DC and Nats Park
Monday, May 5th, 2008Last week, I went to DC, and got a chance to see the new Nats Park. Overall, I was impressed with a lot of what I saw. The park is very nice, and has great sightlines. The seats have plenty of legroom, and I have never been to a stadium that has better food options. There is a Five Guys,
inside the park itself, and there is a local bar-b-que joint called Red Hot & Blue that is very popular as well.
The thing is, while I think the Nats did a solid job with the park, there are still a few things that bothered me. First and foremost being all of the empty seats behind home plate. I went to every game of the Cubs-Nats series and the place was pretty full each day…..except for the section behind the plate.
You see, the Nats are charging fans $325 bucks ($335 for premium games, like the ones against the Cubs) for the “Presidential Seats” behind the plate, thus making the place look fairly empty when
watching the game on television. A few of my friends called me over the weekend to ask why it was so empty at the park. I told them that it was actually packed, just that the angle they saw on tv, into home plate, made it seem otherwise.
The other thing that really bugged me was that at several points throughout the weekend, the place was dead. The fans just did not seem to be into it most of the time. Considering half of the park was full of Cubs fans, I couldn’t help but think what it must be like when
the Nats are playing…let’s say, the Marlins.
The most excited I saw the Nats fans during the entire weekend, aside from Wil Nieves’ walk-off home run on Friday night, was during the Presidents’ race each day. They seemed to enjoy the race, and cheering for their Presidents, much more than they did for their own team.
Granted, although the Nats took two of three from the Cubs, the team is just not very good. Washington’s offense is hard to watch, and the team itself doesn’t have any superstars on it, so maybe that’s why fans seem to embrace Teddy, Abe, George, and Thomas the way that they
do.
That’s really the problem though. No fan is going to spend anything close to $325 dollars on a ticket to a baseball game, when the most exciting part of the day comes when four dead Presidents come racing down the first base line.
Until the Nats can find a way to improve the product on the field though, people are not going to continue to come out to the park, after this initial homeymoon period with it ends.
The team can start by finding a way to fill up those seats behind home plate. I propose that each fan entering a Nats game be given a stub with one of the President’s names on it. Whichever fans have that night’s winner on their stub, are then entered into a drawing for the empty seats behind home plate for a future game.
The winners of the drawing would be announced towards the end of each game, and be given a voucher for two “Presidential Seats” for a future game. This way, all fans would get a chance to experience Nats baseball up close and personal, and it also would make the team look better from a PR standpoint, because it would fill those seats up behind the plate, and give fans something else to look forward to each day, besides watching a sub .500 team.
Is this all wishful thinking? Of course. But hey, anything can happen. Plus, Teddy has to win some day right…….