The Cleveland Indians and Jacobs Field will play host to playoff games this week, the first such postseason activity by Lake Erie in six years. Crowds will be plentiful, and the happy vibe at The Jake will resemble the ballpark’s heyday of the mid-1990s.
But Indians executives are under no illusions that even with a World Series title, which would be the club’s first since 1948, the overwhelming ticket demand that fueled 455 straight sellouts from 1995-2001 will ever happen again.
As a result, the club is embarking on an aggressive effort to retrofit the 13-year-old ballpark for a different, smaller level of demand and prepare it for its second phase of life.
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| Jacobs Field, once a sure sellout, is being retrofitted
to meet changes in demand. |
Several initiatives have already begun. A new, $14 million, high-definition scoreboard went in three years ago. That effort was followed by the development of a center-field food court area, and the creation of both the Legends Suite party box and the Heritage Park area commemorating the club’s history and its greatest players.
This winter will bring even more dramatic, visible changes. Following the Indians’ postseason run, the club will rip out the seats in sections 117-119 in the lower deck near the right-field foul pole and install an outdoor party deck for up to 500 people, an effort recognizing the fast-growing demand among MLB clubs for additional group seating. A 5,000-square-foot patio picnic area facing out to 9th Street in downtown Cleveland will be converted into a new children’s play area, replacing a currently cramped kids space in one corner of the lower concourse. Another three luxury suites among the facility’s massive inventory of unsold corporate seating will be converted into a single party box, as well.
“We’re starting to have serious conversations about what this park will look like in five years,” said Dennis Lehman, Indians executive vice president for business. “We are looking to balance out better our demand for various types of seating, generate new types of revenue and turn our park into a more year-round destination.”
The projects will cost the Indians a combined sum pegged in the low- to mid-seven figures. Much of that is expected to be offset by corporate sponsorships the club is selling for the spaces, and that sales effort adds to a larger campaign now under way with IMG to replace the Jacobs Field facility name in time for the 2008 season.
The Indians, of course, are not alone in seeking to breathe new life into a venue born in the 1990s. The Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves, among others, have pursued similar efforts to varying degrees. In Cleveland, though, a season-ticket base that surpassed 27,000 at its peak, fueling six straight seasons above 3 million in total attendance, steadily dropped to 13,000 for the 2007 regular season, during which the Indians drew a total of 2.28 million fans. Of Jacobs Field’s 122 luxury suites, 80 are currently leased. Renewals remain a perpetual challenge given northeast Ohio’s relatively weak economy and net job loss this decade.
But while luring older fans capable of making a larger, seasonlong commitment grows harder, there has been some sales spark among younger demographics, particularly singles and young families, forming the target of the current round of facility work.
“Like anybody in our business, or the entertainment business at large, it’s all about being relevant to a younger audience,” Lehman said. “We’ve become a rather suburban town, and we want to hold people before and after the game as long as possible.”
Similar to efforts pursued by other teams, the new and developing spaces are increasingly being marketed for non-game-day functions such as corporate outings, birthday parties and private events. Such efforts are have become a necessity for MLB clubs on two fronts: Not only are middle- and small-market franchises such as Cleveland forever chasing their rivals in larger markets, but traditional ballpark revenue has shown declining growth or essentially topped out in recent years, forcing a search for more creative revenue-producing endeavors.
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| Heritage Park, new this season, is among the
changes that the club has already made. |
“Staying current with your facility and staying current with technology is incredibly important for the health of a franchise,” said Alan Rifkin, general counsel for the Orioles, who is currently negotiating with the Maryland Stadium Authority over scoreboard improvements at 15-year-old Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Ultimately, the Indians’ goal is to blend the new right-field party area and the enlarged kids area with the other elements beyond the center- and right-field walls into one, broad collection of attractions and amenities on the scale of Ashburn Alley at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park or Baltimore’s Eutaw Street at Camden Yards. To that end, the Indians also are pursuing a signature food item to rival barbecue stands run by Greg Luzinski in Philadelphia and Boog Powell in Baltimore.
Aiding the Indians’ efforts is the relatively decent shape the publicly owned Jacobs Field is in, despite the tough Cleveland winters.
“We’ve got good bones here,” Lehman said. “The place has been taken care of well. We have some weather-related and concrete issues, like any place in this part of the country, but we’re holding up well. Our challenge as we look to renew elements of the stadium is to respect the original design.”
