’BIRDS NEST
Refurbished AutoZone Park makes debut at tonight’s exhibition game.
Rebuilding and rebranding have been the watchwords for the St. Louis Cardinals’ first full offseason as owners of their Memphis Redbirds Triple-A farm club.
Those efforts get their first public airing tonight, when the Redbirds and Cardinals play a 6:05 p.m. exhibition game in reconfigured, refurbished AutoZone Park.
“We’re ready to go, and ready for fans to see the things we’ve done to enhance the experience, and the value of a Redbirds game,” said Craig Unger, named Redbirds’ general manager last April. He arrived a month after the club was sold to the Cardinals. They signed a long-term lease with the city, which took ownership of AZP, an architectural jewel but for much of its history a financial burden. Months in the making, the deal was finalized hours before a rained-out Redbirds-Cards exhibition.
A sellout crowd of about 10,000 today will see the change on the front of the Redbirds’ uniforms — now sporting the familiar “Birds on the Bat” logo worn by the parent club and its farm teams in Springfield, Missouri, and Jupiter, Florida.
“We’re trying to enhance the Redbirds’ brand … let people know that this is Cardinal country,” Unger said. “The Cardinals are excited long-term about this franchise. This is a great baseball town, and the sellout is testament to that.”
The $6.5 million renovation — $4.5 million from the city, $2 million from the Cardinals — was the first large-scale remodeling of AutoZone Park since its 2000 opening.
“There will never be another
minor league stadium built like this, from its sheer size and footprint in the heart of the city,” Unger said. “It grew out of Dean and Kristi Jernigan’s vision, which was large. Since then, the world has gone through two recessions, and the business model for how many companies entertain has changed. We’re adapting to those changes, but we have the flexibility to adjust many ways because we have so much space.”
One of the first items was to rebuild and revamp the field. “The average life of a field is 3-6 years, and this one had been around for 15,” Unger said.
Official capacity has been reduced from 14,118 to 10,000 “to make it a slightly more intimate setting,” Unger said. Seats in the left- and right-field corners were turned into grass berms, “two additional areas, closer to the action, where fans can go to a game for $6.”
The team pared the number of individual suites from 47 to 29. They added “Four Top Tables” as mini-suite options and an all-inclusive Redbirds Club seating area with pool tables and the requisite number of flatscreens that Unger envisions as “a sports bar, a gathering place.” Other suite areas have been reconfigured for one-game rentals for groups as small as 10 and as large as 50.
“Many businesses don’t want to entertain every night, but want to pick their spots,” Unger said.
The changes, Unger said, are Phase One. Phase Two will be longer, and more challenging.
Redbirds attendance cracked 900,000 their first two years, then went into reverse. After stabilizing near the 500,000 mark for three years, the transition year saw the gate fall to a record-low 381,429.
Unger pointed to the skies for a reason. “We had five rainouts and six other dates where game time was delayed 1-2 hours by rain. People see that and stay away.”
He spent much of last year “watching how the ballpark operated, and talking to fans, seasonticket holders and sponsors about the things they liked and didn’t like.” He toured other ballparks — in and out of the Cardinal universe — for ideas, assembled a new sales and marketing staff in the offseason and seeks to rebuild the old foundation in an era of new realities and communication methods.
“We’re happy with where we are (in terms of season tickets and suite sales). Changing the logo was part of the marketing, trying to change the image of the brand,” Unger said. “But developing our strategy will take time … We have to find better ways of reaching out to old and new customers … being better community partners and telling people about what’s going on here.”