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QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 01:55 PM) It's funny, everyone keeps blaming the economy and high ticket prices. Yet every other sports team in Chicago has relatively high ticket prices and seems to be enjoying tons of success at the gate. The Cubs did have a decrease, but even with a 100 loss team, they were still top 10 in attendance. Apparently, White Sox fans are the only ones affected by the economy. The Cubs are an unfair comparison. They are the only team in MLB that can draw almost 3 million people to watch a 90+ loss team. It's gradually starting to change but for the most part, the performance of the team on the field has almost no affect on the number of tickets they sell. That's not true for any other team.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 12:56 PM) They spent 120 days in first place. It's hard to describe but there was never that "feeling" with this team that we got with the 05 or even the 08 team. It's like people didn't want to get too emotionally involved because they were all waiting for the other shoe to drop. And boy did it drop...

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 12:34 PM) People don't take the effort to hunt for the cheaper tickets. This. I imagine that the first place the casual fans (the ones that don't know much about baseball and that we desperately need to help fill the park) check for ticket prices is whitesox.com. Seeing those prices has to be a huge turn off.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 11:54 AM) It doesn't change walk up though. The walk up this year was minimal. I think that had a lot to do with ticket prices.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 11:06 AM) That is counter logical. How is what happened last season more relevant than what is happening this season, in terms of "winning"? Season tickets. People make the decision to buy them based on what the team did the previous season and what they expect the team to do in the coming season. Just look at the attendance between 2004 and 2006. It jumped about 400,000 between 04 and 05. But it jumped almost 600,000 between 05 and 06. Then they missed the playoffs in 06 and it went back down again. It's much easier to fill the park every night when the season ticket base is closer to 25,000 rather than between 10 and 15,000.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 09:57 AM) They spent 120 days in first place. No one had any idea in April/May/June/July/August and the first two weeks of September that this team would run out of gas during the last two weeks of September. The whole "win and people show up" myth is busted as far as I am concerned. It's going to take a lot more than spending a few months in first place to convince 20,000+ people to suddenly start showing up to the park every day. Especially when nobody really believed in them at the beginning of the season and then their fears became reality at the end of the season. This is not a problem that can be solved in a single season without a) winning a WS or b) building a new ballpark.

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 05:20 PM) I guess I just disagree with your premise. If winning this year doesn't bring the fan base out to the game and "develop new fans" than why do you think having a low A affiliated team in Kane County would? They didn't win this year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 03:47 PM) Where is the proof that a minor league team builds a major league fan base? I'm sure there are other factors but having the Iowa Cubs and (at one time) the Rockford Cubbies helped a little. I've heard lots of people say how nice it is to have the Rockford Icehogs close for the Blackhawks as well. I'm not saying it would make a huge difference but it sure can't hurt. I don't really see the advantage having the entire minor league system in the south.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 01:09 PM) The Sox like having their minor league affiliates all close to each other, that way they can move players around on short notice if needed. About the only way I could see that changing is if somewhere like Indianapolis opened up on a year when the Sox weren't still contracted to Charlotte, so they could move their AAA players closer to Chicago to facilitate emergency call ups. As it is now, this set up also benefits them because their roving instructors don't have far to go, and neither do their scouts. I'm trying to figure out what sort of competitive advantage that would give them other than saving a few bucks on travel costs. How often does a situation really come up where they need to get a player from one minor league team to another on short notice? Seems to me it would make more sense to want to get a player from the minors to the major league club on short notice.

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 04:13 PM) Chicago metro area: 10 million Detroit metro area: 3.7 million A couple considerations -- lets say you reduce parking for all games, then you are losing all that parking $ generated for the surefire winners (i.e. hosting the Cubs). What if the team is awful? Then you just lost all the money for those well-attended games that are a sure bet...AND you lose in general overall attendance. Point being - a sharp decrease in prices ain't happening. We are what we are -- a giant city with a lot of potential interest, but as of yet, not enough truly interested people. Like I said in my first post in this thread, demand has been going down for years. They need to do something to increase it. If you have a product that isn't selling, start dropping the price until it does.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 03:51 PM) Our pricing model is on par with all of the other teams in baseball, more or less. All teams charge exorbitant amounts for parking, tickets, and concessions, yet this isn't preventing or deterring fans of these other teams from coming out and supporting their ballclubs in droves. So I'm not one that sees the cost as the primary reason for the depressed attendance. Tigers have $5 tickets in their upper deck for all 81 home games. They also have an official parking lot that costs $5 to park in.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 02:35 PM) Attendance increases th year after they win provided they continue to win. This. It's all about building up the season-ticket base which happens in the off-season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 03:07 PM) Except it did ramp up in 2005 and 2008 while we were in contention. It didn't in 2012. It started to. They were averaging almost 25,000 per game in the month of September before the 1-5 road trip through KC and Anaheim. After that I think a lot of people lost faith in the team. 2005 is obvious but in 2008 they were actually up 1/2 a game on Sep 24 and never fell more than 1/2 a game back after that.

The quick and simple answer is lower the ticket prices. Obviously the demand for them has been decreasing steadily the past few years. Economics 101 dictates that they need to go down. Create some cheap ticket packages that are offered for all 81 home games. $20 for a couple of upper-deck tickets, 2 hot dogs and 2 cokes. Something like that. Also lower the parking prices. The more difficult answer is make the post-season 3 or 4 years in a row. That get some butts in the seats.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 01:27 PM) There never were any complaints about the Sox's on-field performance under Ozzie.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 11, 2012 -> 08:51 PM) Yes. I'm not quire sure how I'm getting the blame for a semi trailer scrapping up the front of my car while he was turning.

Does anyone know if there's any truth to the fact that when an Illinois vehicle accident report is filled out, the person they put as vehicle 1 is the one the officer determined to be more at fault when no citations are given out?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 10, 2012 -> 01:27 PM) I won't disagree with you, but it's kind of crazy a guy gets a D the same year he throws a perfect game. Yea, I hate when people judge something based on a single outlier from the rest of their career.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 6, 2012 -> 02:23 PM) 1.) My answer: Loria is crazy. I guess he wanted Ozzie to self mutiliate himself with words, blaming himself over and over for the season instead of being honest that he was headed to Spain. This backs my point that Loria was flat out enraged when Ozzie called out his firing of many other managers. I'm sure at this point Ozzie would love to get paid for three years of no work if Loria fires him. IMO Loria is torn right now. He doesn't want to pay Ozzie, but he sure wants him out of sight. Ozzie had the audacity to call him out like Girardi did. Bye bye. 3. Ozzie is infatuated with the money, but so are most all baseball players. They live in a dream world. Ozzie's ego and love of the media is a problem for any owner or GM who also has a huge huge ego. He'd be better off in a place like KC with dull David Glass. He was fine in Chicago with Jerry, but the conflict was with equally ego-driven Kenny. I will say Ozzie probably needs to work on his English this offseason and be lead analyst for Fox or ESPN for a year or two. He's still a good manager and funny as s*** in interviews, but guys like Loria can't stand forking over a paycheck to a guy like Ozzie who they deem ungrateful if that is the right word. Too bad, Loria, you hired him. Now they are pointing out all these things they don't like about Ozzie. These are the same things that make him lovable when he is winning. Didn't Loria count all the 'f***s' Ozzie blurted out in that first speech to the team in spring training? Loria was laughing like everybody else. Now the Marlins' record sucks and it is 'unprofessional?' Give me a break. I think you're too quick to blame Loria here. You are correct in that he should have seen what he was getting into at the beginning of the season instead of trying to back out know but what's done is done. I think the only people that were laughing were JR and KW because they actually found someone to take Ozzie off their hands. I'm not so sure any of the other 28 owners will make that same mistake after he's finished in Florida. QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 6, 2012 -> 02:29 PM) The collapse would have been a lot more fun. Can you imagine the things Ozzie would have said about the Royals as Chen and Guthrie beat us game after game? And during that 1-9 death march at the end? At least it would have been exciting, not this funeral-like event of the last 3 weeks. I can't believe you would seriously think that having Ozzie would make a season-ending collapse "more fun". It's when you say things like this that people accuse you of being more of an Ozzie fan than a White Sox fan.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Oct 5, 2012 -> 01:37 PM) I know it's good riddance. Seriously, who cares other than grammar nazis? I'm usually not but that just stuck out for some reason since I'd never seen it before. The ones I usually see are: for all intensive purposes (for all intents and purposes) mute point (moot point) take for granite (take for granted)

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Oct 5, 2012 -> 01:03 PM) Good riddens! Tell me this is serious.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 4, 2012 -> 10:37 PM) Let Ozzie be his color man 20 games since he's getting the boot in Miami; QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 4, 2012 -> 10:49 PM) Ozzie for 20? Amazing. You've got to be the only person in the world that thinks this is a good idea.

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Oct 5, 2012 -> 12:27 AM) I'd guess the Sox had about 9-10,000 season ticket holders this season. I base this number on the Tuesday afternoon game at the end of the season that drew 13,000 fans - that's tickets sold, not actual butts in the seats. So, when the Sox draw 30,000 for a big game, the media take is that the fans don't care and aren't loyal, but I'd say a walk-up of 20,000 to any game is pretty impressive. QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Oct 5, 2012 -> 12:27 AM) The Sox lack of demand should result in lower prices, and considerably lower at that. However, we go into the season with basically the same prices as the Cubs and expect to compete with them for fans. I agree with all of this and have been saying the same thing myself. It's not fair to compare it to the Cubs attendance because they have such a large season ticket base that they built up over the years. Now as people are falling off more are lining up to buy their tickets because they have been on the waiting list for so long. What's interesting is that many people lost money on that investment and the Cubs attendance has been slowing declining the past 4 years. We'll see how many people contine to believe in Theo's plan the next 3 or 4 years.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 3, 2012 -> 01:11 PM) other players like Rios seem to get a free pass when they stink (last year). I know you like to make up "facts" to support your arguments but really? I don't remember anyone on here giving Rios a free pass last year.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Oct 4, 2012 -> 02:39 PM) You really can't waste a bench spot on a guy who can only DH & play 1st. Especially in the AL. He's basically a poor man's Adam Dunn. They are almost exactly the same age too. Johnson is a few months younger.