THE NOMADIC A's

The A's began their baseball club in Philadelphia. When their winning percentage surpassed the collective IQ of the entire population of Philadelphia, the baseball club moved to Kansas City. However, realizing that most would have to be deep in the cold, cold ground before they recognize Missourah, the insurance salesman, who liked donkeys, took the baseball club to Oakland.

The Coliseum had gone over minor revamps over the years. But, it stayed in its multi-purpose mode, with huge foul areas, even after Al Davis took the Raiders south. In the 1980's and early 1990's, before the era of baseball only facilities, the Coliseum was routinely listed as one of the best places to view a baseball game. The Coliseum had a huge screen in the outfield and a wondrous Dolby sound system. The Rolling Stones loved playing in Oakland because of the features.

In short, the Coliseum rocked.

Then Al Davis returned. And many A's fans, not willing to look past their foaming at the mouth hysteria, welcomed the Raiders back to Oakland. This caused two problems

1. Disposable income spent on Raiders games including seat licenses (and other bribes to Al Davis hidden as fees for being a fan) meant less disposable income thrown at the A's.




2. The Raiders insisted in altering the Coliseum to include luxury boxes, not paid for by Al Davis, so that AL Davis could reap the financial windfall of corporate tax loopholes (in the good ol' days luxury boxes at sporting events were allowed to be considered a tax deduction)

In one short year the Coliseum turned from a great place to watch a baseball game, sit in actual bleachers and pound away at the aluminum seating underfoot during a rally or when Dennis Eckersley took the mound, into a contemporary holding cell. The Coliseum now resembles "that mall in the bad part of town that nobody goes to any more". Boarded up shops, filthy and the shops that aren't open usually have health issues and safety violations (how long is the souvenir shop down the right field line going to have a leaky roof?).

My first adventure (I head to 40-60 A's game a year) at the Coliseum this year included choking on, what I hope were, chicken bones in the boneless chicken strips.

As well as my first interaction with the new Ticketmaster kiosk. What a wonderful way to be raped anally at the ballpark. I mean, if you have to be anally raped at the ballpark, thankfully the A's have provided the best possible way to help deliver quality anal rape. You just can't get that kind of consideration from administration these days.

The Ticketmaster kiosk replaces a more efficient and pleasant manner of purchasing tickets for A's games by interacting with a human being. If you are relatively new to going to games, you would think that discussing where the best places to sit, see the players, maybe get autographs for the kids, where to sit to be close to restrooms and the best food, which games are more crowded than others, which games you should avoid, is it better to come by BART or get anally raped paying for parking, you know advice, might be a service a human can serve just a tad easier. Or at all. Instead, Ticketmaster has an automated kiosk.

Features include:

• BEING ABLE TO BUY TICKETS FOR THE GAME YOU ALREADY PAID TO COME SEE

That's right, you can buy tickets, after already buying tickets and being granted admission to that game, for that game. Just in case you haven't had a chance to buy a jersey or hat, you can buy a second ticket as a souvenir. Maybe you can buy tickets for friends outside. Of course you can't exit and re-renter. And you get a bonus surprise.



• PURCHASE TICKETS FOR A FUTURE GAME AT THE COLISEUM, AND PAY AN ADDITIONAL SUR-CHARGE FOR THE HONOR

You can buy tickets to a future A's game, at the venue you have already been admitted to, and pay an extra dollar per ticket to do so. The other option is to head to the exit by section 120 and exit the stadium to buy tickets from a human being with no sur-charge. Tickets are only on sale there after the 7th inning. Of course you can't exit and re-renter.



• YOU BETTER HAVE YOUR VISA CARD, BECAUSE THEY DON'T TAKE CASH


Many retailers Albertson's, Home Depot, gas stations have instituted the ability to self-scan items or services. In some cases avoiding long lines and speeding up the consumer process, relatively mundane tasks, but with the option of person-to-employee access. WITHOUT AN ACCESS FEE.



• 3rd DECK TARPS MEANS FEWER LAME IN STADIUM CAMERA SHOTS OF SHIRTLESS GEEKS AND DWEEBS WHO ARE DOING ANYTHING BUT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE GAME AND HOPING FOR 3.5 SECONDS OF INFAMY.

The tarps, what a ridiculous excuse to suppress fan attendance data. The rationale that "fans will be closer to the action" is as flimsy as Ken Macha's ability to construct a thought. Are the A's going to have lawn chairs on the field? Are they going to allow fans to sit on the scoreboards in left and rightfield? Are they going to add seats down the 1st and 3rd base lines by pushing the fences closer to the field? No. So how exactly are fans closer to the action? If you are sitting in the 3rd deck or behind homeplate, you still aren't going to get any closer to the action than you already are. The boundaries are determined by the green walls that surround the field of play. Sorry to being in logic and reasoning into this. But, damn, how can the A's actually mention this and sportswriters just nod along and smile?

To continue with that last topic, the real reason the A's closed the 3rd deck is due to one thing; PROFIT.

Gary Huckabay of Baseball Prospectus last season presented some data on how teams REALLY make their money. Essentially, while Huckabay asserted that the data was dirty, teams make a huge portion of their profit from ticket sales. That's income after overhead, kids. We're talking profit. All other expenditures are paid for with licensing deals and TV money. Profit.

So why close the 3rd deck? Wouldn't more seats mean more fans meaning more money?

Of course, if the A's could get fans in the park. But they can't average attendance figures at about over the past several seasons. I could list the data, which is actually kind of fun (numbers are cool). But let me lay out a scenario that makes real sense that you can go boast to your fellow A's fans about.

Let's say that 3rd deck seats go for $10. Same price as the bleacher seats. Let's figure on an average game, of the 26,000 people that show up - 5,000 are in the 3rd deck. 5,000 x $10 = $50,000.

Now, since those $9 3rd deck seats are no longer available, let's factor that since those $10 seats aren't available, those 5,000 fans go and buy the 2nd deck seats at $14 a piece for the plaza level outfield seats (sure, they can go to the bleachers, but let's face it, we in the bleachers are the scum and villainy of sports). 5,000 x $14 = $70,000.

I told you numbers were cool.

Let's go a step further and say that of those 5,000 fans, 1,000 decide to pay the $20 for the next best seats at the plaza level. The other 4,000 decide to stick with plaza level outfield at $14.

4,000 x $14 = $56,000

1,000 x $20 = $20,000



Getting the picture/
Let's say that 25% of fans say, "Screw it, I'm not going to any more A's games". A likely situation.

.75 x $50,000...wait; let's just skip to the end. How many fans have to show up with the $14 seat instead of the $10 seats for the A's to make the same amount of profit?

3571.

Schott y Hoffman were the owners who were too cheap, as labeled by A's fans? When are A's fans going to wake up and realize that the Keebler Elf is just a greedy bastard? Oh, and by the way, he IS NOT THE MAJORITY OWNER OF THE OAKLAND ATHLETICS BASEBALL CLUB.

TICKET PRICE	NUMBER OF FANS	GATE	SEAT LOCATION
$10	5000	$50,000	3rd Deck
$14	5000	$70,000	Plaza OF
$14	4000	$56,000	Plaza OF
$20	1000	$20,000	Plaza Level
		$76,000
$14	3571	$50,000	Plaza OF

Now, this was a quick whip through as I am knee deep in other stuff, but blast away at me in the comments or in the forum.