A few entries down, I, Batgirl, linked to an article about the Twins new marketing campaign, and the ensuing discussion proved quite fascinating. The Twins are apparently befuddled by their repeated failure to draw two million fans, despite the team's success on the field. Team Batgirl believes that the Twins can come up with all the snappy marketing campaigns they want, but marketing just isn't the issue. Back in the early '90s, this was a baseball town. Then came the strike, then the great period of Tremendous Sucking, and then just as there was a team worth rooting for, the ownership tried to kill the team for cash. That's right. Kill the team for cash. Now the Twins' brain trust sits around and wonders why people don't come to games?
Baseball lost a lot of fans after the strike, including Batgirl, and the Twins organization did nothing to win anyone back by promulgating all the Tremendous Sucking. It seemed that baseball in general had been lost to greed. And then, and THEN....
Now, the Twins ownership and baseball are trying to emotionally blackmail the fans into giving them a new stadium. But there's no goodwill left. They took all the goodwill, spat on it, lit it on fire, and then danced on its ashes, and then dropped trou and covered the ashes in el dookie. We're pretending the whole contraction thing never happened, but it did. It's sort of like when Aunt Sally kicked Uncle Henry in the nads and then wondered why he didn't come round no more. No marketing slogan is going to fix that. The Twins have done nothing to apologize to the fans, to try to get back some goodwill, to show they are invested in the communty and the fanbase. Nothing. And if they want to be a successful franchise, they have to.
Discuss.
Posted by Batgirl at January 31, 2005 08:53 PMSad, but true. Correct on all counts.
I think the fact we are relegated to a "small-market" (never liked this classification) means those inside the organization do not realize when they have, in fact, alienated the consumers. When Yankee fans get upset about lack of talent or success, the management is forced to do something about it or they face enormous losses. In my opinion, the Twins "money heads" fall back too much on the assumption that year in and year out we will have the same attendance, regardless of the team on the field. Any increase in ticket sales is simply seen as a bonus, and not something to work towards.
But I am afraid you are far too correct on every point, Batgirl.
Posted by: Eric at January 31, 2005 09:58 PM