Baseball Program Needs to Charge Admission

Agree. We pay 8 at ECU and UNC Wilmington. Coastal Carolina is 10. I think Wofford was a "freebie".

now that I think about it, we even paid 5 at Mt. Olive College to watch the Cards play VB last year.

Why does that matter? We have to start somewhere.

Seriously, folks already pay $5 a game for HS baseball. Obviously, this is much higher quality entertainment.

Low interest already. Raising prices not likely to increase it. Not much payoff after expenses especially if attendance drops. You do have small captive audience of visiting team, but less than HS baseball where opponent usually local, and you would be charging team family and friends.

Worth the trouble?

No question that if you looked at it from a value point of view, a small charge to the real baseball fan is probably worth it.  With our scheduling in unpredictable Spring weather, often cold, even wet and windy, and with little shelter, the attendance we get is impressive even though pretty low.  It proves the value to a baseball fan.  Still.  The interest in college baseball indicated by 260 fans showing up on average, with half being students, and some number accompanying the visitor, means this is not now a good candidate to be a revenue sport.  Not now.  How we build by charging for something relatively few people show up for now, is the issue.  

The secret to minor league baseball making money is selling fan experience, and that is all about entertainment other than just baseball, about beer and concessions that are enjoyed even when overpriced, about promotions, fun activity for kids,  group sales, attractive game dates, and lots of games in good weather.  We have not much going in any of those departments now. 

So we can hypothesize we are attracting the purist baseball fans who can see some good players for the good value, some of the die hard BSU loyal alumni and friends of the University, and of course families and friends of our visiting teams and our own teams.   Except for charging visitors, I am not that excited about charging any of those groups right now.

The attraction to local families with kids interested in baseball is a potential source of attendance growth, but, again many of those families are going to go to the HS games and pay admission, not sure how much is in the budget for us to get if we charge too.  The number of local "pure" baseball fans without a minor league team to support, and looking at the value of the ticket in those terms, that, I'd have to see some marketing research on.

Besides, I like the idea of giving perks to the fans who are loyal supporters.  I'd rather expand attendance, make money selling concessions and directly making the fan experience a good one.  

I'd give a try at building the crowds with free admission(or perhaps even a lower than 5$ charge, whatever is required to cover additional costs for promotion), and see what the potential is to fill the stands completely before I'd start trying to milk relatively modest revenue.   We would make a relatively small profit and I am not sure we wouldn't be better off long run, printing and distributing "free" tickets and trying to build fan base, than trying to "cash in" now.  

Wrong answer. Whether it be $17k, $13k or $12k of revenue stream, we need revenue stream to offset the costs of maintaining our current facility. This is not minor league ball. This is the next step after HS ball, and folks are willing to pay $5 to watch HS ball. People also know that there is a cost to maintaining facilities. They get it. They don't mind paying $5.

BTW - Indiana State is drawing between 400 and 1,600 per game date at Bob Warn Field. They charge $4 minimum and $10 to $12 for chairback seats behind homeplate.

I agree on lights.  I thought it was a huge mistake not to be sure to include lights in the rennovation.  (a video board woulda been good too)  But, I'm not too sure how much input Rich was allowed to have in the planning.....