Blue Jays Cut Business Staffers Following Attendance Drop

The Blue Jays yesterday made cuts "all across the business side of the organization," but the "entire baseball operations department was untouched by this latest purge," according to Shi Davidi of the CP. Blue Jays interim CEO Paul Beeston said that the total number of cuts was "less than two dozen," though he would not divulge a specific figure. The cuts "come as a result of the team's dramatic drop in attendance from 2008," as the Blue Jays this season drew a total of 1,876,129 fans at Rogers Centre, "well off last year's count" of 2,400,416. Beeston said that if the team "had maintained its hot start to the season and drawn better through the summer, the cuts might have been avoided." Beeston believes that the Blue Jays are now "lean enough to avoid any future dismissals." But Davidi noted the axe is "still hanging over baseball ops and may drop once the Blue Jays season wraps up Sunday." The cuts "continue a wave of streamlining at other divisions of team owner Rogers Communications" (CP, 9/30). The NATIONAL POST's Jeremy Sandler cites a source as saying that the Blue Jays' marketing and ticketing departments "were particularly hard hit," and that VP/Marketing Laurel Lindsay was "among those losing their jobs." Beeston said that the cuts were announced this week "as soon as possible after the team ended its home schedule" last Sunday (NATIONAL POST, 10/1). In Toronto, Bob Elliott reports Blue Jays Dir of Player & Alumni Relations Jennifer Santamaria also was laid off (TORONTO SUN, 10/1).

LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING: Beeston denied that the club is "hemorrhaging fans the way the stats suggest." He said that the Blue Jays this season "counted only tickets sold in their attendance figures, which yielded smaller numbers but a better read on the team's popularity." Beeston: "Overall we are not disappointed with attendance, because we are up in revenue. I would say we're up marginally, but we're up [over 2008]. Going forward, these are numbers you can chase in the future, real numbers" (TORONTO STAR, 10/1).