More than 12,000 people spent a sunny afternoon watching professional baseball in the Triangle on Labor Day.
As the Carolina Mudcats closed out their season and the Durham Bulls played their final game before the playoffs, the national pastime offered relatively cheap family entertainment that has continued to draw customers during lean times.
The Durham Bulls, national icons for the minor leagues, saw their attendance bounce back above the 500,000 mark Monday, thanks to families who helped make up for corporate customers lost during the recession.
And the Carolina Mudcats attracted about 280,000 fans in a last-place season when the Double-A franchise lost their stars to their parent team, the Cincinnati Reds, and their Triple-A affiliate in Louisville, Ky.
Alice and Billy Blackmon, a pair of married retirees from Knightdale, said they look for savings in other parts of their budget to make sure they could go to five Mudcats games a year with their son and grandson.
"Baseball is our family sport," Alice Blackmon said. "It's our family time."
Bulls regular-season 2010 attendance was down from its 2007 peak of 520,000, but families buying cotton candy and Bulls caps drove the team's revenues up 5 percent over last year, general manager Mike Birling said. Though he wouldn't release numbers, Birling said fans this year bought more souvenirs and concessions than ever before.
Before the recession, Birling said, season tickets and group sales for company perks made up two-thirds of the Bulls' business. This year, corporate sales accounted for only half, while individual ticket sales grew into the other half.
While companies couldn't justify such fringe benefits while they were laying people off, Birling said, families were looking for more affordable fun.
"People are just not taking the long vacations; they're trying to find local, inexpensive things that they can take their families to," said Birling. "Over the last couple of years, that without a doubt has saved us."
Coming off a Triple-A championship in 2009, the Bulls broke a franchise record for regular-season wins this year with 88. Though the Bulls host their first home playoff game Friday night, the regular season is where the business of minor league baseball succeeds or fails.
Birling said companies ordering blocks of tickets can't plan ahead for post-season games, while families with schoolchildren have a hard time fitting them in. Playoff attendance usually slips by almost half versus regular-season games, he said.
Statewide marketing
Joe Kremer, general manager for the Carolina Mudcats, said revenues will be at least the same as last year and may go up by 1 percent when all the figures are in. Kremer said he's been more than happy with the results this season as the club marketed around the theme of the club's 20th anniversary season in North Carolina.
"It's been a good year," Kremer said. "Our economy isn't quite as bad as in some other places."
Monday's Mudcats game provided a more affordable option for the Brooks family of Youngsville. The family of four had been looking at a Labor Day trip to Morehead City, which could have cost them $180 a night for a hotel room. They instead paid $10 per ticket.
"It's a nice ballpark," said Patty Brooks, who went to the game with her husband and two sons. "It's an affordable, family-friendly atmosphere."
