On Deck

But don’t expect the sound of crickets and paltry crowds in year two at Hammons Field.

The local baseball club, an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, posted 40 sellouts and pulled in the second-highest attendance in Double-A and the 15th-highest attendance of all 176 minor league teams last year.

Fan interest in Springfield should remain high with hype surrounding the opening of St. Louis’ new Busch Stadium and the recent success of the major league Cardinals, which has a shot at a third-straight 100-win season.

However, local management automatically limited attendance when it dropped stadium capacity over the winter from 7,500 to 6,750 in an effort to add walkways and shorten seat aisles.

“We almost set a bad precedent last season by having fans always able to come and get tickets,” said General Manager Matt Gifford, who said the club planned to remove the 750 seats prior to last season but decided to hold the project to allow bigger crowds during the inaugural year.

Gifford said removing the seats provides easier access and leads to a more comfortable atmosphere and higher customer satisfaction.

With fewer seats, immediate annual revenues are expected to take a hit. But making ticket holders happy will keep interest high for years to come, he said.

“The main goal is to make sure this business is here for a long time,” Gifford said.

The club would not disclose its 2006 attendance projections. Gifford only said, “We have to do everything we did last year and then make it better” in order to avoid a sophomore slump.

That philosophy is the best way to avoid fan apathy in year two, according to Brad Eldridge, the former general manager of the Springfield-Ozark Mountain Ducks.

Eldridge, now a Re/Max real estate agent, said attendance declines are likely but not inevitable if a team works hard enough.

“I think they’re going to do great again in the second year,” Eldridge said. “But from an internal standpoint, you really do have to work harder … to maintain what you were able to do in year one.”

Eldridge said the Ducks’ attendance in the 4,000-seat Price Cutter Park dropped from 3,700 per game in the first year, 1999, to 3,600 per game the second year.

Between 2000 and 2004, 17 minor league clubs moved to a new market, with 10 experiencing a drop in attendance in their second years. However, the composite drop was only 1.71 percent.

The Class-A Rome (Ga.) Braves, an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, experienced the smallest decline, dropping only 0.02 percent from 246,718 in 2003 to 246,674 in 2004.

General Manager Michael Dunn credited an “aggressive seven-year plan to continually add something to the stadium” for keeping fan interest high. He cited new interactive children’s games as an example.

Gifford said the Springfield Cardinals also are taking an aggressive stance toward stadium renovations. In addition to seat removals, he said seven of the 35 targeted stadium projects are under way.

Fan-friendly additions this year include planting pine trees along the back of left field and center field berm areas, planting a rose garden under the center field scoreboard and installing a pitching speed display.

Other changes coming include adding player names on jerseys and offering a new season ticket exchange program.

Gifford wouldn’t disclose renovation costs but said both the Cardinals and stadium owner John Q. Hammons would share the tab.

Gifford said the renovations would continue next season, too, with a $250,000 boardwalk that will connect center field to the seating areas alongside right field.

Of course, Hammons Field in its current state is already a big asset for the Cardinals.

Casper (Wyo.) Rockies General Manager Danny Tetzlaff called the ballpark a “Taj Mahal.”

Tetzlaff has kept an eye on Springfield and knows the Cardinals’ farm system well. He served as assistant general manager for the New Haven (Conn.) Ravens, which used to be the St. Louis Cardinals’ Double-A affiliate.

He also knows what it’s like to operate in a new market and how the second year can be different from the first year.

His current club, the rookie affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, moved to Casper in 2001 and experienced exceptional attendance growth of 20.72 percent in its second year.

That’s very misleading, however, because the team didn’t move into its new $5 million, 2,500-seat stadium until its second season due to construction delays.

“We weren’t as lucky as you guys are in Springfield, where somebody built a stadium and just waited until they found a team,” Tetzlaff laughed.

Attendance dropped about 10 percent in the team’s third year.

“The second year (that) we were in the new place, the honeymoon wore off,” Tetzlaff said.

But, he said, “It helps to be in a place where everybody’s passionate about the Cardinals.”

A built-in fan base is a major asset.

The Brooklyn (N.Y.) Cyclones, a New York Mets affiliate, for example, experienced 9.59 percent attendance growth in its second year in 2002.

“I think it would be a harder fight” to be in a market that didn’t already have a built-in fan base, said General Manager Steven Cohen.

The Triple-A Albuquerque (N.M.) Isotopes, a Florida Marlins affiliate, was one of the few minor league teams with higher attendance than the Cardinals last year, pulling in more than 582,000.

Assistant General Manager Nick LoBue said the team expects to draw more than 600,000 this year after drawing 576,867 in 2003, their first season.

The key to long-term success, he said, is staying flexible and responsive to fan needs.

“We operate 12 months a year,” Lobue said. “We’re working on changing things (and) making them better.”

Gifford and company will have a chance to see if their changes were for the better starting April 6, the season opener against the Arkansas Travelers.

They’ll head into the second year armed with a slight up tick in sponsorships – Bank of America, AT&T and Blue Cross/Blue Shield are all new – and a fortified media deal – KYTV and UPN15 will broadcast 16 Springfield Cardinals games this year, three more than in 2005.

Pay to Play

John Q. Hammons opened Hammons Field in 2004 at a cost of $32 million. He borrowed about $6 million through a city of Springfield bond issue. Here is the breakdown of the stadium’s debt service and lease revenues.

Total debt service: $23 million

Annual debt service: $2 million (20-year amortization)

Hammons’ stadium debt to the city: $5.9 million

Payment due this year: $560,560

Springfield Cardinals yearly lease: $500,000

Missouri State University yearly lease: $150,000

Sources: City of Springfield and John Q. Hammons’ legal counsel

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