In the last day of the 2022 season, Orioles GM Mike Elias and manager Brandon Hyde met with the media to discuss the season and talk in broad strokes about where they feel they are and how they can build on the momentum of this surprise season.
While Elias rightly talked very positively about where the organization is — and he had his chest out about how the club he built competed for all of 2022 — he is an awfully smart man, smart enough to know that this is where the needle needs to be threaded. This offseason will be a fascinating one to watch to see what he can accomplish.
But when I sat down to watch the news conference a couple days later I was struck by something Elias said about attendance at Camden Yards without being asked directly about it.
After talking about how the team views this as the right time to invest back into the major league payroll, Elias ventured into an area he had not previously discussed.
“We are also interested in bringing more fans back into the park and bringing our revenues back up and making the organization more healthy from a business standpoint so that we can continue to grow in the future,” the GM said.
Elias was talking to the media, but he sent a clear message to Birdland: “Hey, we need you to come along on this ride with us because that will help us to be able to afford to keep this moving in the right direction.”
Unlike the Dan Duquette-Buck Showalter union, Elias has had ownership’s support to not only sign top-tier draft picks but also untie the arm behind the organization’s back (signing and developing international talent).
This significant uptick in talent figures to last at least the better part of a decade. Duquette only had Peter Angelos’ driven desire to fund a winning major league team. Elias and Orioles CEO John Angelos have a real plan that has been skillfully executed to this point.
It means that if after six years a Gunnar Henderson can’t be afforded and perhaps a Colton Cowser is too expensive, this organization as presently constituted will likely have ready replacements to plug and play.
Still, Elias’ comments at the news conference revealed what’s needed to continue to fund this renaissance — butts in the seats.
That’s easier said than done. Sure, better play on the field makes a significant uptick possible, as evidenced by this year’s rise to nearly 1.4 million fans after a season-long attendance of 793,229 during the pandemic-affected 2021 season.
There’s some historical perspective needed, though.
The Orioles drew more than 3 million fans in nine of the first 10 years of Camden Yards. The one exception was the strike-shorted season of 1994, when they drew 2.5 million compared to an American League average attendance of a bit more than 1.7 million.
But those days are long gone. By 2005, the worst confluence imaginable was whiplashing the Orioles. They were eight years into deep hibernation. The Nationals had come to D.C. Cal Ripken Jr. had retired. The Ravens owned the market. Attendance was in an annual decline.
Within three years of the arrival of the Nationals, Orioles attendance declined from roughly 2.6 million to 1.9 million. That’s significant attrition of operational dollars.
Now jump ahead to 2012 when Duquette took over as executive vice president of baseball operations. The previous summer, attendance was down to 1.75 million. But the team won 270 regular-season games from 2012-2014, and attendance climbed again.
The 2,464,473 fans the Orioles drew in 2014 is a reasonable aim for now, with perhaps the new peak being 2.75 million.
This year’s increase back to just roughly 1.4 million (up from 793,229) is a decent start. But what the club hopefully understands now under John Angelos’ leadership is that marketing at its peak is a machine that can’t be turned on and off.
The club needs to relentlessly send a message that the Orioles are relevant again. In fact, following the pandemic, the frequency needs to increase as the team looks to bring in a new era of fans.
All teams play 81 home games across 26 weeks of the season. Weekend dates (Friday through Sunday) account for 39 of those 81 dates, leaving Monday through Thursday with 42 more dates, not accounting for rainouts. The Orioles had 14 home games draw fewer than 10,000 fans in 2022, all on weeknights.
I talk all the time about threading the needle in sports and personnel decisions. I have written previously about how the Orioles can work on building their weeknight attendance, but it’s up to the club and the marketing folks to thread this all-important needle.
Sure, MLB teams all have rich new revenue streams they can tap into. But without Birdland’s full buy-in at some point in time, it may make for some difficult decisions when it comes to signing one more key free agent or offering one extra year for an extension for a homegrown player.
Without Orioles fans becoming more active participants in this whole endeavor, it will be difficult to maximize Elias’ vision for a bright, shiny new era of Orioles baseball.
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