As long as this means we get to keep Holliday, Atkins, Franchise, JJ, Cook, Tulo and Iannetta through their glory years, than I'm okay with the team's decision to raise season ticket prices 6-11% on most seats. Of course, what it actually means is that the Rockies' popularity pendulum has shifted, and rather than being on the downswing, the club expects increased interest in the team next season and therefore thinks this is a good time to generate some additional revenue. I haven't seen any figures lately for the total number of season ticket holders the Rockies have, but I'm going to guess the figure to be around 14,000, which would mean this move will only generate between two and a half to three million dollars per year. Of course, the Rockies haven't announced the pricing for day to day tickets, so assuming that goes up by the same range as well, they should be generating close to $10 million more in additional revenue in 2007 over that in 2006, assuming attendance stays exactly the same.
Which is, of course, a false assumption. Attendance will go up, as much as 10-15% with how competitive we expect the team to be and the increased allure of legit stars in Atkins and Holliday, maybe even Francis or JJ by then, and budding stars like Tulowitzki and Iannetta. I'm not sure the Rockies will increase concession prices at all, but they will sell more concessions given the increased attendance, so I'm just going to venture a conservative guess that the Monforts stand to pocket between $16 and $20 million more in revenue in 2007 than they did in 2006. Not a bad figure to have, I'm sure. Now if they can treat us a little better with some of that dough, it would be even better still.
Update [2006-10-8 14:3:6 by Rox Girl]:
Based on the comments from DeepPurple, I revised the earlier figures I put up based on information from Forbes.com. The Rockies 2006 valuation shows the team with 14,500 season ticket holders, I'm assuming they lose some due to the price hike, gain some due to having a better team, so I just used 14,000 as a figure to go from. These valuations are interesting, as they show that during the 2005 season the Rockies once again eroded their brand image, dropping from $29 million in early 2005, to $27 million in 2006. The market decline, from $105m to $101 million was another indicator of this lapse. In fact, since 2002, no team in baseball had submarined its value more than the Rockies, going from $347m to $298 million in a period most other teams experienced significant increases in value.
The good news for Colorado Rockies fans and the Monforts is that trend will most certainly turn around in next year's list. By paring $25 million of bad contracts off the books, building a name image for its exciting young players, and restoring some of the lost luster to the franchise, the bleeding seems to have stopped and the team is for the most part on the right track.