The Triple-A Int'l League Pawtucket Red Sox and the city of Pawtucket have "jointly hired the national firm Brailsford & Dunlavey to explore the financial impact" of a proposed ballpark on the city’s "downtown revitalization effort," according to Kate Bramson of the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL. Pawtucket Dir of Administration Tony Pires said that the consultants will "study two new potential ballpark sites, as well as the team’s current location at McCoy Stadium" (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 4/12).
WORKING THEIR WAY BACK: In Providence, MacPherson & Koch wrote the PawSox and Chair Larry Lucchino will "not be content merely to reverse a decade-long decline in attendance at McCoy Stadium." For the team's business model "to work, the PawSox ownership group believes it must attract fans at the same level it did in the mid-2000s." Lucchino said, "We definitely want to get back there. This was once one of the most celebrated, stable, successful franchises in all of minor-league baseball. It needs to be back there again." Attendance has fallen more than 50% since '05. The all-time high of 9,561 patrons per game was "set in that season, but the PawSox slipped all the way" to 6,076 in '16 -- 10th in the 14-team Int'l League. If the PawSox were to "draw even 6,500 fans per game this season, it would seem to represent a spectacular victory." That is "particularly true for an ownership group that can acknowledge now how much it initially alienated its fan base with its ill-fated push" for a ballpark in Providence. Lucchino: "Our goal is to get back to where it was -- because otherwise it’s not a sustainable baseball business." PawSox President Charles Steinberg said, "What is it that eight years ago made them stop coming with frequency or stop coming at all? The folks who come here, we love them and they love us. But where are the others?" (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 4/10).
