The Athletics will look to treat season ticket holders in a similar fashion to how casino hosts treat those in their players’ clubs, reliant on the various tiers that are offered based on money spent.
With how valuable season tickets are to a sports organization, A’s president Marc Badain said the typical way those die-hard fans are treated by teams is not good enough.
“I don’t think teams spend enough time or money on (season ticket holders),” Badain said Friday during the National Rugby League Sports Business Conference at Resorts World. “They become sort of complacent to it. … Especially when you talk about gifting or communication or just emails. I mean, I’m a season ticket holder for a couple of teams, and I see how they do it, and I’m not overly impressed, right? It’s more than just shoving a scarf in a box and sending it to you.”
Badain wants to make the gifting experience and interaction with season ticket holders more personable, similar to how casino hosts interact with their clients at the various resorts in Southern Nevada. Casino hosts treat high-end players to comped dinners, shows and sporting events, and to those who don’t live in the area, sometimes trips to Las Vegas, knowing the return on investment the properties will receive from the player who is wined and dined is worth it.
“It doesn’t have to be the same gift for everybody,” Badain said. “Add a little bit of personalization to it. You’re sitting in Vegas, so if you are a gambler and you are someone who has a casino host, that casino host has a budget to take care of you. It’s a function of how much you spend. That same philosophy should apply to sports teams and their season ticket holders.”
Season ticket holders renewing their tickets each season is a big revenue driver for sports teams. So, keeping that core fan base satisfied should be one of the most important factors for sports organizations, Badain said.
“Say it’s $100 million (in revenue), it’s more in a lot of cases,” Badain said. “What’s the right number for the team to turn around and spend back on those customers? Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but just look at it from an economics standpoint.”
It costs a team more money losing a season ticket holder and that person attending, and spending money, at the majority of 81 homes games, than it does to gift them at an adequate rate, Badain said.
“The replacement cost is so much more significant than these little touchpoints that you can do,” Badain said. “So, we’re spending a lot of time on that.”
Sacrificed seats
The A’s are looking to provide memorable game and event day experiences to all fans that will visit their under-construction $2 billion ballpark when it’s completed in 2028. That’s one of the reasons the stadium will feature only 30,000 fixed seats (33,000-fan capacity with standing room), making it the smallest in MLB, Badain said.
To do that, the franchise was willing to lose seating capacity to add areas where all fans can visit during a game and not be anchored to the seat or area their ticket gains them access to.
“There’s probably, five, six, seven areas in the building that I’ll just call social environments that don’t require you to buy a ticket to go to that area — you obviously got to buy a ticket to go to the ballpark — but baseball is a different sport than others, and not everybody wants to sit in their seat for nine innings and watch the game,” Badain said. “They want to travel around the ballpark, and we try to make navigating the ballpark as easily as possible.”
One of the larger social environments is a large plaza in center field, where in a typical MLB stadium, rows of seating and signage are located.
“That’s going to be a gathering area for fans to watch the game from a different perspective,” Badain said. “We sacrificed a lot of seats and a lot of seating capacity to create these areas, again that don’t require a ticket, but allow you if you’re just buying a seat in the third deck to go and experience the ballpark from a different vantage point.”
Fan experience
Opening the multiple social environments to every fan who has a ticket to a given game, even those with planned $20 and $30 tickets, it will enhance their experience and increase the chance that a person returns to the stadium for another game or event, Badain said.
“If you’re coming there and want to sit and watch the game for nine innings, you can,” Badain said. “If you want to go to this bullpen area and go down in this alleyway and watch the game through the fenceline, you’ll be able to do that. If you want to go up to the third deck at a bar … you can go up there.”
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
