Few on Visitors Side : Baseball Isn’t Bringing Tourist Business--Yet

From the outside Friday morning, Anaheim Stadium looked pretty much as it always does, a squat gray circle of concrete plunked down in a sea of asphalt.

No banners, no bunting, no signs proclaiming it to be the site of the third, fourth and fifth games of the American League Championship Series.

Along Katella Avenue, only a few small plastic signs on motel marquees indicated awareness that nearly 200,000 people would be jamming the stadium over the weekend.

All that will change if the California Angels win four of the seven games in the American League playoffs and become contestants in the World Series later this month.

But for now, baseball is not big business in Orange County.

When the Super Bowl comes to Southern California in January, hotels, restaurants, bars, car rental agencies and even amusement parks throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties will prosper in a weeklong binge of pre- and post-game parties and sightseeing by as many as 100,000 out-of-towners who will spend an estimated $60 million or more on food, hotel rooms, booze, amusement and souvenirs.

Figures Not Readily Found

But most of the people attending this weekend’s baseball games are area residents who don’t need hotels or rental cars and who have already been to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm.

Numbers are hard to come by. Although several cities, including Los Angeles, have done extensive studies of the economic benefits of hosting a Super Bowl game, major league baseball playoffs and the World Series seem to have escaped that kind of attention.

Officials at the New York offices of the American League, the National League and the commissioner of baseball all said that their respective offices have never commissioned economic studies.

Nor has the dollar value of being host to league playoffs been examined by the visitors and convention bureaus in Los Angeles--which has been involved in six league playoffs and eight World Series since the Dodgers came to town in 1959--or Anaheim, which is involved in its third American League championship series.

But it is clear from hotel operators and others involved in the tourism business that the playoffs draw few overnight visitors to Anaheim or surrounding cities.

The playoffs don’t draw as many traveling fans as a football championship “probably because it is a series of games as compared to one,” said Bill Snyder, director of the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau. “Any one-time event--a boxing championship, a Super Bowl--has more draw than one that is part of a series,” he said.

The big winners from the playoffs are organized baseball, which will share in an estimated $3.5 million in ticket revenue from the three playoff games played in Anaheim, and Szabo Food Services, the stadium concessionaire.

The City of Anaheim, which owns the stadium and gets 7.5% of all ticket revenue during the Angels’ regular season, is limited to a flat $2,000 per game for use of the stadium for post-season games. Its major revenue will come from parking fees, which have been raised for the playoffs to $5 per car from the usual $3. But even with a 12,000-car capacity in the huge lot surrounding the stadium, that amounts to a mere $60,000.

Szabo, however, expects to gross about $1.2 million from selling food, beverages and souvenirs over the weekend, said John Trosper, concessions manager.

Still, Trosper said, the playoffs are nothing for his staff to get too excited about.

Although the last time the Angels were in the playoffs was four years ago, the stadium can only hold 60,000 people--and although that is an abnormally large crowd for a regular season baseball game, it is normal for a football game.

120,000 Hot Dogs

He said he expects his crews will have prepared and served 120,000 hot dogs, 120,000 soft drinks, 125,000 beers and probably that many assorted cups of coffee, iced tea and hot chocolate during the course of the three games.

He didn’t have a figure for peanuts and Cracker Jack, but in 1983, concessionaires at the Rose Bowl tossed over 14 million peanuts to a crowd of 104,000 during Super Bowl XVII.

The Rose Bowl staff also cleaned up about 17 tons of trash after that game.

Only two area hotels stand to profit significantly from the games--the Anaheim Marriott, which is housing the Boston Red Sox and that team’s entourage, and the Anaheim Hilton, which is the official media hotel.

Convention Biggest Customer

But at the Hilton, said spokeswoman Paula Neisen, the weekend’s big customer is the Kawasaki Motors convention, which booked many of the hotel’s 1,600 rooms long before there was an inkling that the Angels might be in contention for a shot at the playoffs.

Operators answer the hotel’s telephones with a cheery “ . . . Home of the Angels,” but other than that and decorating the lobby bar in a baseball playoff theme, it is business as usual at the Hilton--and at most other hotels in the area.

“We’re not doing anything themed to the playoffs,” said Greg McDonald, marketing director at the Emerald of Anaheim hotel. He said that he can trace only about 50 room rentals directly to the playoffs, “and it’s not enough to offset the (costs of) extras” such as redecorating cocktail lounges or offering special rates to attract people attending the game.

Still, said Snyder, the Anaheim convention bureau chief, the playoffs do have an economic benefit.

“There is a return, but most of it is in image-building,” he said.

The television coverage and every mention of Anaheim and of Orange County, Snyder said, “is something that enhances the city as a destination point” for people planning their next vacations.

Ty Stroh, general manger of the Los Angeles convention bureau, agrees.

“I’d hate to have to pay for all the advertising” Anaheim will get from the playoff coverage, he said.