Scorpion said:
We did though. We saw Rogers profits jump in August and September alone (40% according to the Glove and Mail), so at the end of the day there was an impact whether moderate or significant.
Right but you said we know what that impact was. I said we didn't. I crunched the numbers above to show that, yes, there was probably an uptick in Blue Jays revenues in those months but it was fairly limited. The news stories about Rogers profitability backs that up.
Rogers Profits increase
Revenue in its media operations, which include the Jays and its slate of TV channels, grew eight per cent to $473 million...
So all of Rogers Media, which includes the Blue Jays, increased their revenues, not profits, 8 percent.
Scorpion said:
You neglect to mention that the Jays run some of their own shops, the one at Rogers Centre and Eatons so that 1/30th isn't always the case and with the Jays being the only team in Canada, they virtually have a monopoly on MLB merchandise in Canada.
I don't mention that because it's not all that important. It doesn't matter where MLB merchandise is sold or who runs the store it's sold in. MLB merchandising revenues are split 30 ways.
Scorpion said:
I'm not sure why you cited the White Sox as an example given that they are virtually a perennial disappointment, aside from a few good years in the mid-2000s. They are at the bottom in terms of Chicago sports fans' interest and will always be second cousins to the Cubs, so their attendance numbers will always suffer. Not to mention they play at the outdated Comiskey Park that needs more than just a few renovations.
First of all, the White Sox play in a stadium(which is called AT&T Cellular Field) that's newer than the Rogers Centre, so that's not really much of a factor.
But more to the point, the reason I mention the White Sox is because despite all of your contentions about how unpopular the White Sox are, when they rose to prominence in 2005 their increase in attendance was virtually identical to the Blue Jays increase this year(5178 per game for the Blue Jays, 5090 for the White Sox). Then it vanished when they stopped being good.
Building lasting success is the only way to see perpetually higher attendances. You do that by internal growth.
Scorpion said:
If you want proof of great attendance as a result of a winning product on the field you have to look no further than the Blue Jays from 1985-94 while having a high payroll much of those years.
Right. And were those teams built on high priced free agents? Or did the Blue Jays grow their team into a contender and
then spend? Those 1980's teams were almost entirely homegrown. When the Blue Jays faltered is when they started to try and take shortcuts and spend their way to victory.
Scorpion said:
The Yankees for instance have been mediocre at best the last few years but it hasn't hurt their attendance at all, they're still #1, and they will probably still draw good numbers if they continue to be sub-par for a few years, kinda like how the Maple Leafs still draw well despite putting on a shoddy product on the field year after year.
Again, that is just flat out untrue. The Yankees, when they moved into their new Yankee Stadium and made the playoffs for four years in a row, drew between 45 and 46 thousand fans a night. In the last three years of being "mediocre at best" they've drawn significantly less. This last year they drew 39,430, a decrease of 15% of their 2010 high of 46,491.