Toronto Rogers Centre Renovations | ?m | ?s | Toronto Blue Jays | Populous

asdda said:
Grass was never going to happen. It is such a colossal undertaking and I just don't see how you can justify the cost. The minute Beeston started talking about 200-400 million dollars for renovations you should have known it was BS. Who would spend that much money to renovate such an outdated stadium design. It is not like you can renovate the Skydome into not being a dome which is the biggest problem with it. If you are going to spend that much money you may as well build a new stadium.
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No one knows whether it's possible to install grass until the results of the Guelph study are released next year. My thinking is it could very well be possible considering Shapiro indicated they are also looking into retrofitting the 100 level, which would coincide with installing an irrigation system for any natural grass.

asdda said:
The idea that grass would make it easier to sign free agents is also ridiculous. The main problem with the Blue Jays is that they are in Canada. They will always be disadvantaged compared to the American teams in luring free agents. The Raptors have the same problem.
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Try asking Kyle Lowry and Demarre Carrol. The tax rate in Ontario is no different than playing in New York or California. Any good accountant would also minimize their tax level, not to mention, the current exchange difference deducts ~30% from everything an athlete paid in US funds would spend in Toronto. Not a bad deal at all.

asdda said:
Also I don't think it was because of the lack of grass that free agents ignored Toronto, I think 20 years of mediocrity is a much bigger reason.
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That is true, but I'd say an even bigger reason is the Jays have one of the worst spring training complexes in MLB.

asdda said:
Shapiro getting smeared by the Toronto media is unfortunate. He is the best President they have had in decades albeit that it doesn't take much to be better then Beeston and Godfrey. I can't really judge Beeston on his first go-around. But the last 6 years have been terrible under him. The Jays still haven't built a new spring training facility which should have been done years ago, the players complaining about how outdated some of the equipment in the clubhouse is, the Jays still don't have dynamic ticket pricing which is costing them a ton of money ever year, the whole Santana contract fiasco.

AA and Beeston left this team in shambles with an aged core and a mediocre farm system. It annoys me that Shapiro is the one getting dragged through the mud by the old boys club of the media and bandwagon Jays fans.

He left the Indians with a great core and a good farm system. Hell if the Blue Jays could do a wholesale trade with the Indians I would do it in a heartbeat. A core of Kluber, Salazar, Carrasco, Bratley, Kipnis, Santana and Gomes with our 140 million dollar budget would be scary. We would be good for the rest of the decade.
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Agreed. Cleveland is a small market franchise whereas Toronto is not. Probably one of the main reasons guys like Shapiro and Atkins jumped at the opportunity here.

asdda said:
Instead because of AAs moves and impatience we got 1 more year left to win a World Series with our core and will have to do a giant rebuild afterwards.
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Not necessarily. Norris still has some serious command issues.

asdda said:
Mediocre at best? The Indians are a bottom 5 payroll team. What kind of sustained success do you expect?

The only GMs that can work under such parameters are Beene and Friedman and they are the two best in baseball and pretty big outliers. Most other low payroll teams have to continually go through cycles of being terrible and good and basically get lucky.

Shapiro is definetely one of the best people Rogers could have gotten. Friedman is getting paid a ton of money with the Dodgers, Beene is never leaving Oakland, Epstein is getting paid a ton of money with the Cubs and Dombrowski just joined the Red Sox.

Those are the only executives I would put ahead of Shapiro.

I'm all for criticizing Rogers but they actually lucked out in hiring Shapiro considering the other candidates that were rumoured were guys like Williams and Duquette.
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Also agreed that Shapiro isn't as bad as most make him out to be. As you said, it's the fair-weather fans who haven't tuned in for 20+ years who are perpetually outraged about the new hire.
 
asdda said:
Shapiro getting smeared by the Toronto media is unfortunate. He is the best President they have had in decades albeit that it doesn't take much to be better then Beeston and Godfrey. I can't really judge Beeston on his first go-around. But the last 6 years have been terrible under him. The Jays still haven't built a new spring training facility which should have been done years ago, the players complaining about how outdated some of the equipment in the clubhouse is, the Jays still don't have dynamic ticket pricing which is costing them a ton of money ever year, the whole Santana contract fiasco.
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When I read the Rick Westhead piece on TSN's website in October that included the reference to lack of dyamic ticket pricing in Jay land and how it was costing the team ~$40million a year it caused me to pause....cause my recollection was that the Jays were the first team to introduce dynamic ticket pricing to Toronto in the early days of the phenomenon. I had to look and what it seems is that both are right and both are wrong. Yes the Jays (long before the Leafs/Raptors did and before TFC even existed) did introduce the concept of differential pricing but they never expanded it beyond two price categories (premium and standard) while dynamic pricing as we know it today has evolved to mulitple tiers of pricing.

My guess is that it is likely costing them money...but not as much as Westhead estimates. After all, even if dynamic pricing means a new super tier for Yankees and Red Sox games....it likely means that some games now called "premium" are no longer to tier but drop to 2nd or 3rd tier (depending on how many tiers you have).

There also is the issue about how high you can raise the prices for those Red Sox and Yankee games. In early May last year the Yankees played a 3 game series in Toronto where the largest crowd of the 3 games was 21,519.....would they have generated more revenue from those games if the price was dynamically higher (ie. same number of people paying more) or would they have generated same/less revenue (even smaller crowds but each person paying more)? Who knows.
 
Johnny Au said:
I bet that games vs. the Red Sox when Price pitches would demand a much higher ticket price than if the Jays were to play against [insert team at the bottom of its division, excluding Yankees or Red Sox if either team were at the bottom of the AL East].
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On the resale market - for sure - but not now.

They can't change regular season ticket prices just because Price is coming into town?

Price may not even pitch here this season depending on the rotation / schedule.
 
TOareaFan said:
When I read the Rick Westhead piece on TSN's website in October that included the reference to lack of dyamic ticket pricing in Jay land and how it was costing the team ~$40million a year it caused me to pause....cause my recollection was that the Jays were the first team to introduce dynamic ticket pricing to Toronto in the early days of the phenomenon. I had to look and what it seems is that both are right and both are wrong. Yes the Jays (long before the Leafs/Raptors did and before TFC even existed) did introduce the concept of differential pricing but they never expanded it beyond two price categories (premium and standard) while dynamic pricing as we know it today has evolved to mulitple tiers of pricing.

My guess is that it is likely costing them money...but not as much as Westhead estimates. After all, even if dynamic pricing means a new super tier for Yankees and Red Sox games....it likely means that some games now called "premium" are no longer to tier but drop to 2nd or 3rd tier (depending on how many tiers you have).

There also is the issue about how high you can raise the prices for those Red Sox and Yankee games. In early May last year the Yankees played a 3 game series in Toronto where the largest crowd of the 3 games was 21,519.....would they have generated more revenue from those games if the price was dynamically higher (ie. same number of people paying more) or would they have generated same/less revenue (even smaller crowds but each person paying more)? Who knows.
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Yeah what the Jays have is not dynamic ticket pricing, they just have tiers of pricing which are unchanging. Dynamic pricing lets you change the price at real time depending on demand for tickets. Tickets can be 17 dollars one day and 25 dollars the next depending on sales. Most teams don't get too greedy though and have upper and lower limits for prices, usually the lower limit is what season ticket holders pay. Dynamic ticket pricing really is to fight the secondary market where resellers can undercut the box office for games with little demand and put a giant mark up on games with a ton of demand.

Westheads numbers don't seem out and out ridiculous to me. 40 million a year might be a stretch but they did lose out on a ton of money this year from the stretch of games they had post trade deadline, the secondary market was super hot for those games while the Jays just sold those games at the same price they would have if they had been terrible.

GenerationW said:
So they kicked the Argos out for nothing? **** Rogers!
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1. Rogers gave them 7 years to move out.

2. Argos fans and media have been trashing the Rogers Centre for ever. Blaming it on their attendance woos and acting like once they move out of it there they will have an attendance renaissance like the Als.

3. The only reason the Argos didn't move out sooner is because of all their terrible owners. C&S had no money to help build a stadium. Braley didn't seem to want to spend a single dime and his ownership definitely hurt the team greatly. With Bell and Tanenbaum now the owners, leaving the Rogers Centre was inevitable.
 
Automation Gallery said:
Ugh? don't they have like 9 games here, of course he will, the 30-million dollar man will definitely play against a team that they will most likely be chasing
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Of course he might and likely 95% will pitch here - we don't know for sure though at this time, do we?
 
asdda said:
Yeah what the Jays have is not dynamic ticket pricing, they just have tiers of pricing which are unchanging. Dynamic pricing lets you change the price at real time depending on demand for tickets. Tickets can be 17 dollars one day and 25 dollars the next depending on sales. Most teams don't get too greedy though and have upper and lower limits for prices, usually the lower limit is what season ticket holders pay. Dynamic ticket pricing really is to fight the secondary market where resellers can undercut the box office for games with little demand and put a giant mark up on games with a ton of demand.
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Then no team in Toronto has dynamic pricing....the other 3 big teams have much more varied pricing (way more levels and price points) but none of them adjust the pricing on an individual game as demand is established.


asdda said:
Westheads numbers don't seem out and out ridiculous to me. 40 million a year might be a stretch but they did lose out on a ton of money this year from the stretch of games they had post trade deadline, the secondary market was super hot for those games while the Jays just sold those games at the same price they would have if they had been terrible.
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Wouldn't it work the other way too...would they not be reducing tickets when demand is weak (like for the first 1/2 of this past season no matter who the opponent was?).

The Jays did cash in somewhat....they were selling individual tickets in all of their unsold boxes at $150 a piece for all the games after the trade deadline......that brought in a lot of cash.
 
http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/grass-to-be-weighed-against-other-rogers-centre-renovations/

"Shapiro is working on what he described as a "comprehensive plan" of building needs, from basic infrastructure requirements such as fortifying the dome’s concrete, keeping the roof working, renewing seats and updating the scoreboard to fan-experience details such as how the seating bowl is configured and improving other amenities."

The Jays are looking to emulate premium lower bowl seating that many MLB teams have implemented over the years as well as what the Leafs and Raptors have at the ACC with the Platinum Lounge. The aim is to generate more interest and season ticket purchases from the corporate sector which ultimately generates far more revenue than the average fan. The only way to entice the corporate sector is to have some sort of premium seating and amenities. Renovations will also include expanding the private boxes for larger groups and gatherings. These types of upgrades will generate far more revenue than any sort of dynamic pricing.
 
TOareaFan said:
Then no team in Toronto has dynamic pricing....the other 3 big teams have much more varied pricing (way more levels and price points) but none of them adjust the pricing on an individual game as demand is established.




Wouldn't it work the other way too...would they not be reducing tickets when demand is weak (like for the first 1/2 of this past season no matter who the opponent was?).

The Jays did cash in somewhat....they were selling individual tickets in all of their unsold boxes at $150 a piece for all the games after the trade deadline......that brought in a lot of cash.
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Would you make less money?

You got to remember a giant chunk of tickets are sold in the offseason. Dynamic pricing is more to get people to buy tickets near gameday from the box office instead of say stubhub or scalpers.

In the offseason they can sell a August night game against the Twins for 30 dollars, but maybe a month into the season if demand is low the price is 20 dollars and maybe on game day if they have only sold 15K seats they can reduce the price of the same ticket to like 15 dollars.

It is still worth it to the team if the fan buys the 15 dollar ticket from them instead of from a season ticket holder or a scalper.

Pretty much all the MLB now has dynamic pricing and some NHL teams and NFL teams have jumped aboard. I have to imagine they all know what makes more money.

Translude15 said:
http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/grass-to-be-weighed-against-other-rogers-centre-renovations/

"Shapiro is working on what he described as a "comprehensive plan" of building needs, from basic infrastructure requirements such as fortifying the dome’s concrete, keeping the roof working, renewing seats and updating the scoreboard to fan-experience details such as how the seating bowl is configured and improving other amenities."

The Jays are looking to emulate premium lower bowl seating that many MLB teams have implemented over the years as well as what the Leafs and Raptors have at the ACC with the Platinum Lounge. The aim is to generate more interest and season ticket purchases from the corporate sector which ultimately generates far more revenue than the average fan. The only way to entice the corporate sector is to have some sort of premium seating and amenities. Renovations will also include expanding the private boxes for larger groups and gatherings. These types of upgrades will generate far more revenue than any sort of dynamic pricing.
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That's good. The seats in the Rogers Centre are pretty terrible.

I don't know what they do with the 500 level, I sat there for the first time in ages near the end of the season and that place is a dump.
 
I thought the Maple Leafs have had some sort of dynamic pricing model for a few years now, on top of their multiple pricing tiers both within sections, (row 1 costs more than row 9 in the platinums), and across games (regular, premium, super premium games). One example I can think of is their "Selfie Seats" promotion where single seats are sold for $74 on the day of the game, well below the regular "face value" of the ticket.

Dynamic pricing is such a poorly defined term in the sports marketplace.
 
asdda said:
Would you make less money?

You got to remember a giant chunk of tickets are sold in the offseason. Dynamic pricing is more to get people to buy tickets near gameday from the box office instead of say stubhub or scalpers.

In the offseason they can sell a August night game against the Twins for 30 dollars, but maybe a month into the season if demand is low the price is 20 dollars and maybe on game day if they have only sold 15K seats they can reduce the price of the same ticket to like 15 dollars.

It is still worth it to the team if the fan buys the 15 dollar ticket from them instead of from a season ticket holder or a scalper.

Pretty much all the MLB now has dynamic pricing and some NHL teams and NFL teams have jumped aboard. I have to imagine they all know what makes more money.

That's good. The seats in the Rogers Centre are pretty terrible.

I don't know what they do with the 500 level, I sat there for the first time in ages near the end of the season and that place is a dump.
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Unsure if 100L seats will be replaced before 500L but yes, 500L is in need of some improvements, even if it is just new seats. My belief is the re-configuration of the lower bowl coincides with the development of a premium, upper tier seating arrangement and installation of natural grass.
 
There is a lot of room below the stands behind home plate. There are the seats that are used for football below those stands (the stands rotate outwards to exposes the stands below) those seats will not longer be needed. A premium lower level section could include the addition of a lounge or bar behind home plate once the football stands are removed. Take the current "in the action seats, expand it from dugout to dugout, add a few extra rows + the lounge in back and charge $250+ per seat.
 
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