southsider2k5

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ May 13, 2015 -> 01:37 PM) SS but you left out the other reasons: the ballpark sucks, the upper deck is too high, it's too expensive, the team isn't good, people don't want to drive in from the suburbs, the neighborhood is dangerous, there's no place to go after games, parking is expensive, beer is expensive, food is expensive, it's better on tv, it's not fun, the stadium is empty, the fireworks are too loud, the music isn't good. I've heard all of those and there are definitely more. And if anyone ever wants to make the neighborhood argument, go to a game in Detroit, and get back to me.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2015 -> 01:36 PM) And yet, the Tigers also bottomed out with 17,000 the year before the one you cite. So they managed to increase their attendance after a 119 loss season, by 7k a night, with a 72 win team. That is kind of the point. Sox fans are waiting for consecutive playoff teams. Tigers fans showed up for a team that won one less game that we did last year. That is why the Tigers have nicer things than we have, and were able to swing a deal for Miguel Cabrera, and resign him long term, twice. They get resources that our franchise doesn't.

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ May 13, 2015 -> 01:30 PM) I made that joke a few days ago, but after thinking about it, there is NO WAY the Bulls trade Thibs to Cleveland. Not a chance. I assume they'll work out a deal with New Orleans. Trade him? You think they wait around to work out a deal? I imagine if he is out, they quickly workout a buy out and fire him.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 13, 2015 -> 01:16 PM) I guess I don't see it this way. I don't think this about commitment. I think it's about the ownership having a product to sell, and if we, the fans, i.e., the consumers, aren't buying it, whose fault is it? And what we are not buying is a team that hardly ever wins anything. I don't have to commit to Jerry Reinsdorf that I'll go sit in his stadium X number of times of year in the hopes that he'll somehow figure out a way to put a consistent winner on the field - which I remind you, he has miserably failed to do for the last 35 years. No, the onus is on him and his management team to put together a product that is worthy of greater support than the mediocre one that has typically been put forward. So basically this ownership group needs to go into debt on the hope that they can maybe convince fans to show up after years of winning playoff series. Yeah, good luck with that. If you are waiting for a once in a franchise history kind of run to show up, you might as well find another team to complain about... err, root for. The Tigers have been brought up a bunch in this thread. Go back and look at their history. From 1988 to 2010, they made the playoffs exactly once in a 23 season period. In 2010, the Tigers drew just over 30k a night to Comerica. 2010 was the year before their 4 straight playoff appearances, to see a team that won 81 games. That allowed the Tigers to invest in the minor league system and their major league system in a way that the White Sox, couldn't. For comparisons sake the White Sox were coming off of 3 playoff appearances in 10 years, including the 2005 WS, and drew about 27k a night. Going back to the bottom of Tigers history in 2002 and 2003 when they lost a combined 225 games in two years, they still saw almost 24k a night show up to see a 72 win team in 2004, or about 4k a night more than we had last year. So yes, it is done in other places without winning multiple years in a row. It is another excuse.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2015 -> 12:50 PM) Hey come on man, even in our 63 win season we didn't have any games with what was it, 1000 viewers like Houston had? Houston and LAD aren't listed because of their problems with the networks. At best we were 2nd worst in baseball. http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/201...ime-television/

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 12:39 PM) Wrigley is a dump and is just as boring as the Cell. However, the neighborhood is completely different and we all know it. All the money is on the northside. All the 20-somethings are on the northside. They all have trust funds. Wrigleyville is bro-heaven. Everyone loves it. It's in the midst of where everyone wants to be. Bridgeport is nice ONLY compared to everything else on the southside. The southside is famous for murder. The stadium is surrounded by parking lots and ugly freeways. There are a couple bars. Wrigleyville is actually considered a tourist attraction. These thing affect ballpark experience. Maybe you or I don't like Wrigleyville, but we must acknowledge that the vast majority of people do. The upper deck view is definitely worse, but like I said, the ballpark (for the masses) is NOT the best place to follow the action anyway. People go to Wrigley simply to BE at Wrigley. Again, you're assuming that attendance = fan interest. It's a proxy, but it is not equal. Whether or not it's worthwhile to go to the ballpark DOES NOT EQUAL how much winning it requires for fans to follow the baseball team. So substitute having the near worst TV audience then.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 13, 2015 -> 12:33 PM) Oh yes, these "fickle" fans, simply asking for a product worth coming out to support. The nerve! They should be satisfied with averaging a playoff appearance once every seven years (and a very brief one at that) as has been the average during Reinsdorf's 35 years at the helm of this organization, and just get their butts to the ballpark en masse. No excuses, say you, just support whatever collection of misfit toys the team of Reinsdorf/Williams/Hahn put on the field. Put up and shut up, you excuse-laden, fickle fans, you!! That is the message to you!! Then Sox fans should expect a similar level of commitment from ownership. That is what I am saying.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2015 -> 12:30 PM) I gave reasons why the fanbase would think that team was going to crap. Trading away a cy young winner is a pretty good one. Your response was "But they brought back Lyle Mouton please edit your post", so clearly you think that somehow bringing back Lyle Mouton in a trade should have sold tickets. Explain how? What am I forgetting about Lyle Mouton that would offset trading away a Cy Young Winner to the Yankees? Seriously, that was pretty silly.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 12:26 PM) Which is consistent with my argument, which is that ballpark attendance has more to do with the ballpark experience than it has to do with interest in the team, and that divide has grown (and will cotninue to grow) as time goes on and technology continues to evolve. Except for the White Sox, who need multiple playoffs births in a row to get people to show up.

QUOTE (shysocks @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:31 AM) Dear God people, why is this so difficult to understand? The idea is that another team in Chicago (which you brought up as one that sells out all the time despite ticket price, which I mentioned was because they have been extremely successful at the sport they play) saw attendance fall when their win % did, and then the opposite happened. I have stated that if the Sox won as consistently as the Chicago Blackhawks or Detroit Tigers, or even with a fraction of their consistency, their attendance would have gone up from 2011 to 2014, not down. I think that is an impossible claim to refute, but it's also unfortunately impossible to prove. It has nothing to do with stadium capacity, or number of teams allowed in the postseason, or anything like that. So basically the White Sox need to spend a five to seven year period as the best team in baseball to get fans to show up. That's my point exactly. Sox fans will always have an excuse. If they old ones don't work, they move the bar to a new one. Now Sox fans need a dyntasy type period to show up, as measly playoff births aren't good enough. Nah, I don't see why anyone would think Sox fans are fickle.

QUOTE (shysocks @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:14 AM) First of all, the worst is more like 60% of capacity. Second, you're missing the point by focusing on capacity. The point is the trends, that you see a steady drop from about 1996 on until it went up to constant sellouts for good when they turned things around. There's a direct and irrefutable correlation in that chart between winning and attendance. So the idea is that if the MLB sent over half of its teams to the playoffs annually like the NHL, Sox Park would have been filled most years during the 90's and 00's?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:28 AM) Dan Hayes said yesterday he would be skipped from time to time. Obviously, if they could count on Noesi giving them 5 or 6 decent innings every 5th day, Rodon is still a reliever, and they need to start winning. This is pretty much textbook on how they handled Sale and Quintana.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:29 AM) But attendance has nothing to do with TV contracts. What? Fans with the biggest fan bases directly correlates to how many people are also watching at home, which directly results in bigger TV contracts.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:15 AM) That's false, at least according to those charts I posted. They make more money every year! They never made money than they did last year. Meanwhile. league-wide revenues have DOUBLED over the past 15 years while salaries have increased about 25%. Without the extra $25 million that all teams started getting from the TV contract, the White Sox would have saw a decline in revenue last year. That is what quite literally paid for most of the team upgrades this year.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:07 AM) And they were EMBARRASSINGLY bad. And yet their revenue STILL grew. They got the same thing that every other franchise got. The separator is that their local revenues fell. Again.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:06 AM) I know that YOU do, but you're a season ticket holder, yes? How much do you pay for seats good enough to get a better pitch angle? And when you factor in instant reply, do you REALLY get a better view of what happens on the field? I'm not knocking on your consumption of the team at all -- I think we should all do whatever we can to enjoy the team as much as possible. You have worked for the means to be a STH in a nice seat and you've made the sacrifices necessary to commute back and forth several times a week. And to each his own. But if you compare your cost and time commitment to follow the team with the cost and time commitment to follow the team on TV -- just because someone isn't willing to pay thousands of dollars and several hours on the road per week to get something maybe SLIGHTLY better (in terms of actually following the action) than what they get in their TV package that they already pay for, doesn't make that person a s***ty fan. The guilt factor is also pretty high with Sox fans. It is reality that more fans mean more options when building your ball club. If you are going to protest and stay home as a fan base, they need to also accept that it means the teams options for franchise building are extremely limited, when compared to a patient fan base. We have all seen very clearly that when the franchise has money to spend, they spend it. When they don't, they won't.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:51 AM) That was FAR from true 3-4 seasons ago. They finally lowered prices from higher levels when it was already too late...the team had missed the playoffs for too long and the 2011 disaster happened. Fans actually perceive cheap tickets to be a lesser value than much higher prices for an exciting/interesting/entertaining product. Even at their highest, White Sox tickets were BY FAR the cheapest tickets in town.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:51 AM) And yet the team continues to grow its revenues every year, just like every other baseball team, because no matter how many times we have this conversation, everyone keeps pretending like it's 1980 and the internet and regional sports cable networks don't exist. Everyone is just going to HAVE to accept the fact that going to the game is no longer the most attractive option for following a baseball team. The ballpark experience is unique and valuable, but if you're a "die-hard" fan and want to follow the action, there's a better and cheaper option in your living room. Fortunately, the teams ARE being compensated handsomely for these channels, too. The White Sox had the 3rd lowest TV ratings in MLB last year IIRC.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:44 AM) And besides the unique/historic nature of Wrigley Field, the Sox brought on a lot of problems themselves with SportsVision...ceding Harry Caray, the respective radio networks, Budweiser, WGN, Sammy Sosa....always beaten in the marketing battle since the days of Rob Gallas. And Reinsdorf always had too much pride to let Mike Veeck help him. So the next excuse is that Sox fans are holding grudges from 20 to 40 years ago.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:32 AM) A Cubs survey last year found that 37 percent of fans (13,991 out of 37,814 per game in 2010) come from outside of the state, and 56 percent of those fans come solely to see a game. That includes the commuters from northwest Indiana, of course, but we're still talking about thousands of fans who come to tell their friends back in Polk County they saw Wrigley Field. If that 37 percent is valid, it basically means that just as many Illinoisans go to White Sox games as Cubs games. A White Sox official told me that the club's latest poll showed 13 percent of fans (3,522 out of 27,091 per game) said they were from Indiana or "other." http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/colu...&id=6278204 Basically, at the start of the 2011 season...the Cubs and White Sox were almost dead even in terms of "local" fans. This despite ticket prices and parking being among the 5-7 most expensive in MLB. Then we went through a period of dynamic pricing (aka gouging) only to finally realize the depth of the problem entering the 2013 season. Sox fans aren't fickle. They're just fed up with mediocrity and insults. White Sox tickets are by far the cheapest tickets in town. Cubs/Bulls/Bears/Blackhawks are all WAY more expensive. Hawks fans spend $100 for SRO against a no name team. White Sox fans can get into the upper Deck for $5 on a Sunday.

Buster Olney ‏@Buster_ESPN 5h5 hours ago There is a possibility that Jarrod Parker might need a third Tommy John surgery, writes Susan Slusser. http://www.sfgate.com/athletics/article/Mo...ers-6259810.php …

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:07 AM) thats because the stuff he had in college destroyed his elbow, and he knows he shouldnt do that anymore. Now he isnt super human, but merely extra good human https://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/598488066521583616

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 12, 2015 -> 10:57 PM) Houston's winning by 20 right now at home. They got blown out their last two games. Anything's possible. Win game 6 and see what happens in game 7. It's hard to lose to this Cavs team even when LeBron goes off. I hope I eat crow and all, but even if the Bulls win Game 6, there is approximately a Cubs chance in winning the World Series that the Bulls go into Cleveland and win game 7. They really, really needed Game 4. That may well have been the series right there.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ May 13, 2015 -> 08:34 AM) Agreed. SS2K, you are starting to sound like Coop. Sox fans don't just want to see a team that's consistently over .500 every year. We want a playoff team. There's a huge difference. I'm with Thad that we would see attendance shoot up if they made the playoffs 2, 3, 4 years in a row. Sadly we've never been able to test this theory. I am just not into the having it both ways. If it is OK for Sox fans to quit on their team if they aren't a playoff team for multiple seasons in a row (or the color of the seats, the angle of the upper deck, the stadium not having buildings in the background, parking being too expensive, or whatever the excuse of the day is) , then Sox fans should understand what that means for the financial situation of the franchise and accept the consequences.

SUCK IT JOEY CRAWFORD!