Ticket sales are up 19.26 percent over last year, according to Mets executive vice president Lou DePaoli. The numbers represent what would be an astonishing outlier for a team that’s failed to add any high-priced talent this offseason or post a winning record since 2008, the two primary drivers of attendance spikes for baseball teams.
And the reported surge in ticket sales would also seem to fly in the face of a promise by the team’s financially troubled owners to increase payroll when revenue rose.
snip
According to the Mets, they’ve managed the feat without having to spend the money, or win yet, perhaps the kind of economic miracle that might explain why the new baseball commissioner just made Fred Wilpon chairman of MLB’s Finance Committee.
Source: Capital New York
The article also wonders if this has anything to do with the upcoming lawsuit filed by the team’s former VP of ticket sales, who claimed she was fired for being pregnant without being married while the Mets say she was let go of for performance-related reasons.
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Brian, you left out the biggest knee slapper from the article:
“The Seattle Mariners experienced the biggest jump in attendance in 2014, going from 1,761,546 in 2013 to 2,064,334, a rise of 302,788, or a jump of 17.1 percent, by far the biggest increase.
This didn’t happen in a vacuum, though. The Mariners went out and paid Robinson Cano, the best player on the free agent market, $240 million over ten years. This came a few months after extending their best pitcher, Felix Hernandez, at $175 million over seven years. Other talent, like Kendry Morales, Fernando Rodney and Austin Jackson, came in as well. And the team went out and improved from 71 wins in 2013 to 87 wins in 2014.”
I find the Mets claim hard to believe, but when have they ever lied to us?
Never Michael! We just misinterpreted the facts.
Gus! Have you forgotten? We just signed our Robinson Cano! Michael Cuddyer!
That’s exactly right Brian! The Fred and Jeff show are going to say they fired their pregnant VP for just cause and I cannot believe how gullible they must be thinking the Mets Fans and media are. It seems sometimes that being born into money does not exempt you from being a jackass. All her attorneys have to do is have the Wilpons turn over the list and that’s the end of that story. Good-bye Jeff! It’s just as conceivable that the Wilpons have friends or use a dummy non-profit organization to “buy” blocks of season tickets and then Fred uses the non-profit organization to donate the tickets! Goodness! Almost sounds like a Ponzi scheme! Where would Fred get such an idea?
Brian that’s like blaming the VP for Harvey’s injury.
I don’t know if I read it correctly or it is even true but yesterday I read something somewhere that the Mets have started emulating the Pirates tickets sales department , instead of starting sales in January they are now starting sales on November 1st two months earlier. If true this could be the reason for the increase. At this point last year they would have had 22 days of ticket sales this year they have 83 on the same date
There’s a lot to like about how the Pirates operate:
They stepped up and paid the (low) freight for a high upside guy in Kang
When they had a chance to make the playoffs for the first time in decades, they executed a win-now trade
They aggressively use shifts to try to compensate for poor defensive players
They’ve actively assembled an extreme ground ball pitching staff
So, the Mets decide to emulate them in ….. ticket sales?
LOL