Oakland A's
... and seasonal ticket holders. Through this turnaround strategy the Haas family was able to achieve all of their objectives, increasing attendance, improving team’s results on the field and changing the company’s image, even though this initially translated into seven years of high losses. Oakland A’s economic drivers are, in the first place, human capital, one of the most controllable and essential drivers in this kind of organization. It comprises of two distinct categories. Firstly, the players and coaches, clearly one of the main assets of any team as they are ultimately responsible both on and off the pitch, for the performance of the A’s team as an entity. It is important that the team wins, because the market is less inclined to support a losing side, however equally significant is the style of play used as this is how the target audience perceives you – the wide-open style of play instituted by former manager Martin was key to tackling a then waning interest. Secondly, the managerial team and staff are also paramount. The excellent customer service cultivated by the A’s and provided to fans assisted them in maximising their revenues when the team performed well whilst also encouraging attendance when the team’s fortunes declined. Gate receipts also play a significant role and are highly correlated to winning. This represented 42.4 % of the total revenues and although it can be partially controlled by the quality of the team and the management, it is limited by [monetary discretion] what do we mean by this?. Novelty and coliseum revenues depend largely on gate receipts, although the A’s succeeded in making this revenue stream a more independent income source by improving the quality of the concessions (food and beverages, merchandising shirts, etc) and the experience inside the stadium (excellent customer service, better communications with the city, new scoreboards or cleaner bathrooms). The A’s recognised that the revenues from the mass media is ever-increasing, and to this end they decided to run their own radio programs and sell advertising spaces. This strategy allowed them to control the message sent out about the team and helped create the image of the team as they would wish it to be. In adopting this approach it was hoped that a more stable income stream would be produced with a lesser effect due to the team’s performance. TV is a more complicated issue. National television rights depends on the negotiation’s abilities of the MLB but the A’s are free to negotiate its own contracts with local TV stations. However as these broadcasting agreements usually are multi-years deals, market size at the time of renewal is a more important factor that the performance of the team, although naturally the one affects the other. The A’s should put more effort on promoting the team in the mass media because it can reach the global market through them. Oakland should try to make themselves a global brand like other sport teams such as New York Yankees or Real Madrid and pull down the barriers that can constrain the growth of revenues as market size, languages, or the capacity of the stadium. When this point is reached, the sky is the limit in terms of merchandising sales and may not even be an issue as to whether the customer likes baseball or ...