Fan Walkout Day Fan Walkout Day
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Fan Walkout Day is a nationwide boycott
of every major league game played on Sunday, July 7, 2002
Since I've been doing this, I've been getting a lot of questions. Since great minds think alike, I thought I should burn a page to save you the trouble of writing (and reduce my ever-increasing flow of e-mail). Here are some of the questions I get asked a lot.
I'm a baseball fan who is sick of watching overpaid millionaires fight about the best way to divide up my entertainment dollar. I make my living as a consultant; in my spare time, I get involved in issues that I think are good causes.
It just popped into my head a year ago, when I was reading my fourteenth jillion article about the baseball strike. Being both overworked and lazy, I put the idea off as long as humanly possible.
If you're asking whether the idea can succeed, the answer is "yes." Only two things have ever been able to force the owners of professional sports franchises to respond to concerns: legal action and lost revenues. History shows that an owner who pays no attention to the team's rotten record, criticism from local media, carping on the talk shows and booing from the stands will sit up and pay attention when attendance drops.
If you're asking me if Fan Walkout Day will succeed, the answer is "I don't know." Fans have always talked a lot about never coming back after a strike, but the attendance figures show that very few of them have ever been able to stay away from games for long. That's one of the reasons that the owners and players pay no attention to our complaints.
Then we all go back to what we were doing a month ago. But we can go back with the realization that we're all partly to blame for what's going on. If you didn't promote the idea to other people, or you didn't send any letters or you went to the games or you ridiculed the people who tried to make this work, you lose your moral standing to complain.
A precise, detailed answer would take about 50,000 words to write. The short answer is "everyone." Nobody-- not the owners, the players, the politicians, the media or the fans-- come to this issue with clean hands. Some groups have been more malicious than others; some have just been negligent. Asking "Who did what to whom when with what?" doesn't solve the problem. When we've fixed things, then we can point fingers.
Because they're the group that's the easiest to reach. Other than writing to the player representatives, to let them know how angry the fans are, we can't do any protest that directly targets the players. Besides, the owners are a major part of the problem; if we can bring them to heel, I'll bet the players will start acting reasonably.
Because if they don't, we schedule a public demonstration of support for the owners. We pick a day to pack the stands and announce that we're doing it to show the owners that we no longer hold them responsible for the impasses and that we're now willing to attend games with replacement players. How long do you think the MLPBA would hold the line after that?
As Bruce Willis says to Paul Gleason in Die Hard, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Yes, there are some people out there who are genuinely concerned with the issues facing baseball. But when matters come to a vote, peer pressure rules. Nobody with a vote is ever willing to stand up and be counted as a moderate.
If you want to solve the problem, yes. July 7 is the date most likely to make a national impression. Some people will be inconvenienced by the timing, but it's always necessary to make a few sacrifices for a noble cause.
Besides, if you've already bought tickets, you've already spent the money. You won't lose any more money if you skip the game. Actually, since most people spend an average of $20 per person on souvenirs, food and games, you'll be saving money if you don't go. And don't tell me that you have to go because you want to see the game. Almost every game is televised.
Save your breath. You're talking to someone with both marketing and public relations experience. I know how businesses work. This will work. I've also organized more than one successful boycott, against companies that were much more difficult targets.
A multi-billion dollar corporation that's headquartered on another continent--and makes less than 5% of its revenues from the business unit you're targeting--is a difficult fight. Asking people to give up food products (which they've been eating for years), alcohol or cigarettes (which many people are addicted to) is a hard sell. Asking people who don't own cars to boycott public transit is a sacrifice.
We're talking about two groups of millionaires, both of whom are highly unpopular with a substantial percentage of their consumers. They're not used to meeting organized resistance from the fans--they will be flabbergasted by any amount of oppositon. Their product is an expensive luxury, which faces competition from many other providers of entertainment. This is an easy battle.
Not all that many; let's do the math. The average stadium holds about 40,000 people. So if every game were sold out, we'd only need to persuade 2,000 people per city in order to create a 5% drop in attendance. That's a total of 30,000 people. To get a 10% drop, it would only take 4,000 people. But that number is way too high, because most stadiums won't be anywhere close to being sold out. If the game is only half sold, 2,000 no-shows would be a drop of 10% or more.
I appoint myself dictator of a legion of droogs and we launch a hostile takeover of Dogbert's New Ruling Class. Either than or I do an IPO and make twenty bazillion dollars. Haven't you got anything better to ask?
Any resemblance between that graphic and anyone else's logo is purely coincidental. Credit for the inspiration goes to a friend of a friend, who once wondered why baseball used a duck to advertise the game.
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