Buried in a recent article about the nonexistent stadium lease talks between the Angels and Anaheim is information that, when combined with the report that the club anticipated ticket sales to drop, would intrigue any budding conspiracy theorist. Seeing as this is the Internet, where conspiracy lives at every corner (look out!), I thought I’d share.
Entering 2015, the Angels had eclipsed three million fans a dozen straight years. As the article notes, achieving that benchmark has been key to bringing in revenue for the city:
The team receives all concessions and advertising revenue from the city-owned stadium, most revenue from non-baseball events and virtually all parking revenue. It receives all revenue on the first 2.6 million tickets sold.
The team pays the city $2 per ticket for each ticket in excess of 2.6 million tickets. That netted the city $992,000 in 2014.
In return, the city contributes $600,000 annually in maintenance, with the team picking up costs in excess of that. The city is also paying $400,000 annually in debt service for past renovations. And it pays $1.3 million annually in administration, overhead and property insurance related to the site.
Notice how important three million becomes in that context. As long as it happens, most or all of the $1 million Anaheim spends annually on maintenance and debt is covered by the $2-per-ticket payment. But what happens if it doesn’t?
Going off the current attendance average of 34,061, we can extrapolate that over 81 games the team will bring in 2,758,941 fans, netting the city less than a third of what they made last season ($318,000).
Hard to picture Tom Tait thrilled with that return.
And he’d be even less so if the average drops to 32,000. The revenue then?
Zero.
Imagine, now, how hilarious Arte Moreno would find that, and tell me that isn’t exactly what he’s doing.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
