Common Touch

The rookie owner of the Seattle SuperSonics spent an hour greeting fans at the turnstiles and handing out vouchers for free hot dogs. He signed autographs. He walked up to half a dozen ticket-holders and surprised them with better seats.

Howard Schultz did all of this in a casual manner, resting his hand on their shoulders, speaking with a hint of a Brooklyn accent. A man of the people in French cuffs.

But as game time approached, he wanted to finish his rounds through KeyArena and get down to courtside because, as he often says, he’s really just a fan who bought the team. The only thing standing in his way were a father and son headed the opposite direction, climbing toward the upper deck.

“I love what you’re doing,” the father said. Then, a little brazenly, “Can we sit with you?”

All the tickets had been given out. Schultz was finished with customer service for the day. Yet this scenario--a man and boy trudging upstairs--struck at why he acquired the SuperSonics a year ago. It also spoke to the way he became wealthy enough to do so, taking a few coffee bars and making them feel cozy, multiplying that formula into the omnipresent Starbucks.

Holding out his hand, he said, “Let me see where you’re at.”

By tipoff, Schultz was cheering from his seat while father and son were moved to within a dozen or so rows of the floor.

“Although people in this business don’t want to admit it, in most cases professional sports have left the fan behind,” Schultz said. “So you have to look for ways to surprise people. It’s just these little things, but we’re looking to touch their hearts.”

Similar efforts are being made across the nation by a cadre of owners and team executives, many of them new like Schultz and all equally determined to refurbish sport’s tarnished image.

The industry is battling a drop in television ratings and a slip in popularity among young fans distracted by everything from video games to DVDs. When it comes to sluggish attendance at arenas and stadiums, ticket prices are only part of the problem.

Modern sports palaces are viewed as little more than elaborate sound stages--the game has to be televised from somewhere. They are seen as giant billboards for sponsors and extensions of the corporate meeting room, filled with luxury suites where businessmen entertain clients. The new breed of owner is fighting this reputation by paying attention to the cheap seats.

Every few weeks Schultz makes his rounds. In Dallas, Jerry Jones wants to build a stadium with so-called poor man’s luxury boxes. Washington Capital owner Ted Leonsis publicizes his e-mail address and asks fans to tell him “all the reasons you don’t love this team.”

Their strategies differ, but the goal is similar: Luring people like that father and son back to the game.

An Abysmal Effort

When the Sport Management Research Institute in Florida conducts surveys at arenas and stadiums nationwide, the most common complaint is cost.

After years of sharp increase, the average ticket price has recently stabilized--baseball prices rose 3.8% this season and the NBA saw a slight decrease. Teams now set aside blocks of less-expensive seats and offer periodic discounts. Some have sliding scales, charging less for weeknight games against less-desirable opponents.

But according to Team Marketing Report, a family of four still spends an average of $145 to $300 at a game. Staples Center President Tim Leiweke knows his industry has not done enough.

“We can’t just cater to the 5% that happens to have a high discretionary income,” he said. “Our ticket prices are getting to the point where we’re limiting our audience.”

To make matters worse, owners have done poorly--one industry consultant called their efforts “abysmal”--when it comes to making fans feel important.

Consider an exchange at a recent industry conference in New York City where Bob Tisch, the wealthy chairman of the New York Giants, was asked about season-ticket holders forced to pay for unwanted exhibition games. Tisch said his organization must generate revenue to be competitive and, besides, he was only following the lead of other teams.

While other industries have pursued customers by offering more for the dollar, critics believe sports have gone the opposite direction. Spectators are treated like small fish despite spending billions each year on tickets and parking and sodas.

“If [teams] are chasing people out of the arena and onto their couches, it doesn’t matter as long as those people are watching sports on television,” said David Carter of the Sports Business Group, a Los Angeles consulting firm. “Television is where corporate America makes its money.”

So why are some league and team executives talking about reinventing the live experience?

First, they have come to realize what network producers knew all along: A compelling broadcast requires not only a close score but also a raucous stadium. “The backdrop of the game assumes a throng of people, and you need to get that feeling on television,” Jones said.

More significantly, they fear a grass-roots backlash.

Seventeen of the 30 Major League Baseball teams suffered a decrease in attendance in the early weeks of this season. NBA crowds have declined from a peak of 17,252 in 1995-96 and even the mighty NFL dipped last fall. Only hockey has managed to boost attendance.

This trend could have a ripple effect. Although more people watch sports on television than ever before, ratings are diluted across numerous channels and some executives worry that fans who stop going to games might eventually turn off their sets.

“If we don’t have fans in the seats, we’re on a collision course,” Schultz said. “It will come back to erode the very engine that drives our business.”

Squeegees and Windex

Jones expresses a similar concern with a personal anecdote.

No one could have been more confident than the Arkansas oilman when he paid almost $200 million to buy the Cowboys and lease Texas Stadium in 1989. This was the man, after all, who fired legendary coach Tom Landry.

So Jones did not hesitate to assume that because he had a stadium, he might as well get into the business of concert promotion. Sign a top-name performer, advertise, how hard could it be? But on the night of his first show, thousands of seats went unfilled.

A friend told him: “When they ain’t comin’, there’s no stopping ‘em.”

Now Jones takes the job of selling tickets more seriously. He wants to build a stadium that, while featuring suites and premium seats, will be designed with the masses in mind.

The proposed $600-million-to-$700-million facility would be open-ended with standing-room areas behind each end zone. As many as 30,000 fans could pay a less-expensive admission to mill about these “poor man’s luxury boxes,” eating and drinking at booths, pushing forward to see the field or watching on digital monitors.

The designers of Staples Center had something similar in mind when they included such upper-deck amenities as a terrace with a view of downtown. Fox Sports President Ed Goren predicts more such innovation.

“You’re going to see stadiums change,” he said. “The stadium experience has to be something special.”

Architecture goes only so far. Two of the newest stadiums in the nation, PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Miller Park in Milwaukee, have seen ticket sales decline significantly in their second seasons. And owners can’t always count on a winning team to attract crowds.

Thus the renewed emphasis on customer service. The change has been gradual, measured in part by teams such as the Florida Panthers and Cleveland Browns that paid the Sport Management Research Institute to survey ticket-holders and send workers posing as fans into their facilities.

“It’s all about showing respect,” said Kathleen Davis, the institute’s executive director. “For a while, no one was listening to the fan.”

Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban has won them over with his common touch, wearing a T-shirt and jeans to games, cheering wildly in the stands. Leonsis has called upon lessons he learned while helping turn AOL into a new kind of electronic community.

Since publicizing his e-mail address three years ago, the Capital owner has answered 22,000 messages, many of them complaints. Prompted to vent, fans submitted more than 100 kinds of grievances that ranged well beyond ticket prices.

The protective glass around the ice was dirty, they said. The cotton-candy vendor didn’t come around during the third period. The smell of garlic fries from the snack bar was overwhelming. Leonsis published the list online and went about solving many of the problems.

“Now, you know who gets the biggest cheer every night?” he asked. “The guys with squeegees and Windex.”

They scramble out between periods in dark blue overalls and caps, looking for all the world like gas-station attendants from the 1950s, hurrying around to wipe down the glass. Kids mimic their hand motions from the other side. Older fans point out spots they missed.

It also helped that the Capitals traded for superstar Jaromir Jagr. But they set a team attendance record this season while failing to reach the playoffs, and the owner believes the list deserves much of the credit.

Some fan suggestions remain unaddressed. Management has yet to provide an in-arena hotline that goes directly to the owner’s box or a live Web cam from the team plane. Leonsis is nonetheless confident enough in the progress he has made to flash a giant picture of himself--the bright eyes and smile, the goatee--across the scoreboard at games.

“I don’t do that for ego,” he said. “If they clap, we’re doing a good job. If they boo, we’ve got more work to do.”

Thank-You Cards

Do the little things make a difference? Carter, the consultant, responds to that question with another: “How can you expect people to keep lining your pockets if you keep alienating them at every turn?”

In Seattle, the answer takes shape in small crowds that press close to the court before games, evidence of changes Schultz enacted when he and his investor group bought a team that was struggling to win games and sell tickets.

“I probably came to this very differently than the traditional sports owner because I’ve been a season-ticket holder for 19 years,” he said. “I saw the roller-coaster relationship that existed between the fans and the Sonics, and I knew we were acquiring the team at one of the low points.”

While pro sports are very much a business, and Schultz has employed Starbucks-like marketing, he considers it important for the city to care about its team. Wanting to shorten the distance between players and the common fan, making his cavernous arena a little more like one of his street-corner cafes, he began opening the doors early and letting anyone with a ticket sit courtside to watch the teams warm up.

Only a few hundred fans showed up at first. Now a thousand or more come, many of them parents with kids. “I can see how big the players really are,” said 12-year-old Eric Boman, who usually sits in the upper deck with his mother, Janice.

At the owner’s urging, SuperSonic players rank among the league leaders in community appearances and recently sat down to write thank-you cards to every season-ticket holder. When a longtime fan decided not to renew his seats, Schultz called twice asking him to come back and a third time to thank him when he did.

“This team has been given back to the community,” said Benny Bridges Sr., who attends games with his 11-year-old son, Benny Jr. “The fans need to know they are important.”

It helps that Schultz is the king of coffee in a city known for its beans. Fans recognize his combed-back hair and smile, gathering near when he walks through the arena.

“I’ve met him a couple of times,” said Josh Roque, a 21-year-old retail salesman. “Usually someone in his position wouldn’t be so open to the public.”

To put all of this in perspective, imagine Los Angeles fans lining up for Donald Sterling’s autograph. Would they even recognize Philip Anschutz, the intensely private billionaire who is majority owner of the Kings, Galaxy and Staples Center?

The push to make KeyArena “fan friendly” has yet to show results in an important category--the SuperSonics averaged 15,388 fans this season, roughly the same as last season. But NBA Commissioner David Stern was impressed enough to bring his management team for a closer look in March. And Davis said her research suggests that customer service, while no quick fix, eventually translates into ticket sales.

Schultz is likewise convinced that he and a few others in the industry are on the right track.

“There is a new breed of owners who recognize that this is not a zero-sum game and we have to take care of the people,” Schultz said. “I hope the rest of them get it.”

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Price Increases Keep Coming, but So Do the Fans

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