13
Apr
2004
Dave Ziedelis, vice president and general manager of the Swing of the Quad Cities baseball team, concedes that there's a "certain level of skepticism" when it comes to the renovated John O'Donnell Stadium.
People think the Swing - the new name of the team that was known as the River Bandits last year - might be overselling the stadium and all its amenities. And this probably stems in part from the protracted struggle between the team and the city - which owns the stadium - over these renovations, including an aborted sale two years ago that would have moved the team to Ohio.
So Ziedelis and the team's staff are conducting as many tours as possible and hosting an open house the Sunday before the April 28 home opener. They're doing this because the new John O'Donnell is everything it was advertised to be. Whether you're interested in watching baseball or taking in the riverfront scenery, John O'Donnell is indeed a jewel in the Quad Cities. It is nearly awe-inspiring.
"They are just going to be enamored with it," said Kevin Krause, president of Seventh Inning Stretch, which runs the Swing. The stadium will be something "that the community wants to show off."
"People are just floored," Ziedelis said of people's reactions when they tour John O'Donnell. "Their jaws just drop. It really is a mini major-league park."
The team itself was surprised, too. "It is much better than we thought it would be," Ziedelis said. "This facility brings out the views with the river, the [Centennial] bridge, the two downtown skylines. The old facility hid them."
Much like the Putnam Museum's IMAX Theatre, the renovated John O'Donnell works because it gives equal attention to the product (baseball in this case, large-format cinema with the Putnam) and its setting (a prime riverfront view).
And as with the IMAX, the Swing is depending on its shiny new amenity for the financial health of the organization in the future.
"It was a struggle to operate in a 70-year-old facility," Ziedelis said.
"The old John O'Donnell was not conducive to running a break-even baseball team," Krause said. When asked if his team - which he bought in 1998 - was operating in the red, Krause said, "It hasn't been making money."
"Under-Promise and
Over-Deliver"
What happened over the past year at John O'Donnell is technically a renovation. But "for all intents and purposes, this is a new facility," Ziedelis said. Indeed, while the brick façade remains, nearly everything else is new.
The $13.8-million renovation, designed by Kansas City's HOK Sport and scheduled to be finished this Friday, included $6.5 million from the City of Davenport, $1.2 million from the Vision Iowa program, $200,000 apiece from Scott County Regional Authority and the Riverboat Development Authority, and $400,000 from Scott County. Seventh Inning Stretch picked up the remainder.
The stadium renovation was possible in part because of Seventh Inning Stretch's commitment to the stadium. Krause agreed to a 15-year deal that nearly doubled the team's annual lease rate to more than $102,000, starting this year. In addition, the lease gives the City of Davenport the right of first refusal if the current owners want to sell the team.
Seventh Inning Stretch is also paying for certain amenities beyond the project cost, such as a new scoreboard and video monitor in left field, kitchen and laundry equipment, and all concessions equipment. Krause put the team's investment "in excess of $5 million." (Repairs to the stadium roof are separate from the renovation project and will come out of the city's pocket, to be re-paid with an ongoing-maintenance fund the team contributes to through its lease payments.)
On a tour of John O'Donnell, Ziedelis gave details of the dozens of improvements. There are luxury boxes. The home team's locker room is four times larger. The training area is four times larger. The stadium has been flood-proofed, meaning that while it might not be accessible if there's a major flood, the playing surface will remain dry. The home team will have a full kitchen. The concession stands on the concourse allow fans to get their food without missing any of the game because they look out onto the field. There are three sets of restrooms for the general public compared to one in the old stadium. The new scoreboard will show replays as well as between-inning entertainment. The number of places where one can buy food has doubled. The sound system has been replaced.
A lot of these - the things most of the people who come to the stadium will never see or notice - are meant to bring the stadium into compliance with 12-year-old minor-league-baseball standards.
Everything else is designed to provide a better experience for the people who come to the games, and hence bring more revenue to the team. "It's much more about diversification ... than it is about expansion," Ziedelis said. The renovated stadium has a capacity of 5,028 people, which is actually slightly less than the old facility.
But the biggest change is the view. Unlike the old John O'Donnell, where one could only see the river from one seating section, the new stadium offers great views of both baseball and the ballpark's setting on the Davenport riverfront.
"You can probably go to 10 different parts of the ballpark and say that this is the best place to watch baseball," Krause said. The new stadium allows fans to watch the game from nearly every vantage point around the field, including from earthen slopes behind left field and right fields.
And that's an experience that only a minor-league park can offer, because of the easy and free movement from one part of the stadium to another.
Already the club is doing well with sales. Ticketing is "right now above the last two years combined" for this point in the season, Ziedelis said last week, three weeks before the home opener. The new John O'Donnell also has 20 suites, and 17 of the 18 available for yearly rental are already spoken for. Nightly rental of the other two suites ranges from $600 to $750.
In 2003, the River Bandits drew nearly 133,000 people and were 10th in the 14-team Midwest League in average attendance. In 2002, with five more home dates, the Bandits drew 117,559 people.
That spike last year probably had something to do with the team's future being resolved. The 2001 season was greatly impacted by flooding, and the tentative sale of the team to a group of Ohio investors. That sale fell through in fall 2001, but Krause still refused to sign a long-term lease with the city for John O'Donnell Stadium. The River Bandits played the 2001, 2002, and 2003 seasons with one-year leases.
Ziedelis and Krause said they expect attendance between 200,000 and 225,000 this year. The attendance projections alone should mean big money for the Swing - at least $400,000 in admission fees alone over last year. (And because there are more concession stands that are more easily accessible with more food offerings, Krause said he expects the team's concession sales per customer will also increase.)
"It's conservative," Ziedelis said of his attendance projection. "We want to under-promise and over-deliver." The average attendance increase for renovated stadiums, he said, is more than 100 percent.
Experience says that a major attendance boost is a safe bet this year. Michael A. O'Sullivan, chief operating officer of the Leib Group consultant, wrote in a report to the Beloit Snappers - a team in the Quad Cities' league - that "in nearly every instance, new ballparks have had a significant and demonstrable effect on attendance at minor-league baseball games, [but] there are occasional exceptions."
The challenge for most teams is maintaining or increasing those attendance levels. "Our attendance is our lifeblood," Ziedelis said. "We expect it will grow from year to year."
Year two might not be much of a problem. Because the suites are rented in multi-year agreements, the Swing will focus its efforts next off-season on season tickets and people who visited John O'Donnell this year. It's much easier to sell something that people have actually experienced, Krause said, instead of relying on an artist's rendering.
There will be a challenge, though. While tickets this season will be the same price as last year - $6 for general admission, $8 for box seats - next year could see a ticket surcharge to help the team finance its portion of the stadium renovation. Krause has said he has not made a decision on whether or how a surcharge - as much as $1.64 per ticket - will affect ticket prices.
Still, attendance boosts for a few years are all but certain; growth beyond that is hardly guaranteed. In major-league baseball, at least, new stadiums aren't the long-term draws they were in the building boom of the 1990s. (See "Will a New Stadium Bring Fans?" River Cities' Reader Issue 433, July 9, 2003.)
But Ziedelis and Krause argue that minor-league baseball is a different animal. "Our product is much more about fun, affordable family entertainment," Ziedelis said.
That in part is because of the way minor-league baseball works, particularly in the lower reaches where the Quad Cities club operates. (The team is a Class A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.) Rosters are very liquid in the minor leagues, with the parent club cherry-picking the best players as they develop. For instance, the Swing only has 10 of its roughly 30 players back from last year's roster.
That makes it hard to develop consistently winning teams, and impossible to rely on individual players or a winning record to get people in the stands. That's why the stadium has become so important in minor-league ball.
Krause cited minor-league teams in Appleton, Wisconsin, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that have actually seen attendance growth for several years after a new facility was built. The stadium for the Appleton team, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, opened in 1995 and saw attendance of 209,000 - compared to 76,000 the previous year. In 2003, the club drew 198,000 - a drop of just more than 5 percent over nine years. (The team was 69-66 last year.) The Myrtle Beach Pelicans, meanwhile, opened their stadium in 1999. Attendance grew to 203,443 last year, with nearly 3,000 more patrons than in 2002.
"People are going to want to come to the ballpark regardless of how the team's doing," Krause said, because of the amenities and experience a good minor-league stadium can offer.
This is a marked contrast to the other local professional teams. Both the Steamwheelers and the Mallards play in The Mark, a multipurpose facility without much internal aesthetic charm; those teams almost have to do well to draw fans.
And the River Bandits were in a similar situation with the old John O'Donnell. Certainly, the old stadium was like The Mark in at least one way: Nobody was going to come to the game solely because of the venue.
That's definitely changed with the new home of the Swing.
The Swing of the Quad Cities will host an open house at John O'Donnell Stadium on Sunday, April 25, from noon to 5 p.m. The home season opens Thursday, April 29, at 7 p.m. against Burlington.
For more information about the Swing of the Quad Cities, visit (http://www.swingbaseball.com).
So Ziedelis and the team's staff are conducting as many tours as possible and hosting an open house the Sunday before the April 28 home opener. They're doing this because the new John O'Donnell is everything it was advertised to be. Whether you're interested in watching baseball or taking in the riverfront scenery, John O'Donnell is indeed a jewel in the Quad Cities. It is nearly awe-inspiring.
"They are just going to be enamored with it," said Kevin Krause, president of Seventh Inning Stretch, which runs the Swing. The stadium will be something "that the community wants to show off."
"People are just floored," Ziedelis said of people's reactions when they tour John O'Donnell. "Their jaws just drop. It really is a mini major-league park."
The team itself was surprised, too. "It is much better than we thought it would be," Ziedelis said. "This facility brings out the views with the river, the [Centennial] bridge, the two downtown skylines. The old facility hid them."
Much like the Putnam Museum's IMAX Theatre, the renovated John O'Donnell works because it gives equal attention to the product (baseball in this case, large-format cinema with the Putnam) and its setting (a prime riverfront view).
And as with the IMAX, the Swing is depending on its shiny new amenity for the financial health of the organization in the future.
"It was a struggle to operate in a 70-year-old facility," Ziedelis said.
"The old John O'Donnell was not conducive to running a break-even baseball team," Krause said. When asked if his team - which he bought in 1998 - was operating in the red, Krause said, "It hasn't been making money."
"Under-Promise and
Over-Deliver"
What happened over the past year at John O'Donnell is technically a renovation. But "for all intents and purposes, this is a new facility," Ziedelis said. Indeed, while the brick façade remains, nearly everything else is new.
The $13.8-million renovation, designed by Kansas City's HOK Sport and scheduled to be finished this Friday, included $6.5 million from the City of Davenport, $1.2 million from the Vision Iowa program, $200,000 apiece from Scott County Regional Authority and the Riverboat Development Authority, and $400,000 from Scott County. Seventh Inning Stretch picked up the remainder.
The stadium renovation was possible in part because of Seventh Inning Stretch's commitment to the stadium. Krause agreed to a 15-year deal that nearly doubled the team's annual lease rate to more than $102,000, starting this year. In addition, the lease gives the City of Davenport the right of first refusal if the current owners want to sell the team.
Seventh Inning Stretch is also paying for certain amenities beyond the project cost, such as a new scoreboard and video monitor in left field, kitchen and laundry equipment, and all concessions equipment. Krause put the team's investment "in excess of $5 million." (Repairs to the stadium roof are separate from the renovation project and will come out of the city's pocket, to be re-paid with an ongoing-maintenance fund the team contributes to through its lease payments.)
On a tour of John O'Donnell, Ziedelis gave details of the dozens of improvements. There are luxury boxes. The home team's locker room is four times larger. The training area is four times larger. The stadium has been flood-proofed, meaning that while it might not be accessible if there's a major flood, the playing surface will remain dry. The home team will have a full kitchen. The concession stands on the concourse allow fans to get their food without missing any of the game because they look out onto the field. There are three sets of restrooms for the general public compared to one in the old stadium. The new scoreboard will show replays as well as between-inning entertainment. The number of places where one can buy food has doubled. The sound system has been replaced.
A lot of these - the things most of the people who come to the stadium will never see or notice - are meant to bring the stadium into compliance with 12-year-old minor-league-baseball standards.
Everything else is designed to provide a better experience for the people who come to the games, and hence bring more revenue to the team. "It's much more about diversification ... than it is about expansion," Ziedelis said. The renovated stadium has a capacity of 5,028 people, which is actually slightly less than the old facility.
But the biggest change is the view. Unlike the old John O'Donnell, where one could only see the river from one seating section, the new stadium offers great views of both baseball and the ballpark's setting on the Davenport riverfront.
"You can probably go to 10 different parts of the ballpark and say that this is the best place to watch baseball," Krause said. The new stadium allows fans to watch the game from nearly every vantage point around the field, including from earthen slopes behind left field and right fields.
And that's an experience that only a minor-league park can offer, because of the easy and free movement from one part of the stadium to another.
Already the club is doing well with sales. Ticketing is "right now above the last two years combined" for this point in the season, Ziedelis said last week, three weeks before the home opener. The new John O'Donnell also has 20 suites, and 17 of the 18 available for yearly rental are already spoken for. Nightly rental of the other two suites ranges from $600 to $750.
In 2003, the River Bandits drew nearly 133,000 people and were 10th in the 14-team Midwest League in average attendance. In 2002, with five more home dates, the Bandits drew 117,559 people.
That spike last year probably had something to do with the team's future being resolved. The 2001 season was greatly impacted by flooding, and the tentative sale of the team to a group of Ohio investors. That sale fell through in fall 2001, but Krause still refused to sign a long-term lease with the city for John O'Donnell Stadium. The River Bandits played the 2001, 2002, and 2003 seasons with one-year leases.
Ziedelis and Krause said they expect attendance between 200,000 and 225,000 this year. The attendance projections alone should mean big money for the Swing - at least $400,000 in admission fees alone over last year. (And because there are more concession stands that are more easily accessible with more food offerings, Krause said he expects the team's concession sales per customer will also increase.)
"It's conservative," Ziedelis said of his attendance projection. "We want to under-promise and over-deliver." The average attendance increase for renovated stadiums, he said, is more than 100 percent.
Experience says that a major attendance boost is a safe bet this year. Michael A. O'Sullivan, chief operating officer of the Leib Group consultant, wrote in a report to the Beloit Snappers - a team in the Quad Cities' league - that "in nearly every instance, new ballparks have had a significant and demonstrable effect on attendance at minor-league baseball games, [but] there are occasional exceptions."
The challenge for most teams is maintaining or increasing those attendance levels. "Our attendance is our lifeblood," Ziedelis said. "We expect it will grow from year to year."
Year two might not be much of a problem. Because the suites are rented in multi-year agreements, the Swing will focus its efforts next off-season on season tickets and people who visited John O'Donnell this year. It's much easier to sell something that people have actually experienced, Krause said, instead of relying on an artist's rendering.
There will be a challenge, though. While tickets this season will be the same price as last year - $6 for general admission, $8 for box seats - next year could see a ticket surcharge to help the team finance its portion of the stadium renovation. Krause has said he has not made a decision on whether or how a surcharge - as much as $1.64 per ticket - will affect ticket prices.
Still, attendance boosts for a few years are all but certain; growth beyond that is hardly guaranteed. In major-league baseball, at least, new stadiums aren't the long-term draws they were in the building boom of the 1990s. (See "Will a New Stadium Bring Fans?" River Cities' Reader Issue 433, July 9, 2003.)
But Ziedelis and Krause argue that minor-league baseball is a different animal. "Our product is much more about fun, affordable family entertainment," Ziedelis said.
That in part is because of the way minor-league baseball works, particularly in the lower reaches where the Quad Cities club operates. (The team is a Class A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.) Rosters are very liquid in the minor leagues, with the parent club cherry-picking the best players as they develop. For instance, the Swing only has 10 of its roughly 30 players back from last year's roster.
That makes it hard to develop consistently winning teams, and impossible to rely on individual players or a winning record to get people in the stands. That's why the stadium has become so important in minor-league ball.
Krause cited minor-league teams in Appleton, Wisconsin, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that have actually seen attendance growth for several years after a new facility was built. The stadium for the Appleton team, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, opened in 1995 and saw attendance of 209,000 - compared to 76,000 the previous year. In 2003, the club drew 198,000 - a drop of just more than 5 percent over nine years. (The team was 69-66 last year.) The Myrtle Beach Pelicans, meanwhile, opened their stadium in 1999. Attendance grew to 203,443 last year, with nearly 3,000 more patrons than in 2002.
"People are going to want to come to the ballpark regardless of how the team's doing," Krause said, because of the amenities and experience a good minor-league stadium can offer.
This is a marked contrast to the other local professional teams. Both the Steamwheelers and the Mallards play in The Mark, a multipurpose facility without much internal aesthetic charm; those teams almost have to do well to draw fans.
And the River Bandits were in a similar situation with the old John O'Donnell. Certainly, the old stadium was like The Mark in at least one way: Nobody was going to come to the game solely because of the venue.
That's definitely changed with the new home of the Swing.
The Swing of the Quad Cities will host an open house at John O'Donnell Stadium on Sunday, April 25, from noon to 5 p.m. The home season opens Thursday, April 29, at 7 p.m. against Burlington.
For more information about the Swing of the Quad Cities, visit (http://www.swingbaseball.com).
