Would the Indians Move?

Every once and awhile I see Indians fans make remarks about the team's attendance that if they continue, the team could eventually move. While the fears are certainly justified here in NE Ohio with what happened to the Browns back in 1995, is it very realistic to think that the Cleveland Indians would move if the attendance stayed where it currently is? In short, the answer is no, and here's why:

1. Attendance

Game this past May against Seattle I went to

Professional sports teams derive their income from a variety of sources, including ticket sales, but television rights, advertising, and corporate clients (suites) are the main sources of income. Sure, it's not like ticket sales are unimportant or don't supply any money at all, but a team not doing well at the gate doesn't necessarily mean it's losing money or not doing well financially. The Indians during the 1990s are a great example of this in that they were sold out from 1995-2002, yet did not rank at the top in terms of revenue. That's not to say the sellout streak didn't help them financially, but in the end, the power of TV is what reigned supreme, followed by the major increase in suite revenue from moving into Jacobs Field from Cleveland Stadium, not attendance.

If attendance were that important of an issue, then the Tampa Bay Rays would've moved years ago. Their attendance has never been good and currently ranks LAST in the Major Leagues despite the Rays being in the chase for both the East Division title and a Wild Card spot. This is also a team that went to the World Series just a few years ago and has been in the playoff hunt for the last several years now. While the Indians are still technically in the playoff chase here, they're a long shot. The team has made the playoffs once since 2002 (2007) and the last 3 years has started out very well only to fizzle by the middle of the season and finish below .500.

2. Market size

Downtown Cleveland in May 2013

One thing people seem to overlook is the market size of existing teams and potential new markets. One post mentioned Charlotte as a place the Indians could move or San Antonio. Portland, Oregon is another city that has actively tried to get a Major League Baseball franchise. Cleveland, even with its own population loss and growth in other cities, still ranks as the country's 18th-largest media market. There are sports from 3 of the 4 major sports leagues here (no NHL team). I've noticed a lot of times people will look at actual city populations as opposed to metro and/or media market size. Yeah, Cleveland (396,000) is a smaller city by population than Charlotte (775,000), San Antonio (1.38 million), and even Portland (583,000), but in terms of market size, Cleveland is larger than all 3. Portland is the closest at #22 and is the 3rd largest market without a Major League Baseball team (after Orlando, FL at #19 and Sacramento, CA at #20). San Antonio, despite being the largest city of this group, is actually the smallest market (#36) and if it had a Major League Baseball team, would be the smallest market in all of MLB (Cincinnati is currently the smallest market at #35). Charlotte is #25 and actually isn't even the largest market in North Carolina. That would be Raleigh-Durham, which ranks 24th and is home to the NHL team. Charlotte, of course, is home to the NBA Bobcats (soon to be renamed Hornets!!) and the NFL Panthers. Both Portland and San Antonio are NBA-only markets.

In addition to market size, market saturation is another issue that has to be taken into consideration, not only for attendance, but TV viewership, something the Indians typically do very well at. If there are too many sports/entertainment options for a market, one or many of them suffer. That's why you likely won't see an NHL team in Cleveland anytime soon or an NBA team in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are smaller markets than Cleveland, plus both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh have major college athletic programs in addition to their pro sports teams. Columbus, Ohio has a similar situation because of Ohio State. Not only is Columbus between two cities with professional sports, but Ohio State controls a significant amount of attention and fan interest that would hurt a parallel professional sport like football or basketball. Hence, Columbus has an NHL team and a Major League Soccer team, neither of which are present in Cleveland or Cincinnati and don't directly have high-interest counterparts across town at Ohio State.

3. Stadium

Summer 2012 on a ballpark tour I took

If this were happening at old Cleveland Stadium, there might be cause for concern, but it isn't. Progressive Field, despite being nearly 20 years old now, is still in excellent condition and is very well-maintained and updated. Even with all the new parks that have been built since Progressive Field opened in 1994, it is still right up there with the best in terms of services, amenities, and appearance on top of a solid number of revenue-generating suites. The Indians lease at Progressive Field runs another 10 years and while a lease is no guarantee a team will stay in a city, it's a good sign. In other words, if the team got offers from other cities, they would hardly be able to give the Indians anything far ahead of what they currently have in terms of their ballpark.

When Art Modell threatened to move the Browns in 1995, his biggest grievance was that Cleveland Stadium was outdated. That meant more than it was just old; he meant it lacked a good number of suites (Cleveland Stadium had some suites, but they were added much later and there weren't that many), and it needed tons of money just to maintain it. That was on top of fan amenities and services it lacked because of the era it was built. Because of that, Modell claimed he was losing money. Attendance-wise, the Browns were doing quite well and always have. It certainly wasn't an issue of fan support here, it was a belief that the county (which owned Cleveland Stadium) wasn't supporting the team, especially in light of the Gateway Project that had opened the year prior for the Indians and Cavaliers. I could go on about how Modell was a pretty lousy businessman and him losing money was much his own fault, but those were his reasons for getting a stadium deal with Maryland and ultimately establishing the Baltimore Ravens.

Why is that important? Because the stadium did and can play a major role in a team relocating, but only when a team is faced with having an outdated stadium that lacks suite revenue and/or presents other financial liabilities. The Indians have no such complaints with Progressive Field, nor would they be able to justify in any way that they need a new ballpark for the financial health of the team, which they did when Progressive Field was built. The last MLB team to move was the Montreal Expos when they moved to Washington, DC to become the Nationals. The Expos had horrible attendance (far worse than the Indians have had even this year), had an outdated stadium (Olympic Stadium had hardly any suites and multiple maintenance issues), and Washington, DC represented a top-10 market (#8) without a baseball team (despite the objections of the Baltimore Orioles), meaning MLB could easily justify moving the Expos there because they would generate far more money in DC than Montreal, in ticket sales, suite revenue, local TV coverage, and advertising.

Fireworks in May 2013

So, the Indians moving to a market like San Antonio, Portland, or Charlotte would likely, at best, be a lateral move financially if not even lower. You might have some initial excitement about a new team, but if the team struggles for periods of time (which is more than likely for a small-market team), you'll have a team bleeding money in worse shape with a marginally newer stadium with not only low attendance, but low local TV ratings and little fan attachment. And since the Indians would remain a smaller-market team by going to an even smaller market than Cleveland, they would most likely continue to be a team that has to make smart moves and develop talent vs. just going out and spending lots of money. The Indians, while they have struggled at the gate the last several years, have a largely stable financial situation, good local TV ratings, a modern and well-maintained stadium, on top of over 110 years of history in Cleveland. While nothing is set in stone as far as any team staying in an area, and we certainly shouldn't take it for granted, it's a good bet the Tribe will be in Cleveland for generations to come. The real concerns should be the long-term health of this region. If  NE Ohio continues to lose people or stagnate in growth, these current smaller markets could become more attractive if they also continue to grow.

Markets

For those of you who don't keep up with college sports, this past week saw three big changes in the world of college athletics with three teams changing their league affiliations: the University of Colorado announced they will move from the Big 12 to the Pac-10 conference effective in 2012, Boise State University announced they will move from the Western Athletic Conference to the Mountain West Conference also in 2012, and the biggest so far was the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announcing they will move from the Big 12 to the Big Ten effective 2011. Rumors are still flying about possible other Big 12 schools leaving for the Pac-10 or Southeastern Conference (SEC) and even more for the Big Ten. For the Big Ten and the Pac-10, the main reasons cited for adding the respective schools to their conferences was the additional markets each school brings to the conference. For the Big Ten, which owns and operates its own television network (Big Ten Network) adding more markets adds additional subscribers which of course adds additional revenues to the conference members. The Pac-10 is hoping to start its own network, so adding Colorado and the Denver market will help boost revenue for that as well. The University of Texas has been discussed for several conferences including the Pac-10, Big Ten, and SEC because it would likely "deliver" several large markets in the state of Texas and boost revenues considerably for whichever conference (including the Big 12 if it survives) takes it.

But that begs the question: what is a market? There are several markets, but here we're talking about media markets. Nielsen Research came up with Designated Market Areas (DMAs) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) follows the Nielsen DMAs in their own market designators (known as Television Market Areas or TMAs). Within the DMA/TMAs are smaller radio markets. In northeastern Ohio, for instance, Kent is part of the Cleveland-Akron (Canton) DMA/TMA. It includes 17 counties in the region. The only part of northeastern Ohio it doesn't include is the Youngstown-Warren area, which is its own DMA. You can usually tell markets by which cities have their own TV stations. The Cleveland-Akron market currently ranks 18th nationally, so it is considered a "mid-sized" market. The size is determined by households within a DMA, so naturally the largest cities in the country are also the largest markets. Within the Cleveland-Akron DMA are three radio markets, which are defined by a research company called Arbitron: Cleveland, Akron, and Canton. For Kent, even though we're officially in the Akron radio market, radio signals don't stop off at borders, so we can easily get stations from the Cleveland, Canton, and Youngstown markets with little problem. On top of that, many of the major and mid-sized radio markets have a high-powered AM station that can be heard well outside its market area. In Cleveland, WTAM 1100 AM can be heard at times in 38 US states and much of Canada. WLW 700 AM in Cincinnati and KSL 1160 AM are other examples I can think of off the top of my head that are also high-powered.

As I've followed the discussions mostly by fans of the various colleges and their respective conferences, the phrase that comes up about a potential school is its ability to "deliver" a particular market. For instance, many believe that if the Big Ten added Rutgers and/or Syracuse then it could potentially "deliver" the New York market (the nation's largest) to the Big Ten Network. By "deliver" it means there is significant interest from the population, enough so that cable companies want to add the Big Ten Network to their basic lineups. The more people who have access to BTN, the more money it gets since cable TV gets their revenue largely from subscription fees instead of advertising like "free" TV does. When it's on a more basic lineup, people get it whether they want it or not, translating into a lot more subscribers. Such is the case in the markets presently served by the Big Ten Network in the states that have member schools: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Within those states are several large and mid-sized DMAs including #3 Chicago, #4 Philadelphia, #11 Detroit, #18 Cleveland-Akron, and #23 Pittsburgh among others. Indeed, one of the biggest arguments against the Big Ten inviting the University of Pittsburgh to join is because while the school has excellent academics and athletics, it does little to add to the Big Ten Network as Penn State already "delivers" the Pittsburgh market to the Big Ten, much like Ohio State already "delivers" the Cincinnati market (University of Cincinnati was also discussed lightly as a possibility by some fans). Because many of the Big Ten schools are large state schools, they have the ability to not only deliver specific markets, but entire states with multiple large markets. Not only does Penn State deliver both of Pennsylvania's largest markets, but Ohio State delivers the Cleveland-Akron DMA and also Columbus (#34), Cincinnati (#33), Dayton (#65), Toledo (#73), and Youngstown (#110). The same holds true for basically every school and state in the Big Ten because they have large alumni bases throughout their respective state and region, plus they have large followings inside their respective states.

With Nebraska joining the Big Ten, though, people have wondered how adding the main school in Nebraska, which has a population of less than 1.8 million people, will add much to the Big Ten Network. Indeed, the largest DMA in Nebraska is Omaha, which is ranked #76 with the Lincoln, Nebraska market down at #105. First, Nebraska generates interest well outside of the state of Nebraska. Their fans travel anywhere for games and their alumni are not restricted to the state of Nebraska. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the Big Ten Network were picked up in the Kansas City market (#32) because I would imagine there are quite a few Nebraska alumni there. Still not the huge market many were hoping, but the potential for marquee matchups with fellow Big Ten schools and out-of-conference schools could generate additional subscribers outside the conference "footprint". One need not be an alum of a school to be a fan! Whichever conference lands the University of Texas will likely have the Dallas-Ft. Worth (#5), Houston (#10), Austin (#48), San Antonio (#37) and several smaller markets delivered because like many of the Big Ten schools, Texas has significant interest throughout the entire state.

Really this post was triggered by some comments I read from a well-meaning BYU fan who was talking up why a major conference like the Big 12 (assuming it doesn't implode soon) would want to add a school like BYU. One of the things he cited was the Salt Lake City market, which he correctly stated is ranked 31st in size. Yeah, I know, I pick on Utah a lot on this blog, but in this case I wasn't really looking for it but it just presented itself. Indeed, SLC is the nation's 31st largest DMA. What most people don't seem to understand is that in land area, the Salt Lake DMA coveres the entire state of Utah and includes large chunks of Nevada and Wyoming as well as a few southern Idaho counties, so comparing it with other markets isn't totally accurate. True, the vast majority of the population actually lives in the Wasatch Front (Ogden, Salt Lake, and Provo metro areas), but still if many of the other markets covered the same area Salt Lake does, things would look a lot different. Nielsen estimates approximately 944,060 households in the SLC market. Let's use Ohio as an example. If the Columbus market (which ranks a few notches behind Salt Lake) covered all the markets based in the state (several parts of Ohio are in other markets, plus some markets like Cincinnati extend into other states), it would include 4,136,840 households. So yes, Salt Lake is somewhat of a valuable asset for building revenue and expanding presence, but it isn't nearly as high as some seem to think. BYU could definitely deliever the SLC market, but I think it could also deliver the Las Vegas market because of the large number of Latter-day Saints in metro Las Vegas. Like Notre Dame is America's Catholic university, BYU is the "Mormon" university and thus can draw fairly decently (though not nearly as well as some seem to believe) in many places in the country as many members of the Church will come support the school (I am definitely NOT counted among those!).

Also see:

• Nielsen Media Market ranks - this ranks all of the DMAs in the US and is the most recent as far as I know
• Arbitron Media Market map - this map shows the radio and overall media (or TV) markets for the entire country.  The radio markets are colored by size rank and the media markets are outlined in heavy black lines.