It's not often I recommend paying attention to the Cubs, but here's a situation worth keeping an eye on.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist gave his best attempt at wooing new owner Tom Ricketts and president Crane Kenney to get them to make the jump from the Cactus League to the Grapefruit League on Tuesday:
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Cubs officials met today with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who promised to do all he could to persuade the team to move its spring-training facilities from Arizona.
New Cubs owner Tom Ricketts and president Crane Kenney were among those meeting with Crist, who said afterward, "We like palm trees better than cactus and hope that the Cubs might, too."
If the Cubs pack up and head to Florida, then it runs the risk of making a huge dent into the White Sox's attendance figures. Here's how the numbers break down for Sox spring home games:
- vs. Cubs: 12,385*
- vs. Dodgers: 9,543
- vs. Everybody Else: 4,949
(*This probably would be higher if the Sox and Cubs didn't play two games in Las Vegas, as Camelback Ranch has a higher seating capacity than the Vegas facility.)
Remove those two Cubs games and replace them with two garden-variety opponents, and that's roughly a 15 percent drop in attendance. And without the Cubs, the Sox are basically right back where they were at Tucson despite some claims to the contrary.
Average attendance in Camelback Ranch's first year versus the last at Tucson Electric Park:
- 2009: 6,119.
- 2008: 5,820.
Add in the games against the Dodgers to the "Everybody Else" average, and they're roughly equivalent. Actually, TEP is ahead by 200 under these conditions.
Now, there are a couple reasons why attendance could increase next season. It's a non-WBC year, so a shorter spring schedule could force more fans into Glendale at the same time, boosting the average. There's no telling what the economic mood will be four months from now, but positive developments would theoretically make people more inclined to travel.
Not to mention the fact that the Cubs are nowhere close to moving right now. It will probably take a pretty herculean effort from Crist to get MLB teams to reverse course, as Arizona has proved to be a more popular choice as of late. He declared his intentions to revive the Grapefruit League, so it doesn't seem like he's going to go down without a fight, but it seems like the odds are against him at this point.
Ultimately, it's hard to gauge the impact of a potential move from this distance, but my initial thought process has an neutral impact to the consumer. On one hand, any loss in revenue doesn't exactly help. On the other hand, if the White Sox were deprived a spring training cash cow, maybe it would convince them to lower the ridiculous spring training prices.
Oh wait -- they did. From $45 to $42. Be still my heart!
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Unrelated to my crusade:
*The White Sox did not offer arbitration to Jermaine Dye, Octavio Dotel, Scott Podsednik or Ramon Castro, which doesn't come as a surprise. The Sox and Podsednik still seem to be far apart on length of a potential contract, which is fine.
*Kenny Williams isn't too concerned about the real position of designated hitter, or the imaginary position of leadoff hitter. I'm still guessing he's going to wait for the best available player late in the winter, and rearrange the corner infield, outfield or DH spots accordingly.
*Chuck Garfien has a couple podcasts with Ed Farmer and Mark Buehrle for your listening pleasure.
*Andrew lays out Robin Ventura's Hall of Fame case.
*The SoxFest lineup omits one notable name, says Joe Cowley:
The Sox also announced the early lineup for SoxFest 2010, with players like Freddy Garcia, Jake Peavy, Jayson Nix, A.J. Pierzynski, Alexei Ramirez and Matt Thornton locked in to attend.
Coincidentally, Bobby Jenks' name was not listed, despite the fact that the closer actually is the one player that lives in Chicago in the offseason.
"Everybody who's going to be on the team in late January please step forward."
"Not so fast, Bobby."
