Business Advice From The Sports Page
There was a Detroit journalist on CNBC this morning defending a story he had written. In his article, he said that the American consumer was to blame for the failure of the U.S. auto industry because they are not buying American cars. (I tried 'Googling' for the story and came up blank.) I hear this 'blame the customer' reasoning a lot in sports when a pro franchise cannot sell tickets. Rather than putting together a team people will pay to see (in most cases - a winning team) or in the case of automakers - building cars people actually want, they blame their customers for their failure.
On Sunday, ESPN writer Buster Olney had a case in point on this subject and illustrated how silly blaming the customer is.
Catcher Matt Treanor said on Saturday that fans in South Florida "should be ashamed of themselves" for not showing up in droves to the Marlins' games this year.
I baked bagels during my college years, first at the Bagel Stop in West Lebanon, N.H., and then at the Nashville Bagel Company, on West End in Nashville. Business was pretty slow at times. Look, I was much better at baking and delivery than at dealing with customers over the counter (To this day, I can't stand lox), but I can say, unequivocally, that standing out in front of the stores and telling those who passed by that they should be ashamed of themselves for not buying our bagels would not have been a good business move.
Plus, I would've looked like an idiot standing out there, with raisins smeared on my smock.
Coming up with a more enticing product is probably a better business strategy.
Fans are not obligated to buy tickets; teams are not entitled to have thousands of people laying out hundreds of dollars to watch them play. You come up with a product that people want to see, and they'll pay. The reasons for fans not showing up at Marlins games began compiling long before Treanor became part of the organization.
Treanor has had a good year, but his words may rank among the most ill-chosen of the season. What a way to win over hearts and minds.
This 'blaming the customer' reasoning really gets my goat, because the White Sox used to use it for years before they figured it out. White Sox management used to be famous for blaming the fans for the low attendance in the years after the strike. Even more infuriating, they would in so many words, say 'if you start coming out, we'll put together a better team'. Finally the White Sox figured it out when they hired Kenny Williams as General Manager. He and the organization stopped blaming their customers and started putting together a winning product. Now they have a championship and the seats are full.
Ford, GM and their apologists in the press (as well as the annual losers in professional sports that are too numerous to mention here) need to take some business advice from the sports page. Don't blame your customers as you are not entitled to anything from them. Build a better product.
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