Small sample sizes that come from April baseball apply to the business side, too. The people making both baseball and business decisions try not to overreact to just a handful of games.
But after the first home stand, a six-game stretch against the Royals and Dodgers at Oracle Park, the Giants are encouraged by the early attendance returns.
In their first six games, the Giants outdrew their pace from last year by roughly 14,000 paid tickets. Last season saw the team’s lowest total attendance since the team moved to its waterfront ballpark, a downtick due to several factors — some within and some outside of the organization’s control.
“I didn’t think last year was a disaster,” Giants CEO Larry Baer told KNBR.com in a recent phone interview. “We’re getting the city back on its feet. There’s a lot going on in the world, and especially in our community. Trying to look at it with perspective here. I’m actually feeling really good about where we’re at from the first home stand.”
Although the Giants sold out just one of their first six games, Baer has reason for optimism. San Francisco, the slowest city to return to in-person office work, is bringing more employees downtown; last week’s Dodgers-Giants series finale would have been the second-largest crowd for any Wednesday night game in 2022.
Group ticket sales, which flatlined with the pandemic and have been returning since, are coming back stronger, Baer said. Although the Dodgers being in town helps, midweek games that routinely drew a half-full ballpark last year were livelier.
The Giants sold out Oracle Park in 16 of the 23 seasons. Those days are over. But enhancing the ballpark experience remains a priority. And the topic du jour, league-wide and within the Giants organization, is how to react to the shorter games in the pitch timer era. Average game duration is 2:39 minutes this year, down 27 minutes from last year.
Fans have less time between innings to grab a crab sandwich. They risk missing on-field action while seeking out their favorite craft beers. San Francisco is monitoring the situation as it gets more information and feedback.
“It’s a good question,” Baer said. “It’s hard to get conclusions after six home games…In terms of how it affects concessions, we haven’t seen a huge impact yet. It’s about on par. But we might. It’s hard, again, because what we have skewed in there is Opening Day and the Dodgers. We want to get to like, what’s a normalized behavior.”
The Brewers, Diamondbacks, Twins and Rangers have already extended alcohol sales from the standard seventh to the eighth inning to give vendors more time to sell products.
Giants senior vice president Shana Daum told SF Gate recently “we are not planning to make any changes to our current alcohol sales policies.” Baer, though, kept the possibility open.
“We’re looking at that,” Baer said. “We haven’t made a decision on that, but we’re looking at that, at possibly extending beyond the seventh inning.”
Bill Greathouse, the Giants’ head concessionaire, said the first home stand isn’t the most representative sample, so they don’t have real conclusive evidence that the shorter games are significantly affecting sales one way or another.
“I think maybe let’s look at another home stand, and then we’ll kind of make some judgement on it,” Greathouse, vice president at Oracle Park for Bon Appétit Management Company, said.
The Giants haven’t made any policy changes yet, and may end up not adjusting them at all. But extending the alcohol sales deadline would be controversial. Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm, appearing on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast, lambasted the change some teams have made for possible safety ramifications.
“The reason we stopped [selling alcohol in] the seventh before was to give our fans time to sober up and drive home safe, correct?” Strahm said. “So now with a faster-pace game — and me just being a man of common sense — if the game is going to finish quicker, would we not move the beer sales back to the sixth inning to give our fans time to sober up and drive home?”
Syracuse University sport management professor Dave Meluni agrees with Strahm. He told KNBR.com that a more reasonable approach would be to open ballparks to the public earlier instead of extending sales later.
Currently, home ballparks open either 90 minutes or two hours before first pitch. The home team’s batting practice is often over by the time fans can enter. MLB policy dictates the away team take batting practice after the home club, but there aren’t collectively bargained rules restricting when a ballpark can open to the masses.
Posed with the earlier opening option, Baer said “we might experiment with that in the future because of shorter game times.”
In the past, Baer said, the Giants have tried discounted food and beverage options that expire before the first pitch to encourage fans to meander in the park earlier. Those efforts didn’t gain much traction, but behavior could change when fans get used to the shorter games, Baer said.
Opening the park earlier would likely make sense for weekend games and would cater more to families with young kids, Meluni said.
In regards to beer sales that could be affected by either change, one of the Giants’ signature promotions this year is the $9 domestic draft option at Doggie Diner concessions stands. In their first home stand, the discounted brews weren’t exactly flying off the shelves.
One Doggie Diner concessions worker told KNBR.com that some patrons have laughed when they discover the size of the beers, comparing them to sippy cups. Another fan who bought two $9 beers was surprised at the size, immediately texted his friends out of frustration and told KNBR.com that he felt “disrespected.”
As advertised, the $9 beers are in 14-ounce cups — down two ounces from the standard 16-ounce offerings. Multiple people familiar with the promotion confirmed the 14-ounce beer size, adding that concessions workers are instructed to pour beers to the brim without a foam head.
The Giants still offer craft beers and bigger sizes at traditional prices.
On a power ranking list of grievances for Giants fans, the size of cheap Coors Light is low. This winter that included unrequited high-profile pursuits of Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa traumatized some fans desperate for star power. Some have been left mourning the retirement of Buster Posey. Some may feel disoriented by Bruce Bochy’s new blue-and-red oversize caps.
More tangibly, fans are frustrated by the price of attending a game, although that feeling isn’t unique to the Giants. One analysis found that a family of four spends an estimated $180.90 at a single Giants game — sixth most in baseball.
That’s as inflation and the pandemic have cut into many people’s discretionary spending. Some prefer to just watch the game at home, with the indelible broadcast team led by Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper providing commentary.
The most relevant on-field factor, though, is winning. After finishing last year 81-81, the Giants have lost series to the Yankees, Royals, Dodgers and Tigers in a 5-9 start to the season.
The 34,903 paying fans last Wednesday saw San Francisco blow an early three-run in a 10-5 loss to the rival Dodgers. About 4,000 fewer saw the Giants blank Los Angeles the night before.
Other considerations — return to downtown in-person office work, residual hesitancy to return to large crowds from the pandemic, customers getting a feel for quicker games, competing with another Warriors playoff run for market share, some fan perception issues — are more out of the organization’s control.
With much of the above, after the first six games, Baer saw positive signs.
“It was a strong showing of Giants fans for the first home stand,” Baer said. “We’re seeing some good signs about San Francisco. It’s not huge, and it’s not as much as we’d like, but there’s some positive signs about San Francisco coming back.”
