The Death of the Small Market Sports Team

The haves and the have nots.  That is the world of professional sports.  I live in a small market sports city, Cleveland, OH.  You know we have had our share of heartache.  I have written in previous blogs about my shriveled Cleveland sports heart.  However this post is not unique to Cleveland but the whole balance of competitiveness. 

Cities like Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh in sports like baseball and basketball have the odds definitely stacked against them even with the “luxury tax” and the “salary cap”.  New York has multiple individual players that make more than the entire Cleveland baseball team.  So every few years the team is forced to unload and reload. 

Think about it that Cleveland has had two recent Cy Young award winners in CC Sabbathia and Cliff Lee.  Had they had any reasonable chance of signing them, they would not have traded them.  I am drooling thinking of what having those two would have meant to our team.  Most recently, the Indians went on a trading binge dumping 5 of their veteran players to contenders.  So we now have a minor league team playing in a major league ballpark and charging major league prices.  Well if I am going to watch a minor league team, I will go up the road to Eastlake or Akron and watch one for far less money.  I think baseball in particular is in for a really rough patch when it becomes the big cities and the rest of the teams are there for batting practice.  

At least with football you get to see guys hitting each other at high speed.  Browns training camp started this week.  Oh, I digress.

Entertainment Value

This past Fourth of July weekend saw us going to the Indians game on Friday night and then to Blossom to hear the Cleveland Orchestra.  We went to the Indians to hear a daughter of a friend of ours sing the national anthem.  We spent $56 which included $10 towards dinner to sit in the bleachers.  We spent $5 to park in a downtown garage.  Finally, we spent an additional $5 each for dinner to include beverage meaning the total spent was $71.  All to watch a mediocre team play (we did skip the fireworks which are good).  Contrast that to Blossom where we spent $26 to hear a one of the top 5 orchestras in the country play which included parking and we brought our own food in.  We also got a nice fireworks show.

As money gets tight, we are ever mindful of the value our meager entertainment dollars go for.  I would have rather saved at least half of the money on the Indians and saw either our Class A or Class AA teams play which are not much worse.  Professional baseball and really all of professional sports are is overpriced.  We have stopped going to any Cavs games because to sit in nosebleed seats costs $50 each ticket.  And half the teams in the NBA make the playoffs.  Save your money.