Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

[priceless]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

Yes they were definitely overdue for some infrastructure upgrades .. it'll be neat to see how the new "Rogers Center" looks in a couple months! I have always thought the 'Dome was a great place to watch a game, there are no bad seats in the house, really. I'm sure the new changes will add a lot to the experience though.

[priceless]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

Yes they were definitely overdue for some infrastructure upgrades .. it'll be neat to see how the new "Rogers Center" looks in a couple months! I have always thought the 'Dome was a great place to watch a game, there are no bad seats in the house, really. I'm sure the new changes will add a lot to the experience though.

[Crucial Mike]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

Great news....I assume this is all due to my decision to move back to Toronto this summer.

Does anyone else think the skydome's interior would benefit from a paint job? I was thinking a dark green to increase the warmth of the place. It's not what you would call a major renovation but it can go a long way in my opinion.

[Crucial Mike]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

Great news....I assume this is all due to my decision to move back to Toronto this summer.

Does anyone else think the skydome's interior would benefit from a paint job? I was thinking a dark green to increase the warmth of the place. It's not what you would call a major renovation but it can go a long way in my opinion.

[VanCitySportsGuy]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

Since there has been a wide ranging set of topics since I last posted I will try to touch on them all and add some other things:

Let's start with the misnomer that attendance is declining. This is actually quite the opposite. The attendance is not the best but it's not the worst either. Here are the attendence figures and AL rank for the last 5 seasons.


2000: 1,705,712 10th

2001: 1,915,438 10th

2002: 1,637,900 11th

2003: 1,799,458 11th

2004: 1,900,041 11th


As you can see the numbers are very pedestrian but it seems Toronto has a good solid base for baseball. Knowing how Toronto fans are this is pretty good. Torontonians always cling on to a winner and they DO support losing teams if they're doing anything they can to win. Just look at the attendance for the Raptors over the last couple years.

The thing that is killing the Blue Jays from a profit margin basis is the dwindling TV numbers. Actually that's a bit of a misnomer as well cuz the TV numbers have generally been good tho not as great as the glory years. Last season the team had the worst TV numbers in 25 yrs which is not good. (this could also be why Rob Faulds was quietly shuffled out of the PBP gig tho it looks like it could be worse for us as Jamie Campbell is the favourite for the job ECH!)

As i've said before Torontonians will support a losing team if said team actually tries to improve itself. While the move today to increase budget is a bit puzzling since all the big names are gone it at least shows that Rogers is willing to make an investment. This payroll increase may very well be tied to the fact that Rogers now owns Skydome. The concessions, programs and merchandising sales will directly go into the coffers of Rogers which SHOULD go into payroll hence the increase.

As i've stated elsewhere the cosmetic changes for Skydome has long been overdue. I just hope that the FieldTurf they install is the kind that really simulates grass instead of the crap in Minnesota or Montreal last year. It's going to be weird not seeing the old Jumbotron but I guess a more modern scoreboard was neccessary.

Attendance has been very poor. The Jays finished 25th in the league in attendance last season. Don't forget the Jays had a lot of Toonie games last season too and that inflates the attendance totals. I'm not sure if the Jays count comp tickets for attendance but I'm pretty sure most teams do.

Toronto has shown they don't support losing teams outside of the Leafs (when they weren't that good). The Argos attendance was pretty bad when they weren't winning. Raps attendance has really slipped this season and I know they comp a lot of tickets away. I've been told some of the Leaf ticket packages are only available if you buy Raptor tickets as well.

I'm puzzled as to why Rogers didn't up the payroll at the beginning of the season. He was asked this question today and he responded with how he had to take things one step at a time and wait for the Stadium deal to go through. That seems like BS to me. I'm pretty sure he knew what the price range for the stadium was going to be months ago. If he was discussing the stadium for around 30 mil, I highly doubt 2 months later the price would all of a sudden shoot up to let's say 80 mil. If he was going to up the payroll this was the off-season to do it, because next season has a very weak crop of FA's.

Interestly enough the payroll carries through to 2007, the same year in which Halliday, Wells, Koskie, and JP's contract expires. JP must be happy because Rogers just bought him more time to improve the club with a 3 year payroll plan.

[VanCitySportsGuy]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

Since there has been a wide ranging set of topics since I last posted I will try to touch on them all and add some other things:

Let's start with the misnomer that attendance is declining. This is actually quite the opposite. The attendance is not the best but it's not the worst either. Here are the attendence figures and AL rank for the last 5 seasons.


2000: 1,705,712 10th

2001: 1,915,438 10th

2002: 1,637,900 11th

2003: 1,799,458 11th

2004: 1,900,041 11th


As you can see the numbers are very pedestrian but it seems Toronto has a good solid base for baseball. Knowing how Toronto fans are this is pretty good. Torontonians always cling on to a winner and they DO support losing teams if they're doing anything they can to win. Just look at the attendance for the Raptors over the last couple years.

The thing that is killing the Blue Jays from a profit margin basis is the dwindling TV numbers. Actually that's a bit of a misnomer as well cuz the TV numbers have generally been good tho not as great as the glory years. Last season the team had the worst TV numbers in 25 yrs which is not good. (this could also be why Rob Faulds was quietly shuffled out of the PBP gig tho it looks like it could be worse for us as Jamie Campbell is the favourite for the job ECH!)

As i've said before Torontonians will support a losing team if said team actually tries to improve itself. While the move today to increase budget is a bit puzzling since all the big names are gone it at least shows that Rogers is willing to make an investment. This payroll increase may very well be tied to the fact that Rogers now owns Skydome. The concessions, programs and merchandising sales will directly go into the coffers of Rogers which SHOULD go into payroll hence the increase.

As i've stated elsewhere the cosmetic changes for Skydome has long been overdue. I just hope that the FieldTurf they install is the kind that really simulates grass instead of the crap in Minnesota or Montreal last year. It's going to be weird not seeing the old Jumbotron but I guess a more modern scoreboard was neccessary.

Attendance has been very poor. The Jays finished 25th in the league in attendance last season. Don't forget the Jays had a lot of Toonie games last season too and that inflates the attendance totals. I'm not sure if the Jays count comp tickets for attendance but I'm pretty sure most teams do.

Toronto has shown they don't support losing teams outside of the Leafs (when they weren't that good). The Argos attendance was pretty bad when they weren't winning. Raps attendance has really slipped this season and I know they comp a lot of tickets away. I've been told some of the Leaf ticket packages are only available if you buy Raptor tickets as well.

I'm puzzled as to why Rogers didn't up the payroll at the beginning of the season. He was asked this question today and he responded with how he had to take things one step at a time and wait for the Stadium deal to go through. That seems like BS to me. I'm pretty sure he knew what the price range for the stadium was going to be months ago. If he was discussing the stadium for around 30 mil, I highly doubt 2 months later the price would all of a sudden shoot up to let's say 80 mil. If he was going to up the payroll this was the off-season to do it, because next season has a very weak crop of FA's.

Interestly enough the payroll carries through to 2007, the same year in which Halliday, Wells, Koskie, and JP's contract expires. JP must be happy because Rogers just bought him more time to improve the club with a 3 year payroll plan.

[Nivek]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

This is great news, some of my relatives haven't seen a Jays game since the glory days. Anyone else remember when it costed an arm and a leg to get seats?

[Nivek]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

This is great news, some of my relatives haven't seen a Jays game since the glory days. Anyone else remember when it costed an arm and a leg to get seats?

[SPTO]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

23 thousand and change per game is not a bad attendance figure if you factor in how bad things have been with the Jays in the past few yrs. I did say the numbers weren't great but they're not the worst. They're repestable numbers. The overall numbers is close to 2 million fans. That's nothing to sneeze at.

[SPTO]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

23 thousand and change per game is not a bad attendance figure if you factor in how bad things have been with the Jays in the past few yrs. I did say the numbers weren't great but they're not the worst. They're repestable numbers. The overall numbers is close to 2 million fans. That's nothing to sneeze at.

[theaub]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

This is great news, some of my relatives haven't seen a Jays game since the glory days. Anyone else remember when it costed an arm and a leg to get seats?

I had season tickets from '84-'97...so I can't say I did.

[theaub]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

This is great news, some of my relatives haven't seen a Jays game since the glory days. Anyone else remember when it costed an arm and a leg to get seats?

I had season tickets from '84-'97...so I can't say I did.

[priceless]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

This is great news, some of my relatives haven't seen a Jays game since the glory days. Anyone else remember when it costed an arm and a leg to get seats?

I spent $35 on my ticket for my very first game at the SkyDome in 1990 .. for $4 500-level seats (bought from a scalper). I can't imagine the Jays ever being in that kind of demand again, but hopefully it will be like that someday.

[priceless]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

This is great news, some of my relatives haven't seen a Jays game since the glory days. Anyone else remember when it costed an arm and a leg to get seats?

I spent $35 on my ticket for my very first game at the SkyDome in 1990 .. for $4 500-level seats (bought from a scalper). I can't imagine the Jays ever being in that kind of demand again, but hopefully it will be like that someday.

[priceless]

Re: Blue Jays to announce stadium upgrade and payroll increase

Great news....I assume this is all due to my decision to move back to Toronto this summer.

Does anyone else think the skydome's interior would benefit from a paint job? I was thinking a dark green to increase the warmth of the place. It's not what you would call a major renovation but it can go a long way in my opinion.

I just read on slam.ca (I think that's where it was) that Godfrey wants some of the concrete painted over to make it look a tad more cheerful and not so drab. I think changing the seat colours might be kind of nice too ... since they're not really even the "Blue" Jays anymore anyway.