Yankees Have The Right Idea But Send The Wrong Message

The Yankees have taken a significant step towards entering the 21st Century with a variety of what they are calling “enhancements” to Yankee Stadium for the 2017 season. All but one qualify as achieving their goal. Sunrun Kids Clubhouse sends the wrong message, and here’s why.

The Yankees home has never really felt that way. And perhaps way back when it was tagged as The House That Ruth Built, and not the home that Ruth built, that came closer to the truth about Yankees Stadium than even the moniker that followed tagging the Stadium as the Cathedral of Baseball.

Which believe me, it isn’t. Yankees Stadium is where my favorite team plays, and if I want to see them in action, that’s where I go. As a connoisseur of baseball, I have visited all but four of the thirty major league ballparks. Trust me if you haven’t been to the Stadium, it’s one of the least fan-friendly ballparks in our nation.

You can’t go here, and you can’t go there. Don’t touch this and don’t touch that. Don’t forget to bring an extra hundred for parking. And God forbid, don’t leave your ticket in your jacket pocket at your seat when you visit the concessions because you’ll need to hire a lawyer to get back to your seat.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it’s to make a point. Which is that the staid corporate Yankees, until now perhaps, have never sought to make the experience of attending a game an enjoyable one, instead of one that requires jumping through a series of hoops just to get “permission,” for example, to take a quick photo from directly behind home plate.

The Yankees Have Seen The Light

So now, the Yankees have seen the light, and they have taken several steps forward to make the experience of attending a game at the Stadium a good one. My colleague Rusty Westerholm visited the Stadium as part of a special tour arranged by the Yankees. His story was published earlier today on Yanks Go Yard and for a full recap of these enhancements, be sure to read his post.

Suffice to say here, though, there is one area the Yankees still lack in. And that’s a way to introduce, cultivate, and keep young fans in the stands as baseball fans forever.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column that lamented the fact that baseball, in general, is facing a war in attracting young fans to the sport. The Yankees are not immune from the disease. And in that report, I published a chart depicting Yanks Go Yard viewership by age. It bears repeating here as an illustration of the problem.

Yanks Go Yard is not unique in having this disparity of age regarding its readers who are predominately older and very seldom young. It’s industry wide and growing at an alarming rate.

A Mini Six Flags Is Not What The Yankees Or Baseball Needs

Which brings us to the main point of this column and the Yankees construction of Sunrun Kids Clubhouse which the Yankees describe on their website as:

"The new Sunrun Kids Clubhouse is outfitted with a variety of interactive and engaging activities for the Yankees’ youngest fans. Yankees-inspired climbers, slides and tunnels are among the highlights of the space, which also provides shaded areas from which families can enjoy engaging activities"

And it goes on for several more paragraphs advertising everything except baseball. And that begins to tell the story as to where the Yankees have missed the mark. I can find “sliders, climbers and tunnels” (Note the use of the word sliders instead of slides) anywhere in the town where I live. But I can’t find a New York Yankees game to take the grandkids to in Catskill New York with Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird performing in the flesh.

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Why the need for distraction from the main attraction, which is baseball. Okay, just a second. I get the part about taking a six-year-old to a game and expecting them to sit in their seat for three hours. It can’t be done.

But instead of doing something you can do every day, why not take that six-year-old for a walk around the Stadium to take in views of the game from different areas of the ballpark, each for a few minutes and then on to the next. And how about a view of the game from the upper deck and riding the escalator up to the top. Sound like fun?

Or, How About This Novel Idea?

Why can’t the Yankees take the money they spent on this theme park and turn it into a radio station that is geared just for kids that can be tuned into by any fan in the stands with a Smartphone downloadable app?

The Yankees have made it easy enough to order a beer from your seat with an app. Why not do something for the kids?

The “station” could be used as a vehicle educating young fans about the game. Using kids as “announcers,” they could explain what just happened when Ronald Torreyes laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to score Brett Gardner.

And when Masahiro Tanaka unleashes one of his patented splitters, they could cut to a previously recorded video that the youngster can watch showing the pitch from a batter’s eye, so he learns the depth of what a major league hitter faces. And also, the vocabulary of baseball, which, of course, is essential to enjoying the game.

Kudos To The Yankees, But They Fell Short

Hal Steinbrenner has every right to be proud of the “enhancements” the Yankees have made to their home venue, as you’ll see in this video provided by the YES Network:

And as an adult, I’m looking forward to driving 90 minutes to attend a game or two at Yankees Stadium this season. And like most fans I suppose, I’ll take a peek at what the organization has done to make the entertainment experience more enjoyable.

The Budweiser Party Decks sound like the closest experience to the Roof Seats at Fenway Park that feature a bar that was built and transported from a bowling lane that used to be lodged under Fenway many moons ago.

But having said that, The Yankees need to take a second look at how they are selling the game of baseball to their (hopefully) future fans. There is a need to do this throughout all of baseball and not just in New York.

The Yankees Twenty-Five Most Memorable Home Runs

In the Yankees storied history, twenty-five of their home runs stand out as moments in time never to be forgotten and always treasured by baseball fans.

But as the pioneer city in America since day one, New York and the New York Yankees, as the team everyone loves to hate,  would do well to lead the way in coming up with better ideas than “sliders” to attract and retain their young fans of the future.