Pittsburgh Pirate fans plan to walk out to protest poor performance.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07179/797796-194.stm
In particular, they are protesting poor management. They have tried to make it clear that they are not against the players, but are fustrated by managment’s inability to put together a good team.
Is walking out an effective method? Does managment care?
Seems that managment is going out of its way to keep the protest quiet.
Well, in order to walk out one would need to have purchased a ticket in the first place. I’m guessing the usual fan attendance will still be in effect for subsequent home games. I’m guessing it won’t have much of an impact at all. I’ll bet it’s got management thinking though…
I don’t understand the logic of buying a ticket to a game for the purpose of walking out in protest during a break between innings.
If you want to get the attention of management, stop buying tickets.
In 1899, the owners of the Cleveland Spiders bought the Cardinals (then known was the Perfectos) but retained ownership of both teams. This resulted in home attendance so bad (averaging less than 180 per game) that either the Spiders negotiated to finish their season on the road or the rest of the league negotiated to have the schedule changed so as not to play in Cleveland.
I get what you’re saying, but in some way, I think it has a larger impact to show that people feel so strongly about the issue that they’re actually willing to spend money to make their point.
It also creates a much more vivid visual to have thousands of people simultaneously stand up and leave than to just have a bunch of empty seats around the stadium.
I wonder how many of the fans planning to participate are season ticket holders. As someone who has season tickets to the second-worst team in MLB, I can sort of understand seeing a walkout as my only viable means of protest (assuming I’m just frustrated, as these fans seem to be, and not disgusted enough to want to sell the remainder of my tickets).
They said that the game is close to sold out.
But I thought the real money was made buy selling $20 cups of beer and not from ticket sales.
If everyone leaves during the first inning, that means there are 8 more innings with no concession sales.
They’re trying to make a point against Pirates mismanagement when the other team in the building is the Nationals??? I guess they weren’t trying to use contrast to make their point, eh?
Yeah, watch the Pirates win the game, too…
I wonder if it would be viable to set up some kind of big screen near the ballpark and have everyone watch it there, instead of going to the park. SF did it when the Giants were in the Anaheim during the World Series, we had a bigass screen hung up on a crane in one of the downtown parks; a few thousand people came out to watch it. Doing so when the team was actually in-town would send quite a message.
Bite your tongue! 
Though you’re probably right. Sigh.
The idea is to embarrass the team’s management, and I can see the logic there. But it won’t work. Detroit Lions fans have been using all manner of creative protests in the last few years to try and get that team to fire its general manager, and none of them have worked.
Go to the game but boycott all concessions. **All ** of them. Money talks, and when the concessionaires start screaming, management will listen.
I don’t understand the point, to be honest. What, exactly, are they trying to call attention to - that the Pirates suck? I hate to break this to Pirate fans, but the rest of North America’s sports fans outside Pittsburgh are quite aware that the Pirates suck. We can read the standings, and we know where the Pirates usually are. The Pirates’ cable affiliate will not show the walkout, so it won’t even get ESPN play.
Are they trying to embarass Pirate management? Well, if they aren’t embarrassed by the atrocious pack of losers they’ve hired to play for them, how will this embarrass them any more?
If you want to change the behaviour of the fracnhise’s upper management you need to stop going to the games. Even that might not help (see: Devil Rays, Tampa Bay) but it’s the only thing about fans the team listens to.
In a hilarious twist, the Pirates are giving away bobbleheads that day. The day’s bobblehead subject? Bob Walk.
I think it will have an effect and i applaud the fans who are taking part. unfortunately there are always those fans who get to the park so rarely and who cannot afford such an expensive statement, that it might go unnoticed. the pirates have one of the nicest parks in baseball courtesy in large part of the pittsburgh and allegheny county taxpayers. they deserve a decent team, not the second lowest payroll in baseball. no one expects them to win the world series with the way the leagues are set up financially, but they can be competitive. the problem is they make more money by being non-competitive.
No, you see, if I was to say that the Nats would win, they’d lose. Gotta steer clear of jinxing them, as if they need my help.