same thoughts on the nats, new thoughts on the stadium

Years ago at a LI Islanders game I noticed there was a lot of free stuff being given away.  When I asked my mom why she told me “the worse the team, the more going on in the stadium”.  As someone pointed out at dinner tonight a lot was going on at the Nats game, watching baseball wasn’t your only option.  To me it wasn’t like going to a baseball game but going out to a place where watching a baseball game was one of your many options.  The stadium owners clearly did a lot of planning when they designed the stadium.  When we toured the stadium during Welcome Week I wasn’t sure if all the vendors and activities would draw in that many additional people but after walking around and seeing the stadium with people in it I see I was wrong.  I walked around a bit during the game to find food and I saw plenty of people swarming into places such as Build-A-Bear, the Playstation room, and batting cages.  The fact that the fans were interested in other things made the game seem strange to me.  They seemed to lack pride, sure they were interested in the game and wanted the Nats to win but it was nothing like the intense pride I feel in the stands at a Yankees game.

Okay, maybe the Yankees are a bad comparison, fans go wild simple because there are the Yankees, a lot has to happen before their fans loose their enthusiasm.  I figured the absence of enthusiasm was from the Nats being a loosing team.  But as PTJ said at dinner tonight sometimes loosing is a teams legacy.  Another reason to justify the fan-base was mentioned by someone (I think Seamus McGregor) at dinner-- he brought up the fact that most of the people living in DC are not from DC.  I think that makes a lot of sense as a factor in the Nats’ fan-base.  People have a lot of pride in there home team, it takes a lot for people to change their loyalty, especially when the new team isn’t doing well.  Whatever the reasons and despite them I now think National’s Stadiums has the potential to be successful.  Before Friday’s game I never realized the amount of people that could be enticed into going to a baseball game for reasons other than baseball.  Even if the Nat’s continue be a loosing team as long as there is something for the fans to do it seems to me both the team and stadium can survive.  They may be a long way from becoming a legendary team, but I no longer think they are going wind up disastrous and in debt as I thought during welcome week.