The Omaha Royals, apparantly not happy with a half million dollar subsidy from the City of Omaha, are turning up the heat in their quest for a new ballpark. About the only thing they get right is that the Royals have no need for the seats that have been added to Rosenblatt Stadium over the past 10 years.
However, before they blame the ballpark for their attendance woes, they need to look in the mirror first at their own marketing ineptitude. The ballpark has been growing since the late 80's, and attendance actually increased during before the Minker's took over, though they blame "ticket giveaways" for much of the attendance during those years. For some reason, UNO Hockey decided to enlist the "expertise" of the Minkers in marketing Mav hockey as it moved to the Qwest Center, and got basically the same results. Attendance dropped like a rock.
Also not helping is the woeful performance of the parent Kansas City Royals over the past decade and a half.
But the Minkers appear to have teamed up with Branch Rickey of the Pacific Coast League in a "good cop/bad cop" scheme to try and extort a new stadium out of the city of Omaha. However, new stadiums have been shown to only have a minimal effect on attendance; it's like crack cocaine - a quick boost that soon goes away and leaves you wanting more. And I'm not sure how a downtown stadium will help the Royals. Rosenblatt has great access from the Interstate and plenty of FREE parking. If people have a hard time justifying a $6 ticket to a Royals game today, imagine that $6 ticket paired with $6 to park if they move to a brand-new downtown ballpark.
Now, if the Royals and Creighton can team up and put together a plan to share a new stadium downtown, that's a great idea. The city of Omaha can assist, much like they'll work with anybody else trying to do redevelopment. But expecting the city to pay for most of a new ballpark is just corporate greed.
If they Minker's can't manage the Omaha Royals, then rather than demand perks to stay, they should just sell the team. Many years ago, it was proposed to sell stock in the Royals to make the team community owned, much like the Green Bay Packers. In light of how well the Minker's have done running the team, perhaps it's time to revisit this idea.
7 comments:
You can't blame them for wanting a new park...a 3-way deal between CU, the Royals and the City wouldn't be that bad, if they can get each side to kick in $10 million, you'd end up with a sick park...
That's what they did in Lincoln and things turned out pretty good for them.
I remember standing there on the day that they broke ground, it was April of 2000 and I couldn't imagine what would be standing there a year later...simply amazing...
I've also got a source who is close to some people at CU and this person has told me that they are playing their cards very close to the vest at this point, but the money could come VERY soon...
If Creighton and the Royals find a way to put up most of the money on this, I think it's a good deal for everyone. However, I'm not sure that a joint stadium will work for the Royals and Creighton like it did for the Saltdogs and Huskers.
The Royals season starts at the start of April, not around Memorial Day like the Saltdogs. Plus the MVC usually schedules doubleheaders on Saturdays; it's going to be a scheduling nightmare to get 7 games in a weekend (4 Jays, 3 Royals games over 3 days).
MoValley is back to 3 games on the weekends....you can do the proverbial day/night DH when there are conflicts. If they want to get it done, they will find a way...
I'm getting together with Doug Stewart within the next few days to chat....
As long as it doesn't rain, the day/night doubleheader thing can work. Three in a day is pushing it though.
Stewart doesn't want to talk until the end of the season, I go from him begging me to do a story to him not wanting to talk in the course of three weeks....
3 games in a day wouldn't work at all...I'm glad that they dropped the four game weekends...IIRC, the Little Ten is now the only league that still does that.
Regarding your selling of shares -- the project is 50% locally owned -- 25% by Buffett and 25% by W. Scott. They just don't seem to care. Neither of them are even on that 18-person council to fix the problem, are they?
Perhaps they don't believe the ballpark is the problem.
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