The Reds have been very aggressive about signing their own players to long-term contract extensions this winter, and GM Walt Jocketty hopes the moves will improve the team's attendance according to Hal McCoy of The Dayton Daily News.
"If we continue to win … our attendance will improve, our revenues will improve and we’ll be in great shape to try and re-sign these guys," said Jocketty.
McCoy says the target appears to be 2.8MM fans in 2011, which would be an increase of about 800K fans from last season according to the data in his post. Cincinnati has consistently drawn about 2MM fans a year since the Great American Ballpark opened in 2003. The team's first division title and playoff appearance since 1995 will certainly help increase interest.
As our Transactions Tracker shows, the Reds have doled out over $150MM in contract extensions to four players this offseason: Jay Bruce, Bronson Arroyo, Johnny Cueto, and NL MVP Joey Votto. Edinson Volquez is rumored to be next in line.
How can they expect an 800K increase, thats almost 10K per game
Walk Jocketty uses the new math that says he only needs to average 18 more fans per game for an 8k increase.
I agree, that seems to be a very optimistic number. I think 400k would be more realistic.
somewhere in between the clubs idea and yours mate…. well unless they kill the ball out of the gate.
I think the goal is to sell more season tickets than it is single game tickets…when they give attendance figures it’s for tickets sold, not for fans inside the stadium. I could see season tickets jump a few thousand…giving them 400k more over the entire course of the year when combined with more single game walk up sales.
Reading the source article, it seems that 2.8MM is the near-term goal – not specifically for 2011. John Fay of the Enquirer has discussed this topic on his blog several times, and he seems to suggest that the Reds are targeting 2.5MM in 2011, and hope to get to 2.8MM within a couple seasons.
maybe Jocketty plans to convince the league to add an extra 50 games to the schedule…
because the braves have amazing attendance?
Well, much better than Cincy.
I didn’t hear the Braves set any unrealistic goals though.
and about 450 000 more this year than Cincinnati.
The same organization that has a hard time selling out tickets for playoff games
Hard time selling out Reds playoff games?? Do you even know what you are talking about?
I think nyy4288 was referring to the Braves, Brian.
I meant the Braves.
Ok my bad I read that the wrong way.
by publishing this article, mlbtr.com encourages reds fans to go out to games rather than waste time on this website
Jocketty is using the Minaya approach.
Hal McCoy wrote the article? Did BR type up this post?
Not trying to be too big of a pain here, but Hal’s a HOF writer much revered in Cincy, not really fair to say he wrote the crap in that article, since he didn’t.
And FWIW, after the Reds great season in 1999 and their trade for Jr., attendance increased by 500K (from just over 2 mil to 2.577 mil). So while 2.8 may be a stretch as others have said for next year, 2.6 or so is not too far fetched.
NL Central should be a great race to watch this year.
It’d only be a good thing for the central teams to have more money. Most of them are quite sad at the moment.
Pirates is the skid mark of the division, Astros, Cubs, and Cards year in year out can go out and spend if they want to. Cincy and the Brewers I would imagine would spend only in periods of contention periods and if they (and they do) have young stud players. Overall, these teams are spending their $ fairly wisely and it has made their division much better than in years past.
It takes a lot of 20 dollar upper deck seats and 8 dollar hot dogs to pay a player an 8 figure salaries.
Its only $15 dollars for upper deck and $8 bucks for bleacher seats and if memory serves correctly hot dogs are only $2.50. Beer on the other hand is like $9 per plastic bottle
I think that these deals that he speaks of buys 2 years of free agency (ex Bronson) (one from Bruce, one from Johnny C.)… As a Reds fan that does not get me that excited.
Reds got 2 years FA from Bruce with a team option for a third then one year FA from Cueto with another team option year. That’s 5 if the Reds want which is pretty good.
thats pathetic, the brewers ran 2.8 or so through the turn stiles with a soso at best team. they already sold 1.1 for the upcoming year and single games havent gone on sale yet. tailgating 81 times helps alot
In Wisconsin they don’t go for the game they go for the tailgating and beer my friend trust me lived there for many years and enjoyed many tailgates myself haha..
Southwest Ohio is one of the worst, if not the worst regions hit by the great recession. Is Dayton still a city?
Lots of excuses from Red’s fans