Last week’s headlines couldn’t have helped sales. Four months after the ballplayers shut down the ‘94 season, the two sides remain stalemated. The owners are ready to declare an impasse in negotiations and unilaterally implement their proposed salary cap over which the players struck in the first place. Only a plea by the federal mediator on Wednesday persuaded owners to give players another week to consider an alternative tax plan – a salary cap with a new name, according to the union – or to produce a counterproposal. ““We’re trying to tell players that once you go past the point of [impasse], it’s difficult to put the yolk back in the egg,’’ said the Boston Red Sox’s John Harrington, the owners’ point man. But who’s the yoke on? The owners now insist that the ‘95 season will open on schedule – if necessary with replacement players, likely a collection of has-beens and never-will-bes.
With World Series play now a distant memory, ball clubs are offering their customers a series of special offers and premiums reminiscent of public-television charity pleas. The New York Mets offered a pictorial history of the team, the Atlanta Braves discounts on Ken Burns’s nine-part ““BaseBall’’ video series. The Detroit Tigers sent out tickets to ““Hello Dolly’’ or a Boz Scaggs concert, the Kansas City Royals pieces of their old AstroTurf field. The Oakland A’s Operation Play Ball included $20 worth of merchandise and an autographed baseball from manager Tony LaRussa. And the Chicago Cubs passed out $10 worth of Cub dollars good at Wrigley Field concession stands (about two dogs and a large soda at today’s ballpark prices). Even better, about one third of the teams are providing some form of money-back guarantees. ““We can’t stick our head in the sand and pretend that the game will carry the day,’’ says A’s executive Andy Dolich. Kansas City even cut general admission prices by $1. ““It’s the right time to show that we’re honestly trying to give something back to the fans,’’ says KC’s Dean Vogelaar.
Such efforts may be laudatory. But Stephen Greyser, a professor of consumer marketing at Harvard Business School and a consultant to pro sports teams, wonders whether the owners ““fully grasp that the social compact of the sport with its fans has been breached.’’ But if they don’t get it now, they will very soon. Philadelphia Phillies executive Larry Shenks terms ““scary’’ the fans’ initial response – or rather nonresponse – to their overture. ““We’re not getting any angry letters, they’re not send-ing any checks, they’re just not responding,’’ he says. When San Francisco Giants president Peter McGowan personally phoned some ticketholders, several called back convinced it was a joke. In one sense, it was.
Several teams are scheduling what Greyser terms ““feel-good activities’’ – picnics in Chicago’s Comiskey Park, Winter Carnival in Baltimore’s Camden Yards – to try to renew ties with their fans. The California Angels hope to make opening day next April ““Welcome Back Day,’’ with big-gift giveaways and the even more exciting prospect of their brand-new free-agent signee Mitch (Wild Thing) Williams pitching.
But any talk of opening day and free-agent signings, indeed any hint of normalcy, seems absurd when baseball remains in the midst of its worst crisis. The Toronto Blue Jays may be the only team that has it right, opting not to sell tickets yet. ““We don’t feel there is a proper mood amongst the fans to try and sell them anything,’’ says the Blue Jays’ Howard Starkman. A recent Chicago White Sox letter to its ticketholders treaded delicately: ““Should next season begin with less than a typical Major League roster we would not expect you to pay Major League prices.’’ That’s mighty nice. But the question remains just why would they expect anyone to show up at all.
