PawSox & Worcester, MA Sign Letter of Intent For New Ballpark

[Digby]

10 minutes ago, the admiral said:

I always just figured the PawSox were functionally a Providence team that happened to play the next town over.

 

It pretty much is, it's just a pain in the ass to get there because it's so far off the main drag. And yeah, the draws from southeastern Mass down to the Cape always seemed to be a big part of the PawSox fanbase at least in their heyday. @pmoehrin makes the good point that Rhode Island/SE Mass is not an affluent area, though. Worcester is just as much of a dump but at least its suburbs get the outer reaches of the Boston affluence spillover. (I'm surprised to see Worcester income so much higher than Providence proper, tbh.) They'll have to get that close-in crowd because this move also places them closer to Hartford and Lowell for the "minor league baseball in nice stadiums" market, not to mention more accessible to Fenway itself.

[pmoehrin]

2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

Yeah, but look at those top numbers.

 

So if @pmoehrin is right, and 50% of the fanbase comes from within ten miles of the ballpark, the WooSox seem to have a lot more with which to work than the PawSox did.  Then add the fact that median household income is almost twice in Worchester what it is in Pawtucket, and this starts to look like a pretty good trade for the team.

1

 

Just to clarify, I said AT LEAST 50%.

 

This is what a 10-mile radius around the ballpark looks like on a map.

 

 

I don't have the real figures in front of me or any way of estimating them outside of my intuition, but if I had to guess the actual number is probably around 75-85%

 

I do have a program on my work computer that will give you a basic demographic breakdown of how each area compares regarding radius around a location.

 

This is how the two compare:

 

McCoy Stadium

2.5 miles: 66,372 people average household income: $30,303

5 miles: 339,963 average household income: $48,278

10 miles: 681,923 average household income: $60,241

15 miles: 1,095,652 average household income: $67,702

25 miles: 1,870,568 average household income: $73,359

 

Worcester

2.5 miles: 34,303 people average household income: $49,797

5 miles: 204,554 average household income: $49,342

10 miles: 352,543 average household income: $70,411

15 miles: 583,200 average household income: $77,113

25 miles: 1,338,614 average household income: $86,019

 

I included the 2.5-mile mark to show people just how bad the immediate area surrounding McCoy is. But the overall income levels of the general area surrounding the park is actually about the same compared to where they're going. If we could somehow pick up and move McCoy to another part of the area, I doubt we're having this conversation.

 

It's not until you get out to the 10-mile mark that you start to see the income difference of the surrounding area come into play and the game plan starts to become clear for what the WooSox are going to try to do.

 

It's a little tough to see what's going on at the 15 and 25-mile marks as the data sets begin to overlap at this point, but with Worcester, you do see these heavily affluent suburbs coming into play that Pawtucket cannot bring in.

 

What this data set also doesn't show you is the increased ease a lot of people will have in terms of drive time. Anyone west of 95 and north of 495 is going be all for this move. The idea isn't to get people to come out for the game so much as its to get people to come out to Worcester and spend the whole day. That will make any long drive time easier to justify and you will likely be able to charge more to boot.

 

Even if you don't get the same number of fans, you can make up any lost revenue with those increased prices. Pawtucket is not in a situation to do either of these things.

[The_Admiral]

Is it just me or is every major New England city that isn't Boston sort of a dump? No one seems to have any kind words for Hartford, Worcester, New Haven, Springfield, or Bridgeport. When does this start becoming a real problem for, like, America?

[Gothamite]

23 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Is it just me or is every major New England city that isn't Boston sort of a dump? No one seems to have any kind words for Hartford, Worcester, New Haven, Springfield, or Bridgeport. When does this start becoming a real problem for, like, America?

 

It is already.  That's what you get when you combine increasing income inequality with a shrinking safety net plus a refusal to re-train blue collar workers for new jobs when manufacturing moves overseas.  A lot of small- to mid-size cities all over the country are really hurting, as jobs disappear and people move out.

 

[Dilbert]

I could see baseball back in Rhode Island again but only if its the Sox double A club and its in Providence. I couldnt see Portland going anywhere though. If anything if and when Montreal returns to MLB I can see them hooking up with Portland.

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, Gothamite said:

It is already.  That's what you get when you combine increasing income inequality with a shrinking safety net plus a refusal to re-train blue collar workers for new jobs when manufacturing moves overseas.  A lot of small- to mid-size cities all over the country are really hurting, as jobs disappear and people move out.

 

It's just especially striking to me because it's happening in what's supposed to be the cradle of American hard work and ingenuity. This isn't the middle of nowhere being ravaged by opioids and meth, it's happening in the shadow of Boston and Fairfield County. It's shameful.

[buzzcut]

This article from Ballpark Digest seems to suggest that McCoy Stadium maybe demolished if the city thinks they won't get another team, which, sadly, seems likely.

[Brian in Boston]

19 hours ago, pmoehrin said:

At the end of the day, it's only the people with disposable income that you're interested in and this is where Pawtucket is lacking.

 

Spot on assessment. I agree wholeheartedly. As I wrote yesterday, Rhode Island's economic outlook as a whole - as well as that of neighboring Southeastern Massachusetts - has been moribund for quite some time. PawSox/WooSox ownership under the lead of Larry Lucchino is clearly eager to chase the "disposable income" in the Worcester suburbs... and hoping to make some inroads into MetroWest communities, as well.

  

[Brian in Boston]

16 hours ago, Dilbert said:

I could see baseball back in Rhode Island again but only if its the Sox double A club and its in Providence. I couldnt see Portland going anywhere though. If anything if and when Montreal returns to MLB I can see them hooking up with Portland.

 

Given that the majority of Mainers are Red Sox fans, I just don't see either the parent Boston Red Sox or Sea Dogs ownership wanting to sever ties with one another. The BoSox love having a minor league affiliate presence in northern New England. Sea Dogs owner Dan Burke knows that marketing a Red Sox farm-team in Maine is an easy sell. Factor in the atmosphere at Hadlock Field, as well as Portland's rise as a desirable destination city, and I just don't see the upside in ending the affiliation for either party... at least at any point in the near future. I mean, why would baseball fans in the Portland, Maine region be amenable to swapping-out an affiliation with their beloved Boston Red Sox in order to become a Montreal Expos' farm-team?

I also don't know where the money is going to come from to build a new ballpark in Providence, Rhode Island. As discussed in this thread, the economic outlook in the State of Rhode Island is not bright. That fact played a significant role in the drawn-out - and, ultimately, unsuccessful - wrangling over putting together a deal to finance construction of a new home for the Triple-A PawSox. While the price point for construction of a stadium to house a Double-A team shouldn't be as high, it isn't as though it is going to be seen as a bargain, either. The average construction cost, when adjusted for inflation to 2018 dollars, for the last ten ballparks built at the Double-A level is $44.2 million. Yes, that's significantly less than the price that was being bandied about for a new home for the PawSox, but it is still tens-of-millions of dollars in a cash-strapped - and, many would say, politically-dysfunctional - state... and for a lesser level of minor-league baseball, to boot. I suppose that political and business leaders in the state might be so desperate to make up for the loss of the PawSox that they'd now leap at the chance to throw public dollars at new Providence-based ballpark... but, I tend to doubt it.   

[Digby]

17 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

It's just especially striking to me because it's happening in what's supposed to be the cradle of American hard work and ingenuity. This isn't the middle of nowhere being ravaged by opioids and meth, it's happening in the shadow of Boston and Fairfield County. It's shameful.

 

I think New England gets the prize just because old development patterns meant that there are more of those old mill towns (really small cities) -- that was sort of the northeastern version of sprawl moreso than endless Eichler homes and subdivisions. That divide has been there a long time, roughly "instead route 128" vs. the rest of it. Portland and Burlington have survived and turned it around, Providence and Worcester have (both, ironically) been on that cusp for what feels like forever. And there's probably no hope for the Bridgeports and the Lawrences and the Pittsfields of the world.

[Digby]

Here's a question for the mid-Atlantic crowd: the Lehigh Valley team in AAA has been a smashing success, right? How did that happen? I remember Allentown being at least as dumpy as Pawtucket, and that was before 2008 and the new opioid wave. Is there a belt of suburban affluence a la what the WooSox (ugh) are going for?

[pmoehrin]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

Here's a question for the mid-Atlantic crowd: the Lehigh Valley team in AAA has been a smashing success, right? How did that happen? I remember Allentown being at least as dumpy as Pawtucket, and that was before 2008 and the new opioid wave. Is there a belt of suburban affluence a la what the WooSox (ugh) are going for?

 

Radius	Population	Average Household Income
2.5 Miles	16,932	$38,506
2.5-5 Miles	159,837	$36,969
5-10 Miles	251,105	$73,065
10-15 Miles	221,903	$78,403
15-25 Miles	442,569	$82,032

 

I've been to Coca-Cola Park, and it's a beautiful park, but there is absolutely nothing to see or do around it and as you can see from the chart above all of none of their fans really live that close to the park either.