This line of posts is really getting dull. Baseball attendance in crappy spring weather is not the point, is it?

I hope you do this in August too....

Maybe we can market it as a good place to read a book.

This line of posts is really getting dull.

We don't do reviews here.

I hope you do this in August too....

Would be glad to. The average real attendance is going to be something like 3,000 to 3,500. The fake "paid" number they give out will be 5,000 to 6,000.

Now go troll somewhere else.

Maybe if Sam was there to throw out the first ball on "Thirsty Thursday"?....folks would show up to watch him drive up in his picky up smash 'em truck?
"Smashin' Sam...the pick up man"

"This line of posts is really getting dull."

Not as dull as a Beavers game! (bumm-bum-bum!) And far, far cheaper.

If the Big O wasn't totally competing with Sam to plant the choicest kisses on Little Lord Paulson's behind, this story in these photos would be a big story in the paper every day:

"What kind of lunatic thinks he deserves big cash to rejigger a sports stadium when we're still not done paying off the last rejiggering and even very few baseball fans bother to watch."

For the record, the weather from the box score:

Weather: 58 degrees, partly cloudy.
Wind: 7 mph, Varies.

Yeah, if the weather had been nicer, they would have had 500 people there. Here's what it was like when the temperature at game time was 72:

http://bojack.org/2009/04/these_huge_crowds_will_pay_for.html

No matter where you move the Beavers, they will still play a goodly portion of their schedule in weather like this. And attendance won't improve substantially. We already blew $30 million on luxury accoutrements about six years ago, and this is what they draw.

The whole weather argument is doesn't hold up -- when the weather is good in Portland, people like to get off their asses and DO something.

Besides, as far as debt service goes, a seat is a seat is a seat, whether sold in May or August. I wonder if, back when they were trying to talk the city into funding the redo of their playpen last time, they were ever heard to say "Well, now, you can't expect the seats to fill up when the weather isn't sunny August weather."

Yup, I can hear the echoes of it now, underneath the sounds of a squadron of pigs flying: "Uh, don't assume that many people will come out and buy tickets, you know the weather is always dicey in Portland until July."

I don't know if it makes a difference but that game was on FSN this evening...but they couldn't even put it in HD...so bush league!

I just sent Jack a couple more photos to confirm this. We left during the 7th inning stretch. It was a ghost town last night.

Don't you understand? All the fans are waiting for the new stadium, with more expensive tickets. Paulson has told us they'll average 8,000 in attendance ... even though the Beavers have never averaged as much as 6,800 in a season.
And a paid consultant said it, so it must be true.

The $40 million baseball stadium is definitely the half of this deal that stinks the most. And the rest ain't exactly springtime fresh.

So today in the Big O we get the idiot Canzano cheering the Lumberjax FAIL because they're just more "white noise" (pun intended?) on the Portland sports scene, sucking up those sponsor and ticket dollars that rightly belong to Little Lord Paulson, using the single stupidest argument known to mankind, that Portland is "the biggest city in America with only one major league team."

Quick, what happens if Portland gets another major league team? That's right! Some other city starts getting set up for the fleecing because, you know, "the biggest city in America with only one major league team." And so on, ad nauseum.

I wonder if he intended to argue that Paulson needs to shut down the Beavers to avoid overtaxing a seriously thin Portland spectator sports market? The Trail Blazers have the good fortune to play indoors during precisely the months when people in the Northwest are most likely to want to be indoors. All others, take heed.

I'm wondering...is attendance being calculated by tickets *sold and/or distributed*, instead of a gate count?

And by estimation, even a regular, guaranteed crowd of 10,000 wouldn't begin to cover the costs of a major league soccer team + stadium.

One more thing--someone here said that they didn't think Portland Meadows was included in the sales by the owner unloading various tracks. Yet yesterday's paper said that it was among those for sale.

Seems like a perfect solution: leave Civic Stadium alone and let Little Lord Paulson buy himself a horsetrack and convert that to soccer. Problem solved.

In the interests of fairness can you please start posting pics of the Timbers games too?

Minor league baseball in 58 degree weather...

Think I'll pass.

How unfair. It was 'Dress Like a Stadium Seat Night', presented by Chair Outlet. The fans were there. You just can't see them.

Speaking of promotions, 'Meth Mondays' should be a big draw at the new Lents ballpark. Looking forward to it.

http://www.kenn.com/the_blog/?p=1724

Interesting... check out the top of MLS and USL1 attendance tables. It's almost as if soccer is a good bet for the Pac NW, eh?

Gener: Great! Get Little Lord Paulson to buy Portland Meadows and knock yourselves out having a dedicated soccer-only stadium, just like the MLS keep saying is required (in between admitting that it's not). Civic Stadium works on paying for the last retrofit a while longer, Memorial Coliseum doesn't get razed, and the soccer crowd can go nuts in their very own place.

Yeah I'm confused about the MLS rule for soccer-only stadiums too. I'm an admitted Timbers-to-MLS supporter, but I've never been convinced that both teams can't share PGE Park (collapsible bleachers on the 12th St side).

Or that it doesn't make better sense to sell off the Beavs to Salem, Eugene or suburbia.

The O's Larrabee is reporting this evening that the Coliseum is off the demolition agenda and that Mr Leonard has said that, for a new beisbol stadium, it's Lents or nowhere in Portland:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/rose_quarter_vision_saves_port.html

Of course, Lents is not as attractive to the Paulsons. Mr Larrabee does not mention whether the people of Lents find the Paulsons' intentions attractive.

Mr Adams has suggested other plans for the Rose Quarter, so it is not a moment to relax and turn attention away from that neighborhood.

What's up with the save the MC, tear down Portland Meadows BS? OUR thing (baseball / football / soccer / basketball / hockey / live music / donkey boxing)is IMPORTANT, YOUR horse racing doesn't interest ME. I love it.

The people AT Portland Meadows NEED Portland Meadows. And I'm not just talking about the horsemen, the front office personnel, the ENTIRE Oregon t-bred breeding industry, farms selling/growing hay/straw, etc.

Many older patrons attend racing as their only social activity.

Instead of throwing PM under the bus, how about looking at installing slots at the track like just about half the other states throughout America. Profits go to improving PM/MC/PGE/Stadium to be named later.

P.S. Portland Meadows-the land, is not for sale, not owned by bankrupt Stronach, in no financial distress, and is swampy land. Look elsewhere to build.

When I walked past last night (the 6th)during the first hour of the game, the crowd was half what it was the night before. I'd guess about 40 people.

A friend joked that "they must be counting the people going past on Max"