The Cleveland Sports Scene as Seen By ATD.

Cleveland and Detroit...Baseball

It's October, which means playoff baseball, and it again does not include your Cleveland Indians. Nope. It was a flash in the pan season, a season that saw the Tribe in first place with a 6 game lead and ended with the team in second buried by the surging Detroit Tigers. The Tigers are still alive, scratching and clawing for a spot in the World Series. The Tigers also spent twice as much on payroll.

The Tigers are a great example of what happens when management spends money on their team. The Tigers were the laughingstock of baseball in the 1990's, while the Indians were the kings of the AL Central. Then something happened that spurred Detroit to spend...the NHL went on strike and the team owner (Mike Ilitch) who also owns the Red Wings (NHL hockey power) had money to spend on the Tigers. Low and behold, they put a good team on the field, and people started to support the team again.

Cleveland Indians management has a different theory involving a chicken and the egg. They believe "if you come, we will build it." It must explain why the attendance has been among the lowest in baseball. You get what you pay for, I guess. It is hard to grasp running a business where management sells Grade F steak for Grade A price. If enough people buy the inferior steak, the owner will upgrade the meat. If the Indians were a restaurant, they wouldn't last a week.

From 1993 to 2002, the Indians drew around $2 to 3.4 million fans a year. The team was not competitive in 1993, but it was the last season in Cleveland Municipal Stadium and nostalgia jacked that number up there. So from 1994 to 2002, the attendance numbers were unprecedented. The economy and sports climate in the city were an additional aberration. My point though, is that ownership increased the payroll and continued to for about a decade. The ballpark did not sell out the first year of Jacobs Field, but did so the next 5 seasons. Every game!