Rebuilding might hurt, but history proves it also works
Trust me: I understand why Braves fans would be extraordinarily frustrated by what's been happening in recent seasons, and seems about to keep happening for at least another season or two. I can't figure out the Andrelton Simmons deal, either.
And Braves Chairman & CEO Terry McGuirk probably didn't soothe many feelings this week when he suggested that Major League Baseball isn't generally profitable, but admitted the Braves have generally done pretty well. Still, that's not stopping the Braves from undergoing a full rebuild, just scant months after they were in the playoffs with one of the league's youngest teams.
All of which is frustrating for Braves fan Craig Calcaterra:
I have no way of knowing what the true state of the Braves' finances is. Indeed, absent better information I have to take Terry McGuirk's word for it. But even if he is telling the truth -- i.e. baseball is not very profitable for owners but the Braves are, against the odds, one of the few teams which turn a profit -- it's hard to feel anything but deflated by it.
Deflated because early 21st-century sports owners and early 21st century sports fans have fallen into something of a rough bargain. It's not a consciously negotiated bargain, but it's one that, through practice and example, fans and owners have realized is the sweet spot for our relationship. That bargain is this: We, as fans, will endure you fleecing taxpayers for games, taking your games off over-the-air television in favor of big money cable deals which raise our rates, pocketing money in "management fees," and selling anything and everything that isn't nailed down with a team logo slapped on it. In exchange, you will at least pretend to be interested in delivering a winning team and, in your utterances and actions, demonstrate that you understand that fans want to see an entertaining and, occasionally, championship-caliber product a million times more than we want to hear about the financial health of ownership and the business vision of the franchise. Obviously not all teams do this. But the teams with the happiest, most engaged fans and with the owners who are less-loathed than their brethren generally fit this description.
I don't know, man. Maybe. Those sure are a lot of opinions, though. My opinion is that most fans don't give a damn about anything except winning. Entertaining? Sure, that's a lot of fun for a small percentage of fans. But do attendance and television ratings go up when you're entertaining, but not winning?
No, not really.
Go back and look at the Pirates and the Royals when they were rebuilding. The fans didn't give a tinker's damn. They didn't want to see the pregnant lady. They didn't want to be anywhere near the pregnant lady. What they wanted -- all they wanted, really -- was a beautiful baby; fortunately for both franchises, the babies were just totally adorable.
As it happens, the Houston Chronicle's Evan Drellich just wrote a fine piece about the dynamics of rebuilding.
"We pulled the Band-Aid off a little bit more slowly than the Astros and the Cubs, and we went in to '08 to see what the club could do," Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said when asked if a new model had emerged. "In hindsight, it probably would have been much better for us to just rip off the Band-Aid.
"At the same time, you risk losing the fan base and alienating a fan base and in some cases they come back and in some cases they don't come back. ... I don't know, I mean, we're a copycat society, let alone industry, so I think it's worked remarkably well on a couple of fronts. I think once it doesn't work well, then it probably won't be a thing to do anymore."
Here's the thing, though. It always works. It worked for the Pirates and the Royals, and now it's worked for the Cubs and the Mets (although the Mets never committed fully to finishing last so they could finish first). It didn't really work for the Rays, but it's not really clear if anything will work for the Rays as long as they're in downtown St. Pete. This year, the Phillies sold just 1.8 million tickets, next-to-last in the National League. Just four years ago the Phillies sold 3.6 million tickets, first in the National League.
But does anyone believe the Phillies have really lost their fans? Actually, someone probably does. Just a few years ago, well-informed people in Chicago were saying the Cubs fans might not come back, even when the club started winning again.
Just a few years ago, well-informed people were saying that the Dodgers were such a huge mess that the fans might not come back; that the Dodger brand might be destroyed forever.
Oh, I don't mean to suggest that fans don't get lost along the way. It's just that the number is so small, in the long term. It's so small that teams don't and probably shouldn't even think about it. They'll lose a few permanently, but when the franchise gets back on track, those few will be overwhelmed by all the new fans.
In 1980, the year the Royals won their first American League pennant, they sold 2.3 million tickets. In 1985, the year they won their first World Series, they sold 2.2 million tickets. The Royals were really good in 1989 and sold 2.5 million tickets. They were pretty good in 1993 and '94, then up and down (mostly down) for a decade, and then they lucked into a winning season in 2003. From 2004 through '12, the Royals were never anything like good or anywhere near first place. And nobody showed up at the ballpark. Even last year, with an entertaining and interesting young team that wound up in Game 7 of the World Series, the Royals didn't sell two million tickets.
This year, though, the local citizenry was finally convinced they had a winner. And like winners almost everywhere, Kansas City's winners were supported in style: 2.7 million tickets sold, a new franchise record.
I don't think there's a bargain, rough or otherwise. Oh, sure: Maybe we think there's a bargain. But a bargain requires too willing parties, on roughly equal terms.
This relationship's not equal, though. As we've seen time and time again, over and over. The owners of sports franchises can play with our money and our affections, and sometimes they'll play fair and sometimes they won't. But either way, when the team starts winning again, we'll come crawling or running back.
Because everybody loves a winner. And eventually everybody wins.
