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Bubble Not Likely To Burst
Anytime Soon For Valentine |
BOBBY VALENTINE, the former MLB manager who is now with the Chiba
Lotte Marines of the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan, is profiled
by SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’s Chris Ballard, who writes Valentine “wields
near-complete control over the team — acting as both coach and de facto
[GM] — in a city that idolizes him.” At about $3.5M a year, Valentine
makes more money than all MLB managers except the Yankees’
JOE TORRE.
After being hired by the team in ’04, Valentine began signing autographs
for fans, and told players to do the same — “something Japanese players
and managers never did.” The team also added seats down the first and third
base lines “so fans could be closer to the action. He ordered luxury boxes
upgraded, brought in more (and better) food vendors and pushed to build a team
‘museum.’” In addition, Valentine “teaches the cha-cha
to Marines fans as a way to attract women to the park.” The Marines now
sell more tickets to women and children than any other Japanese baseball team.
The Marines also started a “loyalty club, similar to a frequent-flier system,
that allows fans to trade in points for tickets and merchandise.” It now
has more than 70,000 members and has brought in about US$2.3M in revenue. Also,
“to inspire fans to camp out for admission to a regular-season game,”
the team offers 360-Degree Beer Stadium night, where beer is half-price from when
the gates open at 5:00pm until the end of the game. By midseason in ’05,
the Marines were “selling out games, and by the end attendance had tripled,
to 1.3 million.” During pitching changes, a Volvo logo “appears on
the scoreboard and a Volvo with one door cut out drives the pitcher from the bullpen
to the mound.” Valentine hired
LARRY ROCCA, a former Mets
beat writer at the Newark Star-Ledger, to head the Marines’ promotions and
marketing department.
STAR POWER: Ballard notes Valentine is a visiting professor at
four Japanese universities, his No. 2 jersey is a “hot seller,” and
Sapporo Breweries uses Valentine’s likeness for its BoBeer. At Marines games,
fans can buy a Bobby Valentine box lunch and chew Marines bubble gum, whose package
features Valentine’s likeness (
SI,
4/30 issue).
