Well full-season ticket holders, your payment was due yesterday. The rest of us slackers with 15 game plans have until the 18th.
I would imagine that Bill Ianniciello (VP Ticket Sales) has sent an email today to guys like Dave Howard and Jeff Wilpon letting them know how renewals went. I have no idea what that number is, could be 100% for all I know.
I would imagine that the Mets can project how the partials go based upon the rate for the full seasons. Totally making up numbers, say they know that when 87% of the full-seasons renew that suggests that 91% if the partials do. I’m going to assume they have a good handle on the walkups will be (we’ll sell out the Yankee series, we’ll sell out Opening Day, Cap Day will hit between 90% and a sellout, etc), they have a good handle on how much signing the next Mike Piazza could affect sales, and likely have some sort of 6-sigma based projection on what the final number will be.
They also likely have historical stats that suggest that each fan will spend $x in the stadium.
I don’t actually know any of this, but it seems reasonable that the business operations are solid – so Mr. Ianniciello, Mr. Howard and the Wilpons now have a pretty good guess that Gross Income for 2010 will be some number.
Never having managed a major league baseball franchise I am curious to what happens now. If it is a scary low number does it make them go out and get “Mike Piazza” to try to hit the upper limits of the projection or do they call it a wash and just try to market “Everyone’s Healthy, Trust Us!”
If the projection is a number they can live with do they just decide “eh, good enough, let’s just roll this team out there and hope the Phillies suck, worst that happens is we make x million and maybe we get lucky…we like next years free agent market better.” (The Yankees seemingly did exactly this in 2008).
I have no idea if any of this is what goes on or if I’m making up a whole scenario in my head, but it’s snowing out and this is what I’m think about. They clearly placed the deadline before the winter meetings (Yankees due December 10th, the final day of the meetings in case you are curious)….I have no idea why, but I do wonder.
As of today the marketing plan seems to be Cora, a guy who hates the Mets and some backup catchers – I doubt that motivated many on-the-fence renewals.
Does the renewal rate change this week’s plan?
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We'll probably never know for sure. I'd like to believe that the Mets have a long-term plan. I don't want to see any knee-jerk moves just to boost 2010 ticket sales.
The free agent market this year doesn't impress me, so if the Mets can't land Matt Holliday with a reasonable contract, I'd rather see them wait for next year's class.
My unofficial survey of seven plan and season-ticket holders, not including myself, indicate a renewal rate of 0%. My guess is that most corporations will renew—it means nothing to them, and we're paying their bills with the stimulus money the last two presidents doled out. A few diehards or masochists, perhaps, will renew, too.
My guess is the Mets intentionally set these payment deadlines before the Winter Meetings because they have no intention of making a big splash. Personally, that's fine by me—one mercenary won't fix the problems this team and its farm system have.
We needed Minaya and his men PURGED; a leash put on mentally-challenged Jeff Wilpon; and a ballpark that doesn't require players to play 1980s-style ball in the 21st century. (Don't you love linescores that have the Mets scoring 2 runs on 13 hits?)
Weekends should sell—drunks need a place to hang out. Weekdays will be CitiCorpse Field. Yankee fans, shut out of their own stadium due to greed, will be a major revenue source for the Wilpons.
And in late March, don't be suprised to see revised prices and plans.
'Tis a pity…
i called them on friday and they told be that the deadline is a "soft" deadline and i have as much time as i need. i guess the season ticket holders are not flying back. what a shocker! the mets should have lowered the prices.