Joe Ricciutti and crew lay in for 2009.
Everyone in baseball knows hard work now pays off when the gates open next year. But the offseason marketing of a baseball team is a lot more sophisticated than it was in the past.
Witness the changes in how the Staten Island Yankees (short season; NY-Penn League) approach marketing and promotion in the offseason. During the first six years of the team’s existence, the offseason meant a quiet time answering phones.
"We basically had one sales person back then, someone who was both box office manager and ticket sales manager and everything in between," President Joe Ricciutti told the Staten Island Advance. "They didn’t have much of a chance, looking back."
Today, the team offices sport sales represenatives, pitching customers on ticket plans. And the hard work has paid off: attendance rose from an average of 3,399 in 2006 to 5,274 in 2008