![]() ![]() "I feel confident people can see the Bridgeport Bluefish are in terrific shape, if not the best shape they've ever been in," Boulton said. The team is current on its bills, Boulton said. He said ticket sales are ahead of last year's pace at this point. "The big thing is, those were tickets sold," Boulton said, emphasizing the last word and stressing that ticket prices didn't go up last season.Īnd that goes to one criticism of professional sports' attendance figures: generally, if the announced crowd isn't "tickets sold," it's "tickets distributed." The number itself says nothing about how many of those tickets were paid for, or how many were actually used. In overall terms, partly because of two more openings, season-long attendance was up almost 6,000 (3.6 percent), and Boulton wondered if that could have been better if not for a rainy May and June. That ended a stretch of four down years in a row. Those early days seemed full of promise, and both teams have taken their hits the past eight years.īluefish attendance was up an average of 14 fans per gate-opening this year, to 2,384 (counting doubleheaders only once). "God bless Howard, and Mary Jane, and Mickey and Frank and all the owners that have really tried to put out a first-class product." "They've had extraordinary success in so many ways, and they've all been financially challenged probably since their inceptions," said Paul, who is now director of development for Achievement First, which operates charter schools, including Achievement First Bridgeport Academy Middle School. No one has made money on teams at Harbor Yard, not original Sound Tigers owner Roy Boe, not Mary Jane Foster or Jack McGregor or Mickey Herbert or Boulton at the Ballpark. ![]() In a broader time frame, the PGA tournament in Cromwell has been through four sponsors in a decade. Paul noted that Pilot Pen has dropped its sponsorship of the annual men's and women's tennis tournament in New Haven. "It's hard to know if somebody's reading the New York Times, the Connecticut Post, their town weekly or getting information off the Internet." "It's so disparate," Paul said, noting that the closest major-network TV affiliates are in New Haven - or New York. "We're in a very bifurcated market that's made up of small towns, relatively speaking," Saffan said, "instead of being in a city, like, I'll give you the example of Providence, where you own the city." Ken Paul, a former vice president and part-owner of the Bluefish and lacrosse's since-departed Bridgeport Barrage, understands the challenges as well as anybody not in those offices now. Traffic doesn't help, either, when backups on I-95 can turn a 10-to-15-mile drive from lower Fairfield County into an ordeal of 30 minutes or more. "Bridgeport lacks corporate support." Saffan called out People's United Bank and Bridgeport Hospital as companies he wished would do more he said the Sound Tigers' corporate support is around 20 percent of other AHL teams. "This is a difficult market, at best," Saffan said. The next few years were up-and-down financially.īluefish attendance has trended roughly downward since 1999. The Sound Tigers did all right at the start but struggled at the gate in the playoffs, even as they went to the Calder Cup Final in their first season. Three years later, the Sound Tigers opened the Arena at Harbor Yard, close enough for former Major League slugger Jose Canseco to smack with a batting-practice home run. Over 4,000 people, on average, came into downtown Bridgeport for every game. The Bluefish began the sports revival at Harbor Yard in 1998, with a gleaming new stadium where a valve plant had been. ![]()
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