Even if the economy was booming today, do the owners of these sports teams have a clue as to how to market to their hometown fans? I mean, let’s get real…In New York for instance, there are two new baseball stadiums being built right now a mere stone throw away form their existing ones and let me tell you, they may initially get some good crowds to fill them, but after the newness wears off in about a month or so, these stadiums will be hard to fill.

More importantly, for the new Met stadium, $850 million is being spent, with about half being funded by NY State taxpayers. And get this, the name of the stadium is Citi Field, the same company that has been laying off many thousands of workers from Citibank. Now let me get this straight…Let’s say I used to work for Citibank and I have two children who want to go see a Met’s game. Do you really think in a million years I will take my family to a ballpark whose name represents the same company that just laid me off? I don’t think so…And sure, there are bleacher seats and other seats way up in the section that you need x-ray vision in order to view the game that are somewhat affordable (between $12-$75), that does not include the extra $100 you need to feed yourselves as a hot dog is about $10.00 and a bag of Crackerjacks is at least $5.00.

Citi Field though looks like a bargain though compared to Yankee stadium. Its cost is $1.8 billion with half being subsidized by taxpayers with an additional $400 million being subsidized by taxpayers for a new transportation system being built. No one, other than the wealthy will be even able to think about going to the ballpark, trust me…and that’s assuming that these wealthy individuals don’t lose their jobs anytime soon. Plus, they need to be doing very well in their current job or work situation…And don’t forget, because not everyone can afford the seats near the dugouts, that means the children cannot interact with their favorite players either because I don’t recall the ballplayers climbing through the bleachers and bleeder seats signing autographs.

Are you telling me that we couldn’t have upgraded these stadiums for about $250 million or so and then taken the rest of this money and help wipe out poverty in the respective cities Flushing and the Bronx in NYC? It’s not as if these stadiums had structural damage to them where they needed to tear them down and build new ones. For nearly a hundred years, the fans at Fenway Park in Boston, and Wrigley Field in Chicago seem to be doing pretty good filling their stadiums…

If the owners of these teams and their marketing “gurus” want to attract more people to their respective stadiums, building a new and shiny stadium is not the answer and given the economy, unless you are going to let me in free, I and many millions will not even contemplate spending our hard-earned money to do so.

Here’s a tip to all owners of any sports team: if you want to increase your fan base, stop paying these ballplayers millions of dollars to merely show up. Hire the ballplayers who want to come to work everyday (playing) and who want to achieve with a great attitude and passion for their respective game. Have the ballplayers interact with the fan base, and with the children every game like the old days and then maybe, maybe, you’ll get the loyalty from fans that you are so desperately seeking.