I know at least three different people personally who opted not to renew their partial season ticket plans for the Phillies this season. A couple 17-game plans here and a couple Sunday packages there and it all adds up to roughly 5,000 less season tickets sold than last year.
That number is according to the Phillies VP of sales and ticket operations, John Webber, who spoke to Chris Hepp of the Inquirer:
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"Our sales numbers are down," said John Weber, the Phillies' vice president of sales and ticket operations. "Last year, we had about 24,000 season-ticket holders. We are going to have between 18 [thousand] and 19,000 this year, which still ranks us in the top of baseball. It is a very solid number, but not where we have been."
Some SABRE guy needs to come up with the exact Amaro Formula: Average Player Age + Decline in Wins From Previous Year - Team Batting Average - (New Comcast TV Deal Revenue / year) / Number of Phanatic New Dance Routines = A whole lot less fans coming out to the ball park this summer. I don't know, not sure if the signs are all right there. I'm not a math major.
For real though, this is not good for team revenues or fans who want Ruben Amaro to go out and spend big every offseason. If anything, looking at the roster now, we've learned that a high payroll does NOT automatically equate to a winning team that puts plenty of butts in the seats at CBP every summer.
On the bright side, the aforementioned article points out that there are still opening day tix available. That never would have happened during the 5-year run as NL East champs.