Tigers sign Dontrelle through 2011

[DrRay11]

Yes, driving under the influence (of Randy Smith) is dangerous.

[Jethro34]

By the way, sometime somebody will have to explain to me why LA and NY can support two teams as big market teams, but Chicago can't. Why are the Cubs a draw regardless of their record, and the White Sox not nearly the draw, sometimes in spite of their record?
Example - Sox won the Series in 2005 and the Cubs had 10,000 more fans per home game, 38,700 to 28,900. Now, the next season as the Sox tried to repeat, they actually averaged 36,500 (Cubs had 39,000) which was the 9th best average home crowd that season, but then they dropped back to 33,100 this season.

I ran some numbers over the past three seasons to determine which clubs had the best attendance (3 year average of home crowds).
Here's what I found -
Yankees - 51,699
Dodgers - 46,168
Cardinals - 43,363 (this surprised me)
Mets - 42,041
Angels - 41,881
Cubs - 39,315
Giants - 39,232 (also surprised me)
Astros - 36,379
Red Sox - 36,008 (surprised they only ranked 9th, but their park is smallest)
Phillies - 35,297
Padres - 34,227
White Sox - 32,858
Braves - 32,426
Tigers - 31,657

So we ranked 14th, but those 2005 numbers really pulled us down. We averaged 12,300 MORE last year than we did in 05.
The Yankees are in a category their own.

Few teams are selling out their parks every game.
So I guess the question is, what would it take to make Detroit big market? Or legit 2nd tier behind the Yankees and perhaps the Dodgers?
Well, the main thing is Ilitch would have to piss off a lot of people. Raise ticket prices by 10%, add 5,000 seats, hold out for a better TV deal, etc.
I guess the REAL question here is, if he keeps the payroll rolling to support the things we've seen the past couple years, would it be worth it?

[Tahoe]

Its some combination of things that I'm not sure of.

Detroit doesn't even have a million residents anymore, right? New York is 7-8 million, so they don't have any problem selling tix and can make some dough on other ancillary income.

But the Bay Area as a whole has a ton of peeps but Oakland isn't raking it in, and doesn't have the diehard fans like the Giants do. So its not just the size of the city.

Cub vs WS...Going to Wrigley is nice. Its in the neighborhood, etc, but the south side of Chicago isn't the same thing.

Apparel sales are another thing I'm not sure of. It might be huge. It seems everyone in NY has a Yankee hat, and out here I see more Yankee hats than any other team.

Ok, I'm done rambling now.

[b-diddy]

detroit has something like 5 million people in the metro area.

when computing fan attendance, consider its cold as shit in detroit in april sometimes, you really cant consider attendance until june, when schools get out.

[Jethro34]

Ok, let's go with that point diddy. Based on that, the Marlins, Rays, Rangers, Astros, Braves, D-Backs, Padres, Dodgers and Angels should all benefit a great deal from April, May, and sometimes late Sept, October, right? But the D-Backs aren't anywhere to be seen in spite of some decent teams. The Rangers don't show up either. The Braves have had great teams, but don't seem to be getting much benefit.
Meanwhile, is it colder in Detroit than it is in New York, Chicago, Boston, or Philly? It can be pretty dang cold in San Fran as well during that time (I know from experience).

Bottom line for me as to why Detroit is NOT big market (besides the fact that really only NYC, LA and Chicago are truly huge cities) is the fact that Comerica Park is in a crappy location. Seriously, a consistent effort to clean up an area of Detroit, paired with a waterfront location, would have been much better for attendance. Ilitch getting his head out of his butt a decade sooner would have been nice as well.

[Vinny]

Thing is, attendance and all that matter to a degree, but the key is that the owner has to be willing to settle for little or no profit, which Ilitch seemingly is.

Every Major League team is pulling in tons of revenue right now, that's why you're seeing the KC's and the Brewers of the world spending a little bit here and there.

None of that matters if all they're doing is watching the bottom line. What pushes Detroit into that second tier -- regardless of any attendance, population, etc numbers -- is that Ilitch seems willing to take little or no profit in exchange for a winner.

He loves Detroit and he loves the Tigers. He's a millionaire many times over and now he just wants a winner.

[Jethro34]

But I would contend there is a difference between some markets and others. Detroit embraces the current Ilitch thinking and will show up for a winner. Other markets show up regardless, and then there's a third group that won't show up at all.

[Tahoe]

Detroit's universe for selling fan apparel won't ever be as large as the Yanks. imo, there is a ceiling for some of these clubs for revenue. So they will never be big market clubs.

diddy...if we expand to the NY area then its way over 7 mil. I was just comparing apples to apples with city population.

[Tahoe]

Jethro good post I'm still digesting it. What would be interesting is to see the % of fans attendence vs seat capacity. That would be a lot of work, but I bet Detroit would be right up there at the top.

"I'm so confused I'm not sure anymore what exactly constitutes a large and a small market. I used to hear that the Philadelphia Phillies were the largest potential single-market team in baseball, but the Phillies' management has spent year after year whining about poverty and how they need a new stadium in order to compete. (Compete, exactly, with who? The only other team in their market area was the A's, and they moved nearly half a century ago.) Now, the proposed new stadium will make the Phillies a big-market team again. But what if they continue to win without it? Does that mean they were simply a big-market team all along that was poorly managed? Is that what makes a big-market team big? A new stadium? Or good management?"

http://home.nycap.rr.com/nickandaj/marketsize.html

[Zekyl]

The Marlins would not be in the last tier if they could just put a product on the field. Miami should be a great place for baseball.

Maybe if they went after Latino players they could draw more interest. If you have a bunch of latin-american stars on your team, latin-americans will be more likely to feel a connection with them, no? I guess that's from more of a sociological standpoint, but it seems to make sense.