Could a TV deal for the C’s be next?
Popular Canadians have nearly maximized all other revenue streams
The Vancouver Canadians will have trouble finding ways to get even more people into the ballpark than last year. They’re probably maxing out when it comes to sponsors, too.
Team president Andy Dunn is a bold, ambitious guy, quoted in the past as saying things like, “I’ll put our product up against any other minor-league baseball team in North America,” and maintaining that the C’s are “one of the top-five franchises in all of minor-league baseball.”
Vancouver’s announced attendance average was 3,419 in 2007. It was 6,303 last summer. Capacity at Nat Bailey Stadium is listed at 6,413, so the team sold tickets at a 98.2 per cent clip.
The C’s announced that Wednesday’s Northwest League home opener against the Everett AquaSox was sold out on May 30, a full three weeks ahead of the contest.
They’ve already added bleachers down the thirdbase line and beyond the leftfield wall. They’ve already sold naming rights in a crea- tive way: they officially play at Scotiabank Field at Nat Bailey Stadium.
You don’t get to this point, particularly with a short-season, Single-A team in a sports town that loves the Olympics, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup — when the Vancouver Canucks are in it — and precious little else, and just rest on your laurels.
That certainly does not seem to be the style of Dunn, the former Montreal Expos’ and Florida Marlins’ exec who has his hands on the steering wheel of the operations for principal owners Jake Kerr and Jeff Mooney, both Vancouver businessmen.
So what’s next at the Nat?
A televised game or two on Sportsnet a year or two down the road makes sense. You’re not going to get comments right now on it out of Dunn or anybody else with the ball club, especially with the C’s having a radio deal this season with Sportsnet rival TSN 1040, but there’s a logic.
Sportsnet is owned by Rogers, which also owns the Toronto Blue Jays, which happens to be the C’s parent club.
Sportsnet 650 radio started up in Vancouver in the fall, and is duelling with TSN 1040 for the local sports fan’s listening time. Rogers is trying to up its presence in the West.
The C’s have had TV games in the past, thanks to now-de- funct Shaw community content channel, and Dunn was a major proponent of the idea.
Radio deals with teams like the C’s are usually done a year at a time. Sportsnet 650 apparently had some limited discussion with the C’s for this season.
Media deals for teams like the C’s also usually include the club paying a portion of the costs. They aren’t going to move the meter enough to get a TSN or a Sportsnet to foot the bill. On the flip side, what would it have meant to Rogers and the Blue Jays brand to have had a game or two last season and given Toronto fans a preview look at fireballer Nate Pearson or Kacy Clem- ens? You do have on-air talent easily at your disposal at Sportsnet 650. And the Blue Jays thought enough of longtime C’s play-by-play man Rob Fai that they gave him a tryout for their vacant radio broadcaster position in spring training. That takes some worries out of the equation.
Maybe Sports net can package radio with aTV game or two and come up with a price tag that makes sense for the C’s. Maybe they can do something that way that helps the C’s move their story forward. That does seem to always be the goal of Dunn and Co.