Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Despite losing the highly anticipated home opener to a rainout and despite some frigid baseball weather in the first month of the season, all indications are that the Omaha Storm Chasers' move to Werner Park has been a winner.
Through 10 dates, the average attendance of 4,179 was up 28.2 percent over 10 dates of 2010, when the team — then the Royals — was averaging 3,258 at Rosenblatt Stadium.
“We would have had a hard sellout for opening night, and that's probably the most disappointing thing, because if you add that number, we could have been sitting here 35 to 40 percent ahead in paid attendance and more than 70 percent ahead at the turnstile,” Storm Chasers General Manager Martie Cordaro said. “But it is what it is, and we've been able to do this in spite of the weather. We're very excited about the rest of 2011.”
The average game-time temperature this season has been 56.3 degrees, compared with 68 at this time last year.
On the first homestand alone, five of the seven games had first-pitch temperatures of 50 or less, with four games starting with temperatures in the 40s. The coldest of the first 11 starts last year was 50.
“Once we get into mid- to late-May, the group sales really start impacting our attendance and fans will start finding they need to purchase their tickets earlier if they want fixed seats,” Cordaro said. “But we've also seen the last couple of days more activity in our outfield berm seating, too.”
Omaha has played 12 games at the new park but has opened only 11 times since one of those dates was a doubleheader.
The 11-date average is actually down slightly from last year. That's because the 11th date in 2010 was the annual Cox Communications Home Run for Youth Day, in which tickets are distributed to local school children for a field trip. At 25,000-seat Rosenblatt, last year's crowd was 15,701.
Capacity at Werner Park, including outfield berm seating, is 9,023. There are only 6,434 fixed seats. The same promotion has already been held this year, drawing a season-best 6,580.
Throw out the Cox promotion from each of the two years, and the Chasers' average is up 24 percent (4,041 this year, 3,258 last).
In last year's first 11 dates, the Cox promotion was one of only four crowds of more than 3,100. This year there have been eight crowds of over 3,100.
And Cordaro is particularly enthused about a 62.9 percent increase in turnstile count through 10 dates, though he declined to reveal the exact numbers.
“No-shows are way down,” he said.
Cordaro also said revenue has already passed 2008's total. It surpassed 2007's total before the season had even started.
Last offseason's name change — from Royals to Storm Chasers — has been a contributing factor. So has an in-stadium store four times larger than the one at Rosenblatt, and an expanded line of offerings begun in 2009.
Cordaro said advertising sales are 60 percent higher than last year's all-time high.
Season-ticket sales are at an all-time high of 1,400, up from about 800 last year, Cordaro said.
Group sales have changed because of the new stadium's size. For instance, one of the team's biggest crowds annually comes on the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors night in June, with around 10,000 usually in attendance from that organization. Now that group will have its tickets spaced over an entire weekend.
“The beauty of it is that we used to focus on 15 to 20 games where we could get big crowds,” Cordaro said. “Now we're focused on the entire season.”
For the season last year, the team drew an average of 5,888 and a total of 406,276 over 69 dates. Because of the move to a new stadium, Cordaro said he's hesitant to project what the team may draw this season.
“Next year at this time I would be able to project it pretty easily, but right now I really don't know,” Cordaro said. “It'll probably be the end of May or early June before I could make a pretty educated guess, once the weather breaks and we see what kind of walkup we get seven days of the week. Guessing at a number right now would be a crapshoot.”
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