In recent seasons, as the Mets’ payroll plummeted like the 1929 stock market, club officials turned to Major League Baseball’s most disenfranchised teams for inspiration.
After all, if the Rays and Athletics found success while drawing few fans to their eyesore ballparks and consequently facing financial limitations, then why couldn’t the Mets — running nice and modern Citi Field — pull off the same magic?
Maybe they will, even this year. Maybe they’ll shock the world, and the season’s brutal first few days will be laughed off as a doomsday tease.
But if the Mets want to fully come to terms with the trust deficit that exists with their fan base, they need to understand that their low payroll, in and of itself, doesn’t create all of the ill will.
The bigger picture is how that low payroll matches against their still-high cost to experience a Mets game in person.
Baseball’s first full week gave us a couple of interesting releases of data: The Associated Press’ Ronald Blum calculated all 30 Opening Day payrolls, while the Team Marketing Report divulged its annual “Fan Cost Index” rankings for MLB.
As per these tabulations, the Mets — whose attendance has dropped each of the past five years — own the 19th-largest payroll in the game ($91,849,508) and they charge the seventh-highest price for a family experience at the ballpark. The FCI of $229.68 comes from adding the prices of four adult average-price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular-size hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two least expensive, adult-size adjustable caps.
At No. 19 on payroll and No. 7 on FCI, let’s call that a minus-12 rating, right? That ranks as the fourth-worst in baseball. Lower than the Mets are the Marlins (29 and 9, for minus-20), the Cubs (22 and 3, minus-19) and the Astros (13 and 30, for a minus-17). It’s no surprise the customer bases of those three teams don’t appear especially happy, either.
The Diamondbacks, fielding the 12th-largest payroll and charging the lowest prices anywhere (30th, in other words), top the chart you want to top, with a plus-18 rating. Also notably in the black are the Reds (11 and 27, plus-16) and the Braves (16 and 24, plus-8).
The Yankees sit right at zero by this measure, with both the second-highest FCI ($337.20) and second-highest payroll ($199,174,656). The A’s (26 and 19) are at a minus-7, not dramatically better than the Mets, and the Rays (25 and 28) minus-3.
Michael Weinstat, a registered investment advisor who lives in Woodbury, owned Mets season tickets with a friend from 1987-2009. He gave up after ’09 because, armed with the public knowledge that the Mets had lost so much money to Bernard Madoff, he saw the storm coming.
“It’s one thing if you have the 15th-highest payroll and if you’re seventh or eighth [in the FCI]. You can deal with that, especially if you have a competitive team,” Weinstat said in a telephone interview. “But when you’re seventh and 19th, with a bad team for so many years, enough is enough.”
John Canova, who lives in East Meadow, bought Mets season tickets from 2001 through last year. He gave up this year, he said, because he found it exceedingly difficult to sell the tickets for games he didn’t attend — especially when the Mets themselves would put remaining seats in his area on sale.
“You want me to be a season-ticket holder, but then you’re underselling me just to get into the stadium,” Canova said by phone. “That wasn’t right. Come to me and discount my bill.”
The Mets declined comment on the matter.
As per the Team Marketing Report, the Mets’ average ticket prices of $25.30 for non-premium and $83.78 for premium rank below the MLB averages of $27.93 and $93.41. So if you take the train to Citi Field and don’t eat, drink or buy souvenirs, you might get yourself a good deal.
Some of the other costs — like $22 for parking and $6.25 for a hot dog, the most expensive frankfurter in baseball — might be chalked up to the cost of doing business in New York, or to the high-quality food at Citi Field. Yet that, too, calls to attention that a New York team, trying delivering a New York experience, should be spending more on player talent.
“For the last two years, upper management and ownership talked about 2014: ‘This is going to be the year we increase payroll and are competitors,’ ” Weinstat said. “Well, to use the line from the old Wendy’s commercial, ‘Where’s the beef?’ All I see is gristle.”
The Mets, as you know, spent considerably on Curtis Granderson, Bartolo Colon and Chris Young, yet thanks to getting Johan Santana and Jason Bay (mostly) off their books, their payroll is just a tick above last year’s $87ish million.
General manager Sandy Alderson said Monday, hours before the Mets began their season, that if the team played well, more fans presumably would come to Citi Field, and it would therefore be easier to increase payroll.
Yet sometimes, as the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money. And right now, on the relative MLB scale, the Mets charge more than they spend.