M’S Experience Fruits Of Victory

After 19 years of futility - on the field and off - the Seattle Mariners found the key to marketing major league baseball in the Northwest last year - they added the month of October to their schedule.

Winning the American League West, beating the New York Yankees in the playoffs, even losing to the Cleveland Indians in the championship series, has had an impact on the franchise and the region.

“I could run Joey Cora for governor and win,” said Bob Gobrecht, the team vice president of sales and marketing.

Second baseman Cora has other plans, but the enthusiasm for the Seattle Mariners - individually and collectively - has translated into an economic boom for a team that was on course last season to lose $30 million before it found itself in a pennant race.

And even with the playoffs, the Mariners lost nearly $25 million.

What’s happened since, team president Chuck Armstrong said, forever answers the one question everyone associated with the franchise asked: How would the community respond if the Mariners ever won?

“We had 7,300 season ticket holders last year,” Armstrong said. “Now we’ve got deposits for 10,000 and we haven’t started our serious ad campaign yet.”

Corporate sponsorship could double in 1996, Gobrecht said, and director of ticket sales Beth Wojick laughs out loud when asked to compare sales efforts today from those of a year ago.

“A year ago, we were telling people ‘You know, replacement players will be great,”’ she said. “And we didn’t even have a date for opening day. This year, we’re aiming for 2.4 million in season attendance.”

Last year, in a second consecutive shortened season, Seattle drew 1.6 million fans to 73 home dates, an average of 22,479 a game. Those figures put them 16th in major league baseball.

“What’s happened since last September has been heartwarming,” Armstrong said. “I still see ‘Refuse to Lose’ signs in office buildings around town.”

More important, perhaps, the Mariners for the first time see that success has translated to higher revenues:

The first season highlight video ever produced by the team has sold more than 120,000 copies - 90,000 more than Major League Baseball told the team to expect.

Season-ticket sales, never more than 9,300 in franchise history, already have surpassed 10,000 and the team believes it could sell 12,000.

Corporate sponsorship for events such as Cap Night could double, bringing in an additional $2 million or more.

Spring training travel packages sold for a variety of stays in Arizona this year now number more than 1,200 - nearly a thousand more than the team has ever sold before.

“And we’re not even talking much about the new stadium, yet,” Gobrecht said. “But we’re all grinning about it. For the first time, we can tell people ‘You’d better get your playoff tickets for next year,’ and people believe us.”

Though Major League Baseball has an improved national television package that could bring the Mariners $6 million this season, the team probably won’t reap many local benefits from its own radio-television deals, both of which run through 1997.

And Seattle’s cable package with Prime Sports won’t be renegotiated until after the ‘96 season.

“It’s a wonderful product to have,” said Theresa Cuthill, Prime Sports program director. “Our service goes to five states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, and all our systems carry Mariners games. The ratings for the Mariners and Cleveland Indians were the best in baseball last year.”

Not that it did the Mariners much good, financially.

“If the revenues from television and radio advertising exceed a certain point this season, we could share in them,” said Randy Adamack, the Mariners’ vice president of communications, “but nothing is guaranteed. We don’t sell those ads, the stations do.”

Clearly, team executives say, the response to 1995 has been rock-solid. Just as clearly, they add, there is a long way to go before the Seattle Mariners come close to breaking even, financially.

“You don’t dig out from a $20 million deficit overnight,” Gobrecht said.

Former Mariners owner Jeff Smulyan, watching from the safe haven of his Indianapolis home and business, said the franchise might have finally proven to the community what previous owners tried and failed to communicate - that major league baseball does have value.

“My first few months in Seattle, I gave a speech and talked about the impact a winning team could have on the community, how it could touch every segment of the community,” Smulyan said. “How do you calculate that value to a community?

“I never saw the mindset there that ‘We have to keep this team!’ The pennant race last year made everyone willing to embrace the game - even those who wouldn’t have done so 30 days earlier.”Mariners executives are delighted by the newfound support and increased revenues. And yet they are quick to add the increase in support this off-season has only served to illustrate how badly they need a new stadium.

“Right now, with everything going so well, ownership could lose another $15 million in 1996,” one executive said. “That’s better than losing $30 million, which they could have in 1995, but losing $15 million a year is not acceptable to anyone, anywhere.”