Struggling Orioles, Ravens move aggressively to put people in seats
But none of that really mattered to the Nicewarner sisters, Jenny and Johanna. They had come to Camden Yards with their dad not just to see the Orioles play but to sit in the outfield afterward and watch the 1993 movie “The Sandlot” on the giant scoreboard.
“It would have been nice without the rain, but we’re very excited about this,” said Jenny Nicewarner, 29, anxious to combine a night of their favorite baseball team with one of their favorite movies, a nostalgic look at family, friendships and myth-making through the prism of a neighborhood baseball game. “I thought it was really cool, getting to watch ‘The Sandlot,’ which is a baseball movie, on a real baseball field.”
Count the Nicewarners satisfied fans, in a season when satisfying fans has been proving something of a challenge. With both the hometown Orioles and Ravens facing attendance problems, the need to sweeten the local fan experience has become even more crucial. For the Orioles, it’s a matter of using giveaways and other game-day promotions to attract new fans. For the Ravens, it’s about addressing their existing fans’ concerns, whether by rolling back concessions prices (as they announced in May) or making it possible for more people to attend training camp (as they announced just this month).
“Our cultivation of our season-ticket customer base is ongoing, and it’s always been that way,” said Kevin Byrne, the Ravens executive vice president for public and community relations.
Said Greg Bader, the Orioles vice president of communications and marketing: “We are consistently looking for ways in which to attract existing fans and cultivate new ones to help grow the Orioles brand.”
Still to come in 2018: LGBT pride night on Wednesday; fireworks after every Friday home game through August; “Birdland Socials,” pregame gatherings aimed at users of social media, on Tuesday and July 24; a “Game of Thrones” theme night on Aug. 14; and “Bark at Oriole Park,” a chance for fans to pay a premium and bring their dogs, on Sept. 12.
The promotions schedule was finalized in the offseason, when optimism was still high and long before the team started performing at a level that has left it with one of the worst records in baseball. But with attendance — 20,635 per game through June 22, compared to 27,807 in 2017 — declining by an average of more than 7,000 fans per game, the importance of both bringing new people to the park and throwing a bone to the existing fan base is heightened.
“It certainly has its challenges,” Bader said of bringing in crowds this season.
“What you need to do as an organization is insulate yourself, There are going to be some years where you win, and you’re going to have some years where you’re going to lose. You need to try to build your fan base and build a brand that can withstand the years where you’re not having as good a season as you’d want.”
Team officials assiduously avoid saying the rise in promotions is tied to the Orioles’ on-field woes and attendance challenges. But clearly, what Bader refers to as “adding a tangible extra to the game experience” makes a difference.
“There is no doubt that they have an effect,” said Laurence M. McCarthy, a faculty member at Seton Hall University’s school of business and co-author of the book “Sports Promotion and Sales Management.” “Undoubtedly, it brings in more people on those nights when there is a giveaway. … It’s a slow grow, but I think they do have somewhat of a permanent effect.”
The Orioles aren’t the only Baltimore team dealing with attendance challenges. The Ravens, after three mediocre seasons in which they failed to make the playoffs and last season’s controversy surrounding players taking a knee during the national anthem, saw a noticeable rise in empty seats at M&T Bank Stadium. True, the team has sold out every home game since arriving in Baltimore in 1996, but those no-shows suggest a dissatisfied fan base.
Unlike the Orioles, who have 81 home games to fill, the Ravens have just 10 (including a pair of preseason exhibitions). So the emphasis is not so much on recruiting new fans, Byrne said, as on keeping those the team already has.
“We’ve got to keep getting these people to want to come back,” Byrne said, “but you can’t always depend on the team for that.”
Sure, there are the occasional giveaways — next season, they’ll be offering a Ravens flag and a Ray Lewis commemorative coin — but mostly, it’s about the game-day experience. Fans can win trips to away games, the chance to help form a gantlet as players leave the locker room for the field and attendance at OTA (organized team activities) practices.
Team officials have even resorted to calling season-ticket holders personally, to hear their concerns and try to drum-up enthusiasm. They’ve made more than 2,000 such calls since the season ended.
“We have done more of that calling this year than ever before,” Byrne said. “This was an offseason that needed that type of enthusiasm.”
Other NFL teams have been making similar moves to satisfy their fan base. The Atlanta Falcons last season reduced food and nonalcoholic drink prices by 50 percent (and saw fan spending increase by 16 percent). The Washington Redskins just announced a series of measures aimed at season-ticket holders, including reduced concession prices (up to 50 percent less than other fans at the game pay), access to offseason events (happy hours, for instance) and new entertainment areas at FedExField.
For the Orioles, the added giveaways and promotions have provided relief in an otherwise disappointing season. The team sold nearly 1,000 tickets for the outfield seating for “The Sandlot,” Bader said.
For sure, ballpark giveaways were a thing even back in the Orioles’ glory days of the late 1960s and 1970s. Free bats and balls were long a ballpark staple, and longtime Orioles fans still look back with a smile on a game in the 1980s where scores of giveaway seat cushions began raining down on the field at Memorial Stadium.
Every major league team has promotions and giveaways on their schedule, even those high up in the standings. The Washington Nationals, currently battling the Atlanta Braves for supremacy in the National League East and averaging nearly 31,000 fans a game, are giving away bobbleheads of five different players, and have theme nights planned around “Game of Thrones” and Oktoberfest. The Boston Red Sox, going toe-to-toe with the Yankees to stay atop the American League East and playing in nearly always sold-out Fenway Park (averaging around 34,500 a game, with a capacity of 37,731), have scheduled Jewish Heritage night, Peanuts night (featuring a Snoopy bobblehead, wearing a Red Sox uniform) and the ubiquitous “Game of Thrones” Night.
Attracting the new fan is crucial, says Kerry Tan, an assistant professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland who has taught classes in sports economics. “The promotion itself might be an attempt to boost attendance, but the hope is that might be a lingering effect, that my enjoyment of that game may lead me to want to attend a future game.”
And the benefits of a full stadium go beyond the revenue generated by ticket sales, Tan noted. Even the Ravens, with all their sellouts, want to ensure people actually sit in those seats. Fan enthusiasm can help a team play better, and it’s hard to sell food and souvenirs to an empty seat.
“For the people who have tickets in hand but don’t actually go, the Ravens are losing out on concession sales and merchandise sales,” Tan said. “Those are people they would be generating extra revenue from.”
Still, all the giveaways and promotions and enticements are no substitute for on-field success It’s no accident, Tan said, that the 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros are attracting big crowds this season, or that teams such as the Milwaukee Brewers, Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks, all near the top of the standings and performing perhaps better than many preseason pundits had expected, are also doing well.
The Orioles’ numbers bear that truism out. In 2012, when the team surprised everyone by going from a chronic basement dweller to winning a wild-card berth in the playoffs, attendance increased from 1.76 million the previous year to more than 2.1 million. Two years later, when the team won its division, attendance climbed to nearly 2.5 million.
“The best way to sustain an increase in attendance,” Tan said, “is to put a winning team on the field.”
