Last season, paid attendance was 1.87 million, a figure that Beeston acknowledges may not be reached this year.
“Ultimately, this team has got to get back up to the mid or high 2 million (range) to be fully sustainable and competitive over the long term,” says Eric Fisher, baseball writer for the North Carolina-based Sports Business Journal. He predicts attendance will slip to 1.6 million this year.
Richard Powers, associate dean of the Rotman School of Management, says Rogers Communications Inc., the media giant that owns the Jays and broadcasts most of their games on its highly profitable Sportsnet channel, will eventually cave to pressure from shareholders if business doesn’t improve.
“If attendance does not pick up, if they can’t find other revenue streams that can offset the decline in attendance, they’re really going to have to look at either selling or bringing in new money somehow.”
Fisher describes any talk of moving the Jays as wildly premature, noting that even the mighty Philadelphia Phillies have had up-and-down attendance.
But some die-hard fans are jittery.
Beeston acknowledges that Rogers has lost money on the Jays for at least the last two years. “But, why I downplay that, why I don’t want to talk about it, is that Rogers never complained about this money.”
He won’t say how much Rogers is losing.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/ ... ronto?bn=1
