The Brewers have introduced their new season-ticket sales slogan, "Coming Back Stronger," and COO Rick Schlesinger said that sales are tracking at 20% "ahead of where they were at this point" last year, according to Rich Kirchen of the MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL. Brewers execs selected the new slogan after "holding focus groups and surveying ticket holders." Schlesinger said that the team wanted to "gauge fan reaction to the Brewers' fall from first place and missing the playoffs" in '14. Schlesinger added that Brewers Owner Mark Attanasio "approved beefing up the team's season-ticket sales staff with six additional positions" last October. He added that the Brewers "increased their budget for paid advertising" by about 15% for the first part of the season. Schlesinger also noted that execs "will make ad-spending decisions later in the year depending how well the Brewers are performing on the field." Kirchen noted the Brewers posted a 10.5% jump in attendance in '14 (BIZJOURNALS.com, 1/15). In Milwaukee, Tom Haudricourt writes Schlesinger "had good reason to be nervous" heading into the offseason, as the Brewers were "coming off an epic collapse in which they lost 22 of their final 31 games." Schlesinger: "Even though there was a lot of disappointment with what happened in September, people felt good about the direction of the team, they felt good about management and they felt extremely good about ownership's commitment" (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 1/16). Schlesinger said, "Without any player moves outside of the Adam Lind deal, to see this kind of bump is exciting." MLB.com's Adam McCalvy noted Schlesinger insists that he "isn't surprised, since internal poll numbers suggested the majority of season seatholders were happy with their investment in 2014, despite the team's finish" (MLB.com, 1/15).
