L.A.: The Dodgers have formed a new marketing arm
called Dodger Stadium Marketing "to maximize non-baseball
revenue at Dodger Stadium and for the first time will allow
corporations to use the ballpark for private parties."
Dodgers VP/Marketing Barry Stockhamer said the new division
will look to schedule events this season while the team is
on the road, and packages could start at $75,000 (John Rofe,
SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/22).....Diane Shah profiles the
Dodgers in LOS ANGELES magazine, and writes that Fox "is
betting its $85 million player payroll that its newest
entertainment `product' will headline prime time come
October." One Dodgers season-ticket holder, on Fox's first
year of ownership last season: "Even little things went
wrong. Instead of lovely organ music, they piped in rock
`n' roll. Bad rock `n' roll, the kind you'd expect to hear
if Knott's Berry Farm had a Jerry Lee Lewis Night. The
Dodger Dogs stunk, too" (LOS ANGELES, 4/99 issue).
NOTES: BLOOMBERG's Newman & Bloom examine MLB's "have-
nots," a group "of cash-poor or non-competitive teams forced
to woo fans with low prices and such gimmicks as new-car
giveaways, aging rock stars and an office-secretaries
Olympics." Marlins Dir of Ticket Sales Lou DePaoli: "We
can't sit here with a straight face and tell our fans we're
going to win the World Series" (BLOOMBERG, 3/23). In
Minneapolis, Dan Barreiro writes on the Twins' "positively
foolproof" marketing plan for this season: "These forces
have lowered expectations to such a frighteningly
subterranean level that there is almost no way for the Twins
to not exceed them" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 3/23).
