Their Blue Haven

By JASON REID

June 18, 2002 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Peter O’Malley stood on the mound and smiled approvingly because Dodger Stadium still sparkled on its 40th anniversary.

There to deliver the season’s ceremonial first pitch April 2, the club’s former owner was joined by a sellout crowd in celebrating another milestone at the stadium that his late father, Walter, envisioned being baseball’s “Taj Mahal,” and which continues to impress after all these years. But although O’Malley reveled in the moment, he is aware of the reality facing the major leagues’ fourth-oldest facility.

“The challenge today, just like the Cubs have in Chicago with Wrigley Field or the Red Sox in Boston with Fenway Park, is, ‘How do you stay competitive with these very fan-friendly new stadiums?’ ” he said. “To be competitive today, particularly with player salaries continuing to escalate, the teams must raise their revenues, must grow revenues, and that’s difficult in a stadium that’s 40, 50 or 60 years old. Very difficult.”

The 56,000-seat hilltop structure at Chavez Ravine continues to be a cash cow for the Dodgers--keeping the club among baseball’s top revenue producers--and a beloved community treasure. But despite a recent $50-million facelift, the ballpark can’t keep pace with the Dodgers’ spiraling expenses, including a $100-million payroll. Fox would rather continue to subsidize the Dodgers through annual loans than privately finance a new stadium, which could cost as much as $600 million, and there would be no support for public financing at the site.

The Dodgers dismiss speculation they might leave their golden perch to share a downtown multipurpose facility if one was built to lure back the NFL, so maximizing the building’s earning potential is a key to the franchise’s future. However, that’s complicated because of management’s sensitivity about the traditions established under the family-friendly O’Malleys.

“Is the stadium still viable? Absolutely,” said President Bob Graziano, in his 17th year with the club. “The main reason it’s still viable is because over the last 40 years we’ve put a significant amount of money into the stadium to keep it looking as good and performing as well as it has since the day it opened. Things continue to have to be done to the stadium, as with a house or a car, and that’s what we’ve done.

“When you look at the new ballparks, the revenue streams that Dodger Stadium didn’t have three, four, five years ago we now have. We’re talking about luxury suites, dugout seats and other items that now make us more competitive. Are we number one in terms of stadium revenues? No. But what we’ve been able to do is maintain the tradition of Dodger Stadium while at the same time enhancing revenue streams.”

Fenway Park is the majors’ oldest facility, having opened for baseball in 1912. The first game was played at Wrigley Field in 1914 and Yankee Stadium opened in 1923. Like Dodger Stadium, those ballparks have undergone many modernization projects throughout the decades, with Yankee Stadium reopening in 1976 after having been closed for two years for refurbishing.

In the National League West, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants play in recently constructed, state-of-the-art ballparks, and the San Diego Padres’ new stadium is under construction. In an attempt to keep up, the Dodgers made significant additions to Dodger Stadium before the 2000 season.

On the club level, they added 33 luxury suites, several conference rooms, a business center and renovated the Stadium Club. A nine-row, 565-seat area was added behind the dugouts and a sports bar-themed Dugout Club was built.

Although the club has not sold out the suites, which can be leased for $275,000 to $300,000 for a full season, or the dugout seats, listed between $175 and $200, the additions have provided a major revenue boost.

Citing major league policy, the Dodgers declined to reveal their total operating revenue, of which most is stadium generated. However, according to numbers reported to the House Judiciary Committee in December and obtained by The Times, the Dodgers generated an all-time revenue high of $143.607 million in 2001--based on ticket sales, concessions, parking, stadium signage and broadcasting payments--ranking eighth in baseball. The Yankees, annually atop the list because of their industry-high broadcast rights, were No. 1 at $242.208 million.

The Dodgers’ revenue increased more than $13 million from 2000, the first season of the suites and dugout seats. The club’s 1995 revenue of $69 million was less than half of the 2001 total.

Last season, the Giants were fifth in revenue at $172.950 million, the Rockies No. 11 at $131.813 million, the Diamondbacks No. 14 at $125.132 million and the Padres 24th at $79.722 million. Local TV, cable and radio payments accounted for about $25 million of the Dodgers’ revenue and about $17 million of the Giants’ total, and each team receives about $15 million from Fox’s national TV package.

That means that the Giants generated about $37.4 million more at Pacific Bell Park, which opened in 2000, than the Dodgers did at Dodger Stadium. But the Giants also have $20 million a year in debt service on their privately financed stadium, shrinking the profit gap between them and the Dodgers to about $17.4 million. The Dodgers could presumably generate more than that figure by increasing ticket prices and accepting forms of advertising they currently reject, so how much would a new stadium really help?

“The Dodgers’ problems, to the extent that they’ve had any problems the last four or five years, have got nothing to do with Dodger Stadium,” said Peter Magowan, San Francisco Giant managing general partner. “They’ve got a crown jewel of a ballpark. It’s 40 years old but it sure doesn’t look it. It’s a beautifully maintained place, a key asset for the Dodgers, and the renovations they’ve done so far have increased their revenue and make a lot of economic sense.

“What has surprised a lot of people about the Dodgers is not what their revenue numbers are but what their expense numbers are. That produces these huge losses, and it’s not right to see a team in the second-biggest market in the United States drawing over 3 million people and losing the kind of money they’re losing. There’s only one answer as to why they lost that and everyone knows what it is: payroll. The problem is what’s in that dugout.”

The Dodger payroll has skyrocketed under Fox, ballooning from about $50 million at the start of the 1998 season to about $116 million last season. The club is in the $103-million range this season and still burdened by multiyear contracts doled out between 1998 and 2000.

“The economics have drastically changed,” said O’Malley, not commenting on the club’s decisions. “That’s one of the reasons why we considered selling the team, because we saw that there was no control on the escalation of salaries.

“I knew we could grow revenues, but I was concerned we could grow the revenues fast enough to cover a $50-, $60-, $70-, $80-million payroll. I never dreamed it would go to $100 [million].”

A new Dodger Stadium already might have been in the works had politicians not persuaded O’Malley to abandon his pursuit of an NFL franchise in 1996 in hopes the Coliseum would be considered as a future expansion or relocation site. O’Malley hoped that building a new football stadium adjacent to Dodger Stadium would have sparked community support for a new baseball stadium.

“Then we would have ended up with two extraordinary facilities,” he said. “At least, that was the long-range goal; football first and then redoing Dodger Stadium.”

Before settling on the $50-million renovation plan in 2000, the Dodgers considered a bigger project along the lines of the $100-million makeover the Angels gave Edison Field before the 1998 season. But Dodger Stadium presents unique and costly expansion problems because it is built into a hill.

Widening concourses, reconfiguring support structures and environmental issues would have pushed costs into the $200-million range. Fox decided that was too much for only an incremental revenue bump.

Because of the construction challenges of building into the hillside, a new stadium on the site could cost as much as $600 million. Dodger Stadium was privately financed at a cost of approximately $20 million in 1962, but Fox is not willing to go that route, especially considering that extra revenue generated by the stadium would be subject to revenue sharing.

“The economics of building a new ballpark just don’t make a whole lot of sense at this point in time,” Graziano said. “Also, as you look at greater revenue sharing, and we’re sharing more revenue than we ever have today, you have to look at whether the investment to generate that still makes as much sense. And this isn’t a situation like the other ballparks in the National League West, or in Major League Baseball, where the fans were not happy going to those ballparks.

“Our fans are very, very happy coming to this ballpark. Does it lack some of the conveniences of some of the newer ballparks? Absolutely. But our fans love coming here. They came here as kids and they like bringing their children back to the ballpark. We continually listen to the fans, and if at some point that changed we would start looking at it more carefully, but it hasn’t changed.”

The Dodgers have drawn more than 3 million in attendance in each of the last six seasons despite last qualifying for the playoffs in 1996 and last winning a playoff game in ’88. But even with record revenues and one of baseball’s strongest fan bases, the club claimed staggering losses of $60 million in 2001 and borrows from Fox each season to meet its commitments.

The business-side operation has not been able to keep pace with the baseball operation, though Graziano and his top lieutenants have tried through the renovations and increased advertising in the stadium.

“We didn’t want to clutter the place with signage and ruin the aesthetic nature of the ballpark, and yet we had a need to seriously drive more revenue in that area,” said Kris Rone, executive vice president of marketing. “It worked and we’ve done very well, competitively speaking.

“If you look at the other clubs, we’re right among the top teams as far as sponsorship revenue. But we did have to make a change. We had to add that signage, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible for us to extract the revenue we have.”

Since implementing the signage program four years ago, the club’s sponsorship revenue has increased from about $10 million to more than $20 million. The Dodgers could reap even bigger rewards but don’t accept advertising for hard liquor and other products they don’t deem “family friendly.”

The club has shied away from other many money-making opportunities because of concerns about fan reaction. The Dodgers have not entered the naming-rights market and have maintained comparatively low ticket prices--including 10,000 seats at $6.

“The Dodgers could sell the naming rights for this ballpark for one hell of a lot of money,” Magowan said. “There’s no question about that.”

But the benefits of a naming-rights deal for the Dodgers, even with a lucrative payout, are outweighed by the disadvantages, Graziano said.

“The fans have grown up with it being Dodger Stadium, and that doesn’t change by putting a corporate name on it, so the value for a company to do that is low and the benefit to us is not great,” he said. “It’s a different story in new buildings where the stadium is always known by the corporate name.”

So the Dodgers will remain at Dodger Stadium for the foreseeable future. That’s just the economic reality of the present.

“The Dodgers do a lot of things right, and there’s no reason why 15 years from now [Dodger Stadium] won’t still be just as good as it is today,” Magowan said. “But the Dodgers have seen their competitors begin to catch up with them because of their new stadiums. That’s what has changed.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Dodger Stadium History

* April 10, 1962--Dodger Stadium opens with seating for 56,000, parking for 16,000 automobiles on 21 terraced lots, more than 3,400 trees covering the 300 acres of landscape.

* 1978--Dodger Stadium becomes the first ballpark to play host to more than 3 million fans in a season when the Dodgers draw 3,347,845 in attendance. After another 3-million attendance mark in 1980, the Dodgers set the all-time major league season attendance record in 1982, drawing 3,608,881 fans. (Toronto, Colorado and Atlanta have since topped that mark.)

* 1996--The Dodgers install a state-of-the-art grass field for first time since stadium opened in 1962. Prescription Athletic Turf (PAT) used the latest agronomic and engineering technology to manage field moisture through controlled drainage and irrigation.

* January 1999--The Dodgers announce a program of limited renovation of Dodger Stadium to help make it more economically competitive with other ballparks across the nation. By the start of the 2000 season, the Dodgers add field-level seats down the foul lines beyond the dugouts and an expanded dugout section with an adjacent club area. In addition, suites are added on the Club Level to provide amenities that are now available at every other major league ballpark.

* Dodger fans have witnessed 3,208 regular-season games at Dodger Stadium, including a 1,833-1,375 (.571) record posted by the Dodgers.

* Stadium played host to All-Star game in 1980 and the Olympic Games’ baseball competition in 1984.

* Although only baseball is played at Dodger Stadium, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass at Dodger Stadium on Sept. 16, 1987. Entertainers such as KISS, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Eric Clapton and U2 have performed at the stadium.

Dodger Stadium Yearly Attendance

1962...2,755,184

1963...2,538,602

1964...2,228,751

1965...2,553,577

1966...2,617,029

1967...1,664,362

1968...1,581,093

1969...1,784,527

1970...1,697,142

1971...2,064,594

1972...1,860,858

1973...2,136,192

1974...2,632,474

1975...2,539,349

1976...2,386,301

1977...2,955,087

1978...3,347,845

1979...2,860,954

1980...3,249,287

1981...2,381,292

1982...3,608,881

1983...3,510,313

1984...3,134,824

1985...3,264,593

1986...3,023,208

1987...2,797,409

1988...2,980,262

1989...2,944,653

1990...3,002,396

1991...3,348,170

1992...2,473,266

1993...3,170,393

1994...2,279,355

1995...2,766,251

1996...3,188,454

1997...3,319,504

1998...3,089,201

1999...3,095,346

2000...3,010,819

2001...3,017,502

2001 Total Operating Revenue

in millions

1. New York Yankees...$242

2. Seattle...$202

3. New York Mets...$182

4. Boston...$176

5. San Francisco...$172

6. Cleveland...$162

7. Atlanta...$146

8. Dodgers...$143

9. Texas...$134

10. St. Louis...$132

11. Colorado...$131

12. Chicago Cubs...$129

13. Baltimore...$128

14. Arizona...$125

15. Houston...$124

16. Milwaukee...$113

17. Chicago White Sox...$111

18. Pittsburgh...$108

19. Detroit...$106

20. Angels...$91

21. Kansas City...$83

22. Philadelphia...$81

23. Tampa Bay...$80

24. San Diego...$79

25. Toronto...$78

26. Oakland...$75

27. Cincinnati...$70

28. Florida...$60

29. Minnesota...$52

30. Montreal...$34

Note: Based on numbers reported to the House Judiciary Committee in December and obtained by The Times. Totals include ticket sales, concessions, parking, stadium signage and broadcast payments.

2001 Weighted Ticket Prices

1. Boston...$37.38

2. New York Yankees...$32.47

3. New York Mets...$26.53

4. St. Louis...$24.66

5. Seattle...$24.66

6. Cleveland...$23.45

7. San Francisco...$23.22

8. Detroit...$22.86

9. Texas...$19.23

10. Houston...$21.77

11. Pittsburgh...21.51