Iwritecode

QUOTE (Jake @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 08:38 PM) If they can sell out at higher prices, I can't really fault them for making the price higher. I'm not so sure they sell out anymore. I think the attendance has gone way down since they doubled the prices when they moved it to the Hilton.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 10:25 AM) I guess we will find out if prices really did keep fans from the park or if they will find another excuse to not attend games. It will also depend on what off-season moves are made and what direction they decide to take with the team next year.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 02:53 PM) Is the price much lower this year? Last year it was $316 for a 2 night stay and the weekend passes were $75 each. So it's a little cheaper, but still ridiculously overpriced. I got priced out after 2006.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 11:57 AM) Find out how she did the bolded and I'll believe it. If she was homeless, and jobless, what'd she do that I can do? Thats what I wanna know. The right personality and a lot of luck. I know a couple of people that have gotten into that network marketing stuff. It's certainly not for everyone. If you're the type of person that can sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, then you might be successful. But not many people are. FWIW, they do have business loans if you are really serious about starting your own restaurant. You just need a solid business plan. But IIRC, the success rate of non-franchised restaurants is really, really low.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 11:25 AM) of course it's not easy! did i say it was easy? it's hard as f***. but the difference between the people who are successful and the people who aren't, is that they're willing to do that work. for example. there's a woman named Dani Johnson who is now a network marketing trainer for companies similar to Beachbody. When she was 19 she was boke and homeless. Her husband drained her bank account, maxed out her credit cards and then jumped ship. She was living out of a car. She got into network marketing and failed miserably, just like you did. At 21 she somehow found a way to scrap together and save enough money to go to this training seminar for network marketing. When she left that seminar, she made $2,000 in the next 4 days. She made $50K in the next couple months, and two years later, by the time she was 23, she made her first million. What did she have that you don't? Nothing. In fact, she was WORSE off than you, but because she was willing to work hard, and because she had aspirations, she was able to completely change her life and become a multi-millionaire. That was in the early 90s. She now teaches others how to do what she did. Can you talk? Can you walk? Can you pick up a phone or sit at a computer? Then you can have the life you WANT instead of the life you think you're stuck with. That's what I'm doing right now, man. I have a degree in Theatre. But I'm going to make an extra 6-10K this year doing my network marketing business. Next year will be more, and more, and more till I don't have to work my s***ty catering job. You're unemployed so you've got the time - now just start doing something with it! If you want to learn HOW to do all these things, I can point you to some awesome reading. But at the end of the day, you have to want it yourself. Question - how would your life be better if you owned your own restaurant than it is right now? I feel like I'm reading an infomercial.

With all this discussion about ticket prices, I really think that's only a small part of the problem. The biggest problem IMO, is the performance of the team on the field. The excitement and expectations for the team are low right now. The season ticket base is probably only around 13,000 or so. The best way to build that up is to win and continue to win. And by "win" I mean post-season baseball. Not just hanging on to first place for a few months out of the season. I can pretty much guarantee that if they make the playoffs 3-4 times in the next 5-6 years it won't matter how much the tickets cost. The place will be full.

Just looking back at the Sox 2012 attendance and the top 5 largest crowds were: Friday, Apr 13 = 38,676 (opening day) Monday, Jul 23 = 37,788 (half-price Monday) Tuesday, Jul 24 = 34,715 Monday, Jun 18 = 33,215 (half-price Monday) Saturday, Apr 14 = 33,025 (opening weekend) They only broke 30,000 16 times including these dates. Of the other dates, 2 were Cubs games, 2 were Mondays, 1 was the 4th of July and 1 was during the final scheduled homestand vs the Tigers. What happened on that random Tuesday in July against the Twins? Because it’s those days we need to focus on. Obviously the Cubs and half-price Mondays draw people in. The 3 lowest dates were in April except for Sept 25 when the team had been all but eliminated.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 03:17 PM) If Sox tickets are too expensive at $50 for someone, Bears tickets aren't affordable at $200 for that same person. That might be true. How many people in this city are Bears fans and not Sox fans?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 02:22 PM) If the argument is price points, then the amount of home games is immaterial. Aren't people usually willing to pay higher prices for something if they know it's in shorter supply? Less home games = less supply. Also as I mentioned earlier, they don't have to share the city with any other football teams.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 02:15 PM) Weren't the Sox TV ratings up this year as well? People are watching, just not at USCF. IIRC, Sox TV ratings were up. Cubs were down.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 02:11 PM) The Sox average more customers per game than the Blackhawks and Bulls. US Cellular capacity is almost 40,000. UC capacity is less than 24,000.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 02:00 PM) The Bears, who have the highest ticket prices in Chicago, are always completely sold out. They only play 8 home games plus they don't have to share the city with another team.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 01:55 PM) It's funny, everyone keeps blaming the economy and high ticket prices. Yet every other sports team in Chicago has relatively high ticket prices and seems to be enjoying tons of success at the gate. The Cubs did have a decrease, but even with a 100 loss team, they were still top 10 in attendance. Apparently, White Sox fans are the only ones affected by the economy. The Cubs are an unfair comparison. They are the only team in MLB that can draw almost 3 million people to watch a 90+ loss team. It's gradually starting to change but for the most part, the performance of the team on the field has almost no affect on the number of tickets they sell. That's not true for any other team.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 12:56 PM) They spent 120 days in first place. It's hard to describe but there was never that "feeling" with this team that we got with the 05 or even the 08 team. It's like people didn't want to get too emotionally involved because they were all waiting for the other shoe to drop. And boy did it drop...

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 12:34 PM) People don't take the effort to hunt for the cheaper tickets. This. I imagine that the first place the casual fans (the ones that don't know much about baseball and that we desperately need to help fill the park) check for ticket prices is whitesox.com. Seeing those prices has to be a huge turn off.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 11:54 AM) It doesn't change walk up though. The walk up this year was minimal. I think that had a lot to do with ticket prices.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 11:06 AM) That is counter logical. How is what happened last season more relevant than what is happening this season, in terms of "winning"? Season tickets. People make the decision to buy them based on what the team did the previous season and what they expect the team to do in the coming season. Just look at the attendance between 2004 and 2006. It jumped about 400,000 between 04 and 05. But it jumped almost 600,000 between 05 and 06. Then they missed the playoffs in 06 and it went back down again. It's much easier to fill the park every night when the season ticket base is closer to 25,000 rather than between 10 and 15,000.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 09:57 AM) They spent 120 days in first place. No one had any idea in April/May/June/July/August and the first two weeks of September that this team would run out of gas during the last two weeks of September. The whole "win and people show up" myth is busted as far as I am concerned. It's going to take a lot more than spending a few months in first place to convince 20,000+ people to suddenly start showing up to the park every day. Especially when nobody really believed in them at the beginning of the season and then their fears became reality at the end of the season. This is not a problem that can be solved in a single season without a) winning a WS or b) building a new ballpark.

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 05:20 PM) I guess I just disagree with your premise. If winning this year doesn't bring the fan base out to the game and "develop new fans" than why do you think having a low A affiliated team in Kane County would? They didn't win this year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 03:47 PM) Where is the proof that a minor league team builds a major league fan base? I'm sure there are other factors but having the Iowa Cubs and (at one time) the Rockford Cubbies helped a little. I've heard lots of people say how nice it is to have the Rockford Icehogs close for the Blackhawks as well. I'm not saying it would make a huge difference but it sure can't hurt. I don't really see the advantage having the entire minor league system in the south.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 01:09 PM) The Sox like having their minor league affiliates all close to each other, that way they can move players around on short notice if needed. About the only way I could see that changing is if somewhere like Indianapolis opened up on a year when the Sox weren't still contracted to Charlotte, so they could move their AAA players closer to Chicago to facilitate emergency call ups. As it is now, this set up also benefits them because their roving instructors don't have far to go, and neither do their scouts. I'm trying to figure out what sort of competitive advantage that would give them other than saving a few bucks on travel costs. How often does a situation really come up where they need to get a player from one minor league team to another on short notice? Seems to me it would make more sense to want to get a player from the minors to the major league club on short notice.

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 04:13 PM) Chicago metro area: 10 million Detroit metro area: 3.7 million A couple considerations -- lets say you reduce parking for all games, then you are losing all that parking $ generated for the surefire winners (i.e. hosting the Cubs). What if the team is awful? Then you just lost all the money for those well-attended games that are a sure bet...AND you lose in general overall attendance. Point being - a sharp decrease in prices ain't happening. We are what we are -- a giant city with a lot of potential interest, but as of yet, not enough truly interested people. Like I said in my first post in this thread, demand has been going down for years. They need to do something to increase it. If you have a product that isn't selling, start dropping the price until it does.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 03:51 PM) Our pricing model is on par with all of the other teams in baseball, more or less. All teams charge exorbitant amounts for parking, tickets, and concessions, yet this isn't preventing or deterring fans of these other teams from coming out and supporting their ballclubs in droves. So I'm not one that sees the cost as the primary reason for the depressed attendance. Tigers have $5 tickets in their upper deck for all 81 home games. They also have an official parking lot that costs $5 to park in.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 02:35 PM) Attendance increases th year after they win provided they continue to win. This. It's all about building up the season-ticket base which happens in the off-season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 03:07 PM) Except it did ramp up in 2005 and 2008 while we were in contention. It didn't in 2012. It started to. They were averaging almost 25,000 per game in the month of September before the 1-5 road trip through KC and Anaheim. After that I think a lot of people lost faith in the team. 2005 is obvious but in 2008 they were actually up 1/2 a game on Sep 24 and never fell more than 1/2 a game back after that.