Small Market

[Phil in BG]

I heard a little blip on WLW this morning where Dan O'Brien was discussing the release of Jimmy Haynes and referred to the Reds as a small market team. He said that since the Reds are a small market team you always have to consider the financial aspect when considering a release of this nature.

This brings up a few questions.
What makes a small market? Is it just the metropolitan population of a given team? Is it the cable tv/radio contracts and their viewing draw? The revenue?
Are the Reds in a small market?
Is it possible to go from a small market team to a medium market? Didn't Cleveland do that a few years ago? What about St. Louis or Colorado?

Dan's comment bothered me. Maybe I just don't like the terminology, but I thought it sounded like an excuse.

[Chip R]

It's the revenue - which is tied into media contracts and attendance. It's entirely possible to go from a small to a medium/large market. Cleveland is a good example as is Atlanta and Seattle.

[Aronchis]

and it is just as easy to fall right back into the "small" market after a few years of high living.

[KronoRed]

and it is just as easy to fall right back into the "small" market after a few years of high living.

We did not get the few years of high living

[Aronchis]

That is because the revenue exploded with high revenue teams and the Reds didn't put good products on the field most of the time. The 2001-03 teams were downright horrible. The 2002 team was a poor mans 99 which would have been a money blackhole after "buying" upgrades like Rolen or trading Kearns for Colon wouldn't have pushed the Reds past the Cards that year. The Reds seemed talent challenged every year, only getting by on pure guts and lucky retreads. Everybody has become cynical and we are beginning another rebuilding plan. If you want to be even more dire about the Reds situation during 97-2003, we scimpped a little on Farm spending in my opinion, which would have made payrolls even lower if funded properly!!!!!

A payroll of 59.3 mill sounded good in 1997, but it didn't help as much in 2003. Reds baseball has been in a recession since the mid-90's, you could see it coming in 95 and it has never recovered. Heck, even Schott got sick of it and quit funding, pushing the team toward victory by 1996. Bad management has not given the Reds the cheap talent needed to compete on a yearly basis. The Ownership is conservative, scared if some moves come about that will cause money windfall and no payback(playoffs,WS) comes it will strangle the franchise.

You can say the Reds are a small market team by choice, but in the same, other teams(Baltimore) have had it roughly the same time period of struggle, but can still spend money on Big FA's.

The Reds then, are a Small Market team because
1)Their plan did not give the Reds a better product or increase revenue 2)They will NOT have the money of probably about 10-15 teams, a fact, the diehard Reds fan will have to accept.

[princeton]

I don't like the way they seem to say it. They're saying small market, but I swear that they're saying small goals

[bucksfan]

It hit me the same way, Phil. Just the phrasing, whether reality or not, made it sound lame to me. I mean, (unless you are the Yankees or Red Sox apparently) ANY business needs to consider the financial impacts of their moves. Bringing the dreaded term "small market" into the picture sounds like we are in a situation hardly anyone else is, which as far as I can tell, is not true. Not that anything he said is necessarily wrong, just the perception it reinforces...

[westofyou]

The Reds have always been 'small market' They were small market when they gave their managing job to a guy who was an ex pitcher whose claim to fame was he umped the Merkle Boner game. They were small market when they traded their manager mid season for another manager and they were small market when McGraw was buying championships for the Giants year in and year out and Henie Grohl or Eddie Roush were holding out for an extras couple of thousand bucks, sometimes until June.

They were small market when they only drew 425 K in the 33-34 season combined, they were small market when they came in 7th or 8th in attendance in an 8 team league every year between 1945-1955.

They were small market in their approach when Free Agency became a reality, and they were small market in the day and age of cable television and missed establishing a superstation when the iron was hot.

Cincinnati is a conservative city, the Reds have been a mirror of this for most of their existence. To me it's a historical reality that is ingrained in the culture of the club and the approach it has to ideas as well as it's approach to it's fanbase.

The Reds historically have only experienced change when they go outside of the current regime and try something different, it happened with the arrival of Mathewson in 1916 and was apparent in the Mid 30's with the arrival of McPhail, the 60's with Howsam and the 80's with a renewed Howsam.

Bowden failed to bring wholesale change and now once again the marketplace has shifted leaving everyone to wonder what is the proper course out of the abyss.

Knowing Cincinnati I say that the limiteds like DO and his deliberate style, probably fits in with their fiscal conservatism.

[Yachtzee]

woy, I agree. The mentality of the team ownership and, to a degree, the city itself reflects a conservativism that abhors drastic changes. Unfortunately, today's marketplace dictates that smaller market teams be on the cutting edge with new ideas and techniques in order to get a jump on the other teams.

I think the Reds' way of doing business will change only when a drastic change in the ownership structure comes about. If and when that happens, we can only hope that the new owners bring with them a drive to succeed through innovation rather than a fatalistic resignation to mediocrity. I also hope ban the phrase "small market" from their vocabulary. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, small market is as small market does.

[TeamBoone]

The mentality of the team ownership and, to a degree, the city itself reflects a conservativism that abhors drastic changes. Unfortunately, today's marketplace dictates that smaller market teams be on the cutting edge with new ideas and techniques in order to get a jump on the other teams.

I think the Reds' way of doing business will change only when a drastic change in the ownership structure comes about. If and when that happens, we can only hope that the new owners bring with them a drive to succeed through innovation rather than a fatalistic resignation to mediocrity. I also hope ban the phrase "small market" from their vocabulary. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, small market is as small market does.

What exactly are other "small market" teams doing that are "cutting edge new ideas and techniques"? And just exactly what would an owner need to do to "succeed through innovation"?

Just curious, because I don't have a clue as to what you are suggesting.

[Yachtzee]

What exactly are other "small market" teams doing that are "cutting edge new ideas and techniques"? And just exactly what would an owner need to do to "succeed through innovation"?

Just curious, because I don't have a clue as to what you are suggesting.

Basically the idea is to follow the lead of teams like Oakland in thinking outside the box a bit in order to get ahead of the curve with new ideas in how to evaluate talent, assemble a roster and run a ballclub. I know it's not as simple as just saying "Do as Oakland does", especially since just about everyone and their brother has read "Moneyball" and many teams have already begun to adopt similar strategies.

Since the Reds will never be able to outbid the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers etc. for quality free agents without significant change in the revenue structure, they will have to succeed through other means, particularly in the evaluation and development of talent. You evaluate the talent and look for guys who are undervalued by the market and snap them up. Once you've signed them, you have to the development staff in place to make sure you get the most out of each player. That's how you get a leg up on the other guy.

It extends beyond just assembling the team on the field. I don't think the Reds have come up with any new ideas to market the team in ages. I feel there are revenue streams that haven't been utilized to their fullest. The Reds need to work on maxing out revenue streams while expanding the market to its geographic limits. I'm not sure what they can do to achieve those goals, but I think it starts with ending the long standing habit of the FO of blaming their inability to compete on the market. Somehow I get the feeling that everytime John Allen or Carl Lindner or the GM, whether Bowden or O'Brien, mentions the words "small market", the Reds lose more fans than they gain.

[Chip R]

Basically the idea is to follow the lead of teams like Oakland in thinking outside the box a bit in order to get ahead of the curve with new ideas in how to evaluate talent, assemble a roster and run a ballclub.

That's great when it comes to running a ballclub. But that's no guarantee that will raise revenues.

It extends beyond just assembling the team on the field. I don't think the Reds have come up with any new ideas to market the team in ages. I feel there are revenue streams that haven't been utilized to their fullest. The Reds need to work on maxing out revenue streams while expanding the market to its geographic limits. I'm not sure what they can do to achieve those goals, but I think it starts with ending the long standing habit of the FO of blaming their inability to compete on the market.

I agree. But the $64,000 question is what do other teams do to maximize revenues? We can criticize the Reds all we want for being small minded but other than building new ballparks are other teams of our ilk doing a lot to maximize their revenues?

[2001MUgrad]

Small Market = Small Minded.

[traderumor]

Small Market = Small Minded.

Why?

[IslandRed]

Well, there are really two issues here, one being your market and the other being your revenues. Market size has a significant impact on revenues, obviously, but it's not the only factor. Attendance, lease terms, corporate presence, regional popularity and TV/radio contracts all matter. (Local media deals are the primary cause of disparity in team revenues, though.)

By any measure, the Reds are in the bottom third of baseball cities in terms of market size. But that doesn't mean they have to stay small-revenue forever. Cleveland and Seattle are great examples of former sad-sack franchises that got it together and turned into revenue monsters (without benefit of a superstation, e.g. Atlanta). St. Louis is another good example of making the best of a middling market.

Now, there's an obvious correlation between those franchises turning into gold mines and extended periods of winning. So you'd think the lesson would be obvious -- spend money, turn the team into a winner, then sit back and watch the cash roll in. But the other obvious lesson of baseball history is that free spending gets you nowhere as often as not. Call it the Jacobs/Hicks Paradox.