Minor League Becoming Major Player in Wisconsin

By Conor Caloia

National attendance records, league championships and $2 beers are not frequently associated with Major League Baseball in Wisconsin.

In the past five years, a new brand of baseball has developed in the state, combining affordable family entertainment and the nation’s pastime. Minor League Baseball is currently succeeding where it failed in the past by bringing back the love of the game in a traditionally football-dominated dairy state.

“ Wisconsin in my mind is becoming a pretty good minor league state. We have five franchises that each have something very special to offer,” Madison Mallards General Manager Vern Stenman says. “The Brewers do a lot to cultivate baseball fans, but these teams on a grassroots level also do a lot for baseball in Wisconsin.”

Madison is one of five minor league baseball teams in Wisconsin. Madison, La Crosse and Wausau compete in the Northwoods League (NWL). The NWL, which concluded its 10th season of play in August, is a summer collegiate league featuring the best college players from around the country.

In addition to the three collegiate league teams in the state, a pair of professional minor league teams competes in the Midwest League. Beloit has a minor league franchise affiliated with the Brewers, and the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers of Appleton are an affiliate of the Seattle Mariners.

The geographic distribution of the five teams has allowed each franchise to develop a niche market and provide a unique brand of baseball to their fans. Rather than competing fiercely, minor league teams in Wisconsin have developed a productive working relationship with one another.

“We don’t really compete with the other teams in the state,” Dave Costello, assistant general manager of the Beloit Snappers says. “We have a great relationship with the front office in Madison. We share ideas and pick each others’ brains to see what is working and what we could do differently.”

The willingness of the teams to work together evolved from the necessity to develop financially viable business models. Minor league teams, especially in Wisconsin, have a history of being short lived. This past summer the Kenosha Mammoths, a professional minor league team in the Frontier League, could not afford to pay its players and was forced to close in its inaugural season. The Madison Mallards is the fourth minor league franchise in Madison in the past 10 years. Although the concept of minor league baseball is similar throughout the state, the product on the field and the business models used to turn a profit differ in each market.

Beloit and Appleton receive funding from their Major League Baseball parent organizations to field teams of future major leaguers. Although the parent organizations foot the bill for the players’ salaries, professional minor league franchises are burdened with higher facilities expenses and staffing costs. Unlike summer collegiate league teams, professional minor league teams must meet such requirements as stadium size, corporate suites and luxury accommodations for the players. The most recent trend in professional minor league baseball is to build state-of-the-art stadiums often costing upwards of $20 million. Although the new stadiums may lead to increased attendance, building a new stadium does not guarantee an increase in long-term revenue.

“ With an old stadium, you can constantly make it better every year. Every year you have something new, a new source of excitement for the fans,” Stenman says. “With a brand new ballpark you put $20 to $30 million into a stadium. It generates a lot of excitement, at least for a year, but the excitement wears off.”

Stenman’s Mallards and the rest of the NWL play in older, smaller, city-owned ballparks. The Mallards and the city of Madison constantly create new ways to improve the stadium and improve the ballpark atmosphere. This winter the city of Madison is funding a $600,000 renovation including new lighting structures and a new concession stand at the Mallards’ stadium, Warner Park. Although the changing atmosphere of a ballpark may secure fans in the long run, Stenman admits that having more fans does not translate into more money.

“ We do not have the opportunities for revenue in our stadium that the majority of the professional minor league stadiums do,” Stenman says. “A [pro minor league] team that draws the same amount of people as we do right now will have the same attendance, but the revenue they are generating is a lot greater.”

During the 2003 season, the Mallards set a national summer collegiate league record, drawing an average 4,411 fans per game. Madison led the five minor league teams in the state in attendance, with the NWL accounting for three of the top four average attendances.

To compensate for higher operations expenses, minor league professional teams maximize revenue by playing 70 home games per season. “The longer season is definitely beneficial for revenue,” Costello says. “Although average attendance numbers might not be as high, it gives us a longer span to bring people into the ballpark and create revenue.”

The three summer collegiate teams only play during the months of June, July and August and host 32 home games each. Due to NCAA sanctions and conflicts with academic schedules, the NWL is restricted to a shorter window of play. Stenman says the shorter season does not interfere with school nights, the weather is traditionally better and there are no Green Bay Packer or Wisconsin Badger football games to compete with.

Similar to annual operations expenses, start-up costs vary greatly between the two different minor league business models. The most recent NWL franchise sold for approximately $300,000. Minor league professional franchises in the Midwest and Frontier leagues can cost anywhere from $700,000 to $1.3 million.

Despite the high initial cost and the number of failed franchises in the state, the five minor league teams in Wisconsin have developed successful business models allowing baseball to thrive where it has failed many times in the past. With the Brewers showing signs of improvement toward the end of 2003, baseball in Wisconsin appears only to be growing.

“You need that top-level thing happening in the state for us to be successful,” Stenman said. “The Brewers can do it on a bigger level than we could ever imagine and that creates a positive feeling about baseball in general.”