Has the PawSox Brand Been Damaged This Year?
GoLocalProv News Team and Kate Nagle
Has the PawSox Brand Been Damaged This Year?
“It’s almost like the Hostess cupcakes — no one truly cared about them until they were gone,” said Mike Mota, Founder and CEO of the Rhode Island public relations and advertising firm Atom Media Group. “Some of the folks in Pawtucket weren’t happy when the owners looked at Providence. But they rallied and kept them in Pawtucket by helping sink that deal — for now. There was definitely more negative exposure than positive. But [the PawSox] can bounce back.”
A new PawSox leadership team was announced this week, where they indicated that they were “slowing the train down” in terms of considering any new venues for the team
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“Clearly, the fans around here are passionate,” said Rhode Island College Marketing Professor Stephen Ramocki. “There’s definitely got to be more value to the Red Sox club having the AAA team close. It's not like a Yankees farm system that used to have their minor league team in Columbus. But the same could be said for most other New England towns for their proximity to the Red Sox. That helps the brand. It’s not like people are buying Pawtucket Red Sox gear. They’re buying Red Sox apparel. The Minor League team is driven by the Major League brand. At the end of the day, it's a business."
Determining Factors
The new PawSox ownership group was announced earlier this year, and in April they proposed a taxpayer-subsidized deal for a new stadium on a riverfront parcel of 195, that received strong public opposition before Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello announced the deal had fallen flat by September.
Attendance for the PawSox 2015 season was 466,600, which averaged just over 6,500 fans a game —which was the club's lowest attendance since 1993. The team has been at McCoy since 1970.
Mota, however, said he believed that the brand image could be turned around
“Yes, they looked for the subsidy, it's a business,” said Mota. “Mayor Grebien is trying to get them to stay, of course, and I think it could be done correctly with marketing the right messaging to say we banded together, we made them stay, we're going to make the stadium upgrades. You just need a good campaign.”
Rhode Island College’s Ramocki however noted that with branding, there was one other “huge component.”
“Your baseball fan isn't young anymore, most of the die-hard fans are over 50,” said Ramokci. “Younger people are drawn to other sports, football's the biggest draw.”
“Sometimes I do straw polls, but when I ask how many follow baseball, it’s increasingly dwindling,” said Ramocki. “The guys don't know the game or the rules, this could be a sign that minor league baseball is in trouble. And if the minor league is, so goes the major.”
PawSox Stadium Aftermath: Winners and Losers
Winner
Coalition Radio -- A small group of libertarian activists relentlessly advocated against any public financing for a private venture. Pat Ford, Dave Fisher and Tony Jones leveraged internet radio and social media to pound the project and the costs.
Loser
Speaker Nicholas Mattiello -- The Speaker was all in for the project. He repeatedly voiced his strong support for the project. Some said it was a project for his legacy and others said he supported the project as a result of influence of the ownership group and their lobbyist Bob Goldberg.
It wasn't long ago that the Speaker said the Providence Stadium would be revenue positive. In a few short weeks, the project somehow went from supposedly financially advantageous to taxpayers to DOA.
Winner
GOP -- The Rhode Island Republicans came out against the project early and kept raising questions about the cost and the approval process. Despite being in the political minority, the Republicans used their thorn-in the-side status to play the spoiler.
Loser
Old School Top Down PR Strategy -- Renderings, fact finding trips for leaders and listening tours were all the strategies embraced by the ownership team and each came back and burned them. The listening tour had higher attendance at many sites by taxpayers who were opposed to the project -- and the fact they had to write their questions down, and be lectured to in response, did not go over well by opponents.
Winner (maybe)
Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien -- It looked like the Mayor was a loser for sure with his city's most valuable asset moving from Pawtucket just 6 miles away to a gleaming new $100 Million project in Providence. With the Providence Stadium dead, Pawtucket has a window to try and create a proposal that improves McCoy, is financially viable and acceptable to the ownership group.
The window is very short, and Grebien will move from the winners' column to the losers' bracket if the PawSox leave RI.
As the Mayor wrote in a GoLocal MINDSETTER™ piece, "We remain hopeful that the new owners will see the value that Pawtucket has given their brand and that the growth we are experiencing will only strengthen it. We hope they will Join the Evolution here in Pawtucket."
Loser
Jorge Elorza -- The Providence Mayor was unable to put together a deal and a location that worked for taxpayers. There was -- and still may be -- an opportunity to bring hundreds of thousands of new visitors into the city annually at the 195 site.
Elorza needs to change the present narrative from crime, a decrepit recreation system, and visits to meet with Guatemalan corrupt leaders to where the city needs to be.
Winner
Taxpayers -- A coalition of taxpayer groups and activists scored their most significant political victory to date. This may spark an empowered effort to take on other issues with enthusiasm.
Loser
Public Financing of Stadiums in the US -- The dramatic defeat of the proposed stadium in Providence may cause other cities, counties and states to take a harder look at the economics of public financing of stadiums.
There is now a blueprint for how taxpayers and progressives can build a coalition to oppose a professional sports team, organized labor and billionaire ownership interests.
The PawSox defeat and the Boston Olympics collapse may speak to a broader grassroots movement opposed to the spending on public funds on private projects.
Winner
Grassroots Activists -- Multiple grassroots efforts sprang up to oppose the stadium move, and perhaps none as vocal - or visible -- as "Organizing for Pawtucket" and David Norton.
Even when a new stadium looked like it was on life support, Norton and supporters utilized both social media and traditional boots-on-the-ground techniques (read: canvassing the Speaker's neighborhood -- in Cranston) to keep the pressure on until the deal was dead.
