ago, the ushers only let people move in and out of their seats at the half inning marks.  If someone left to go get beers, popcorn, whatever, the ushers didn't let you go back to your seat until the half inning was over.  Now people have no consideration for those around them and just get up and sit down whenever they feel like it.  Seriously, it happens so often that this is just another reason I don't go to many games anymore.

[owbc]

Maximizing profits and maximizing attendance are incompatible with each other. I think MLB attendance is doing fine this year, all things considered. 

It will be interesting if group sales recover, especially given all of the investment in group/party parts of the ballpark. As more companies go remote, will that mean more corporate outings? Or less because half of the employees are in other states? 

Baseball's revenue model has evolved toward TV. There are a number of teams that could be profitable with zero attendance. TV numbers have held steady for the most part. 

I think what is interesting about the Brewers is that they clearly have fans coming from long distances to attend games in person. The number of fans in the ballpark in the late innings in Milwaukee is way lower than other stadiums. That is the cost associated with the car-centric design of the stadium and the urban sprawl of the Milwaukee area and there isn't really a good solution to that.

[Outlander]

17 minutes ago, owbc said:

The number of fans in the ballpark in the late innings in Milwaukee is way lower than other stadiums. That is the cost associated with the car-centric design of the stadium and the urban sprawl of the Milwaukee area and there isn't really a good solution to that.

I don't believe this at all, I have been to a lot of stadiums around the country. It is no different in Milwaukee than anywhere else really in regards to fans leaving early.

[rickh150]

11 hours ago, owbc said:

Maximizing profits and maximizing attendance are incompatible with each other. I think MLB attendance is doing fine this year, all things considered. 

It will be interesting if group sales recover, especially given all of the investment in group/party parts of the ballpark. As more companies go remote, will that mean more corporate outings? Or less because half of the employees are in other states? 

Baseball's revenue model has evolved toward TV. There are a number of teams that could be profitable with zero attendance. TV numbers have held steady for the most part. 

I think what is interesting about the Brewers is that they clearly have fans coming from long distances to attend games in person. The number of fans in the ballpark in the late innings in Milwaukee is way lower than other stadiums. That is the cost associated with the car-centric design of the stadium and the urban sprawl of the Milwaukee area and there isn't really a good solution to that.

Another reason to start all night games at 6:30

[BruisedCrew]

For us, the length of the games is the main reason we don’t go to more, and often don’t see the end of games. 
 

Our 2 daughters who live in town and enjoy going to games are ready to leave after 3 hours, and a lot of the games we go to are just approaching the 8th inning at that point. 
 

When I went to 30-35 games a year in the late 70’s and early 80’s before we had kids, the games averaged about 2 1/2 hours and I never left a close 9 inning game early. I could even go to a weeknight game and be home at a reasonable time to get to bed and up to work the next morning. 
 

With almost all games on TV now it’s more convenient to follow the games that way and just go to 10 games or so a year to get the ballpark experience. And we’re getting close to dropping our 10 pack and going to even fewer games in person. Maybe the pitch clock will help. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 hours ago, rickh150 said:

Another reason to start all night games at 6:30

Baseball really needs to alternate their times a bit. It's *really* hard to take my young kids to a game if it's not going to finish until after 10pm.

If every third game started at 6:10 or even 6:40, it'd be a lot easier to attend more games. I don't think we need to change the start time of every night game but a little more flexibility would be nice.

[JCREW]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Baseball really needs to alternate their times a bit. It's *really* hard to take my young kids to a game if it's not going to finish until after 10pm.

If every third game started at 6:10 or even 6:40, it'd be a lot easier to attend more games. I don't think we need to change the start time of every night game but a little more flexibility would be nice.

This times 1,000,000. How can you grow the fanbase for the game if kids can only watch the end of the game twice a week in the summer and once a week during the school year?

[Brock Beauchamp]

11 minutes ago, JCREW said:

This times 1,000,000. How can you grow the fanbase for the game if kids can only watch the end of the game twice a week in the summer and once a week during the school year?

Exactly.

[owbc]

I wonder what the impact on TV ratings would be to start the games at 6 or 6:30. I feel like almost everyone who attends games in person would be in favor of it, but if the TV folks say no, then it's never happening. At least many teams have switched to 6:40 starts in April/September in recent years. 

[JCREW]

I wonder if TV ratings take into account that I fall asleep during games that go too late. 

[rickh150]

Well, with ticket sales down, you could expect the team not to add payroll this deadline… reasonable.

Or you could expect them to add payroll because they are right in this thing AND a big ASK of taxpayers ( in some form) is coming in the next year. Much like the Packers additions to Lambeau Field (Atrium, HoF, Packer Pro Shop) with the Brown County referendum in 2000, it sure matters to be winning big on the field at the right time. The vote barely passed (53% to 47%) and much had to do with the team winning a Super Bowl and getting to the playoffs regularly (even though Packers barely missed in 1999) in the years prior.
 

If the Brewers are in need of these community tax projects to help them compete, and they are, the time might be now to get a few really good pieces to get them to the World Series.