Ordinarily, deconstructing a baseball club’s ticket prices is of limited interest, but due to the humorously inventive press releases oozing from dbacks.com, this mundane exercise may rise to the level of public service in Arizona. Rather than allow President Derrick Hall’s elaborate craftsmanship to speak for his organization’s strategic pricing model – we’ll let prices speak for themselves, and hopefully illustrate some overdue lessons learned and the club’s actual strategy in light of those lessons.

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Today is a very good day in Diamondbacks history. There have been over a thousand days since the 2004 junta expelled Jerry Colangelo and revoked his check writing privileges, and Diamondhacks has chronicled The Subsequent Horror. But today, let it be said, a very good thing happened.

It’s not that the Diamondbacks are in first place, taking two of three from the Cubs. A fun thing. An improbable thing.

It’s not that Chase drew 46K Saturday night. A Cubs thing. A bobblehead and fireworks thing. But you’re getting warmer.

Today, something happened that was more than just fun. Something good. Not perfect.

Good.

Today, the Diamondbacks finally slashed prices in their club level seats, so that people will actually sit in them and share in the enjoyment of a first place team.

The current promo, cleverly titled D*Votion, entails the usual restrictions (10 ticket minimum) and online fees (about 15% extra) and the unpleasant fact that every purchaser gets a Sedona Red T-shirt as part of the package. But I’m trying to stay positive in the face of these little indignities. This is the real world, and if this front office does ninety nine out of a hundred things wrong, it is my distinct pleasure to applaud them when they do something right.

This is how you start to mend fences and rebuild a fan base that you’ve systematically fractured.  It probably wasnt easy – abandoning the model of "exclusion and illusion" – excluding "casual" fans with high single game prices to fabricate the illusion that season ticket holders are getting a fantastic deal by default. Season ticket holders already get a decent deal – you didnt have to extort the rest of us so they could sleep better at night about their investment, visions of Ticket Marketplace dancing in their heads.

This isnt just about the money. Like many fans, I could buy a $50 seat whenever I want. But I dont like the feeling of being ripped off on MLB’s terms. So, meet me half way. Club level $23? To root for a first place team? It’s a deal. Today, you didnt just slash prices. Today, you peeled away the first layer of what has been the steepest price for fans to pay – the hardest thing for many of us to overlook – your thinly veiled contempt for the customer. I feel like you finally, seriously, want me in your house.

I dont like your colors. From day one, I havent cared for your tone. But I’ve always loved baseball and a fair shake. So here’s $233.50 from me to you, that you wouldnt otherwise have had. It’s my way of saying "Thanks".

(image courtesy of joanndesigns.com)

What’s there to add to the cessation of Brandon Webb’s consecutive scoreless innings streak, other than another "Bravo", or perhaps copiously cursing Prince Fielder? Contextually, it’s very impressive, as Webb shut out the heavy hitting Atlanta Braves on the road, and stacked 15 scoreless at home in one of baseball’s most notorious hitter’s parks. In a hitter’s era.

Or as Mark Grace, described it, the "steroids era". Now I know people are hitting homers at alarming rates, compared to days of yore, but isnt that primarily because stadiums are smaller, players are more athletic and bats are thinner than when Phil Rizzuto and Nellie Fox (with his bottle bat) were league MVPs? Isnt the steroids era, like, supposed to be over? In light of Commissioner Selig’s defense of MLB’s drug testing policy as "the toughest in all of sports", isnt it revealing – and unsettling – to hear a very well connected ex player casually refer to today, 2007, as the "steroids era"?

This wouldn’t be Diamondhacks (whatever that is), if we didnt take a quick look at Chase Field attendance for Webb’s historic appearance. The Brewers ordinarily wouldnt be a big draw on Wednesday night, but this is no ordinary Crew, tied for first in the Central when the night began. Arizona, of course, has been pulling away in the West, playing the first late season games of consequence since 2002-2003. Most important, one would expect fans to flock to the ballpark to cheer on the likable Webb, who had garnered more instant national attention for his bag of tricks than any Diamondback since Jason Grimsley. Team broadcasters pleaded ceaselessly with folks to visit Chase and share in the moment. You could hear the buzz in town – at water coolers and restaurants – and not just from sports fans. It was the kind of vibe we havent felt in a while.

Turned out to be a 31720 "vibe".

They couldnt even draw 32 with a capacity just shy of 50. It’s a disgrace, really. I agree with the fanboys on that much – but the willfully blind who reflexively rail against this "lousy sports town" ignore the true source of the disgrace: the huge fracture in the franchise fan base, arrogantly cultivated by the current front office "saviors". To their credit, Kendrick and Moorad have finally toned down their yearlong, unsuccessful "campaign of shame" to drive attendance in favor of a kinder, gentler approach.

Oh, heaven forbid, they’e not lowering ticket prices or anything like that – but at least their company mouthpieces have taken a brief hiatus from excoriating their customer base to insincerely praise them. Sutton and Grace positively gushed about the 31,270. Yeah, guys. What a triumph. More characteristically, Kendrick and Moorad have dispatched ‘crisis communicator’ Derrick Hall to work overtime to rectify the…um…crisis; akin to farmers introducing a wolf to the chicken coop to help with the production of eggs.

That said, visibly poor attendance ought not to be an issue from here on out. Our green and increasingly red, publicly financed hangar will be full of Cub fans this weekend, cheering on their divison leader – followed by an NL West showdown with San Diego.

And Diamondback fans should take note of Thursday’s back n forth slugfest at Shea, where the Pads outlasted the Mets despite some shaky pitching by the boys off the Coronado. Not just because the come from behind victory leaves San Diego three back in the standings, but because of the way they pulled out the game.

Cla Meredith yielded a crushing 3 run jack to Marlon Anderson in the sixth, putting the Mets ahead 7-6, and igniting the dysfunctional mob of more than 50,000. It looked over – a time for lesser clubs to pack it in. But the pesky Petcos pieced together an improbable, two run, ninth inning rally off Wagner, just his third blown save all year, to recapture the lead. Then Trevor Hoffman blew the save, facilitated by a Reyes-Castillo double steal, taking the air out of the visitors. Once again, with all the momentum leaning the home team’s way, Adrian Gonzalez blasted a solo shot off Aaron Heilman to quiet the crowd and provide a margin just barely enough for Heath Bell to eke out his first save of the season. It wasnt just a "close" game. It was a game illustrating the Padres resilience under tough circumstances, suggesting a tenacious will.

A game after which, in the postgame cooldown, you kind of shake your head, wondering how you managed to win the game with all those negatives  working against you. The Diamondbacks should be very familiar with that feeling by now. Remarkably, they lead the division on the cusp of September with the West’s worst run differential. Not an average run diff. Not the second worst. The worst – below the San Francisco Giants, sixteen games out.

It’s fascinating to watch teams win when it’s not at all clear how they do it.  And thanks to the Cubs and this quizzical pennant race, more of the valley will be sitting down at Chase Field shortly, appearing properly fascinated. 

(photos courtesy of salem-news.com & athlonsports.com)

For several years, the Arizona Republic lazily assumed that lethargic Diamondbacks’ attendance resulted primarily from subpar on field performance. So when the team catapulted into first place in mid August, and fans still didnt come, the paper (a partner of the ballclub) finally got around to polling our supposedly passive fan base about their collective absence. And they got an earful.

If nothing else, it illuminates how conflicted recent local baseball allegiances have become. It’s a pity, really, and we hold the new owners largely responsible. Our remarks can be found on page 8 of the copious comments. 

How could any Phoenician fail to be impressed with the Brewers’ 36,381 gate, against a mediocre draw like the Diamondbacks?  On Monday, normally the toughest day of the week to pull in fans.

Through 47 home dates, the Brewers have, in fact, captured almost 300,000 more customers than the Diamondbacks, well over six thousand additional fans per night.

The Crew’s in first place; that’s certainly part of it. There’s a buzz in Miller Park absent in Phoenix – despite both cities fielding young, interesting teams on the rise. Some claim Milwaukee’s a better "baseball town". Better fans. Phoenix, it is often said, has an uneducated, fair weather base with transient sports allegiances.

Regardless of whose fans are subjectively "better", there’s no dispute as to which burg drew more fans – at least between 1998 and 2004. The DBacks easily outdrew the Brewers every single year – except for a blip the year Miller Park opened and Milwaukee’s attendance edged past Arizona’s by less than 1000 per game. That anomaly vanished by the next year, 2002, when the Diamondbacks again outdrew Milwaukee by more than a million fans. Even when Arizona lost 111 games, they still outdrew a superior Milwaukee club by a cool half a million.

But then something weird happened. In 2005, the Diamondbacks struggled with the Padres for the NL West flag while Milwaukee finished 19 games out – yet Brewer attendance hopscotched over Arizona, apparently for good. Despite comparable W/L records in 2006, Milwaukee increased their gate advantage to a quarter million, and are poised, this year, to double that – to half a million additional fans.

Do significant flip flops in intercity attendance, like this, over less than a decade, suggest one city is intrinsically a "better" sports town than another? What else is in play here?

One thing that changed after 2004, is that the Diamondbacks sharply raised prices on single game tickets – on the heels of that ignominious 111 loss season. They raised prices again in 2005, and a third time in 2006, despite failing to field a .500 team in any of those years.

The two stadiums’ pricing charts reveal the Diamondbacks charge higher ticket prices than the Brewers, pretty much across the board. Pick any section you like (by clicking on the links in the previous sentence) and comparison shop for yourself. In some sections, the Brewers charge slightly higher season ticket prices, but their so-called "differentials" (the premium that single game purchasers pay above the season ticket price) are typically smaller than what the Diamondbacks tack on, resulting in Milwaukee’s lower single game prices. Many middle tier seats in Miller Park, for example, go for half ($24) of what the Diamondbacks charge($50), perhaps illuminating why Brewer fans buy up thousands while comparable seats go unoccupied at Chase Field.

In addition, the NL Central Brewers, with a plethora of high demand matchups against the Cubs and World Champion Cardinals, jack up just ten games all year with "premium" pricing – the Diamondbacks designate twenty such games, a full quarter of the home schedule. I, for one, havent witnessed a remotely premium game at Chase Field since 2003, and declaring a game "premium" simply doesnt make it so. 

Every market also has it’s own demand characteristics. Milwaukee has a longstanding reputation as a blue collar town – so it surprises some to learn that its per capita income($36,488) significantly exceeds Phoenix($31,133). In truth, Phoenix has the lowest per capita income of any major league metro area.

The Brewers are just one of many NL clubs that charge less than the Diamondbacks. Depite repeatedly misleading claims by Daron Sutton and Derrick Hall, Chase Field clearly does not offer the lowest prices in baseball, either in terms of cheapest available seat, or more importantly, overall price structure.

Are the Diamondbacks liars? Oh, probably not enough to engage an Attorney General with more important crimes on his plate. It’s more a willful contortion, by people who know better, to ignore the facts, ignore premium pricing, indeed ignore single game pricing entirely, to cynically justify spouting such self-interested foolishness.

(photos courtesy of mlb.com and email.mtsd.k12.wi./ddiener)