Minor League Baseball thrives in spite of the recession

Longtime major league baseball fans Doug Bartley of New Tampa and Jim Stretchberry of Brandon tried something new on a recent Saturday night: Going to a minor league baseball game.

Arriving early at Steinbrenner Field, the two men and their families sat close enough to the field to chat up the ballplayers.

"Brewskie?" Stretchberry suggested to Tampa Yankees coach Tim McIntosh, who was headed toward the bullpen. "Not yet," McIntosh responded with a smile.

Cozy ballparks and tickets that average less than $7 for most teams helped Minor League Baseball achieve five successive years of record attendance through 2008, and thrive this year even during a bad economy.

Nationwide, average minor league game attendance through April is down, but only by 0.7 percent - to 3,720 fans - compared with a 4.4 percent decline in major league attendance in April. Last year, a record 43.3 million attended minor league games.

Despite the recession, the 12-team, Class A Florida State League posted a 23.1 percent increase in April attendance. That includes teams in Tampa, Clearwater, Dunedin, Lakeland and Sarasota, plus the Tampa Bay Rays affiliate in Port Charlotte.

"I don't think the poor economy has affected our attendance much at all," said Vance Smith, director of Florida operations for the New York Yankees and general manager of the Tampa Yankees, which drew an average of 1,472 fans in 2008.

"Our average attendance is up compared to this time last season."

That is not the case with other family entertainment venues. The differences between those with pricey admissions and those that cost less than $20 are becoming more pronounced during the recession.

Anheuser-Busch InBev's attractions, including Busch Gardens and SeaWorld, as well as Universal Orlando and Disney, have reported steep drops in income - as much as 50 percent for Disney this year alone.

By comparison, the movie industry has reported a 12 percent increase in attendance and a 14 percent in revenue to $2 billion increase in the first quarter, Media by the Numbers reported.

Family oriented and affordable

"Minor league attendance remains good because it is family oriented and very affordable," said Steve Densa, director of media relations for Minor League Baseball, which is headquartered in St. Petersburg. "Historically we have not been recession proof, but we have been recession resistant."

Formally created in 1902, the association now known as Minor League Baseball hit an all-time attendance peak in 1949 with 39.6 million. It took until 2004 to surpass that mark.

In the intervening 55 years, attendance hit a low of 9.7 million in 1963, after Major League Baseball expansion got under way and additional baseball TV coverage took a toll on minor league interest.

By 1990, attendance rebounded to 25.3 million nationwide. Since then, greater public interest, plus a new set of standards guiding new ballpark development, have led to 117 new minor league ballparks, from Orem, Utah, and High Desert, Calif., to Memphis, Tenn., and Indianapolis.

Most new minor league ballparks are built under a partnership between the local community and team owners.

Helping out the minor leagues is the fact that Major League Baseball pays the salaries of all on-the-field personnel of minor league teams. Top prospects get signing bonuses such as the $5.6 million that Rays pitching prospect David Price got in 2007, but the majority of first-year players must rely on $1,100 a month, plus $20 meal money in compensation set by the major leagues.

Aggressive marketing campaigns for teams created $54.8 million in Minor League Baseball merchandise sales in 2008, when games drew more fans than the National Football League and National Basketball Association combined.

For example, the Clearwater Threshers, a Philadelphia Phillies farm team, don't settle on just getting fans to the ballpark on game nights.

The Threshers, which like the Tampa Yankees enjoy a state-of-the-art ballpark thanks to the fact that it hosts major league spring training games, customarily draw 400 people to Bright House Field on Wednesdays from 4:30 to after 8 p.m. to a Happy Hour - even when no game is scheduled.

Promotions also come into play.

Early in the planning stages for the 2009 season, Smith and his staff focused on economically challenged fans' needs.

Tickets are $4 and $6 for grandstand and reserved seats. There are daily promotions, such as two-for-one admission, and a $1 general admission ticket with a coupon in the Thursday editions of The Tampa Tribune. A Monday Belly Buster gives the fans a reserved seat and all the soda and food they can eat and drink for $12.

Special events, such as the Armed Forces Night on May 16 that offered free admission to military personnel, also bring groups like the Tampa Area Marine Parents Association Inc.

Forty members of TAMPA Inc., including Dee Mills, whose son, Marine Corps Sgt. Lea Mills, was killed in Iraq in 2006, and Kim Novatko, whose son, Marine Corps Cpl. Brandon Novatko, was wounded in Afghanistan, got together to talk and watch the game.

"Obviously there's more excitement at a major league game," Novatko said. "But it's fun watching these kids play and give it their all."

'A great place' to be

Then there are fans like Bartley, a longtime St. Louis Cardinals fan from his days in Springfield, Ill., who was won over by free parking within steps of the ballpark, cheap tickets that are close enough to give a near-HDTV view of the infield, and a laid-back atmosphere that provides a change from a big league game.

"We will be back," he said. "This will be a great place to bring my dad, who has trouble walking from the parking lot at Tropicana Field and then all the walking you do inside. "Plus here, you can leave at lot easier when the youngsters get tired of the game."

There is no comparison between the Tampa Yankees' attendance of 1,412 on the recent, rainy Armed Forces night and the 34,135 who attended the Rays-Cleveland Indians game at Tropicana Field the same day, but that's not problematic to minor league officials.

"Ownership expects the best, but understand the difficulties faced when playing in the Florida State League and in a major leagues team's market," the Tampa Yankees' Smith said. "As long as they see an increase in attendance and a push towards trying new and different things, they will support my staff and me."

MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL AND ST. PETERSBURG

• Minor League Baseball headquarters was moved from Cleveland to St. Petersburg in 1973 by its newly elected president, Hank Peters. According to the organization's Web site, the president traditionally chose where the headquarters would be located, but there was no minor league team in Cleveland when Peters took office.

• Perhaps Minor League Baseball's best known employee was Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was the organization's general counsel from 1982 to 1988.

• There are 27 MiLB employees in St. Petersburg, and 38 overall. The local office is relocating from downtown St. Petersburg to a stand-alone building just off Gandy Boulevard near Interstate 275 in Pinellas County.