Washington Nationals Column

As regular readers know, I am a credentialed reporter covering the Major League Baseball Washington Nationals for the Alexandria Times - known in the RFK Stadium press box as the "Mighty Alexandria Times."

As the MAT is a weekly newspaper, very few people in Alexandria, VA are fooled into thinking they are going to get the box scores, so I write a baseball column.

This was the column from June 11


WITHOUT STAN

Last week the Washington Nationals invited the press to tour the new baseball stadium just off South Capital Street. The tour was timed to coincide with the Nationals’ announcement of its ticket prices and seating chart for the 2008 season.

Top price at the new stadium will be about $300 (there is a premium on the premium for front row seats but let’s let that go for now). There are 81 home games in Major League Baseball so that is a pretty hefty investment of $24,300.

Before you think that sounds outrageous, consider similar packages for the Wizards’ NBA home games and the Capitals’ NHL home games. Wiz tickets (again not counting the Jack Nicholson seats) are about $430 per seat for each of the 41 home games. Caps tickets for next season (also 41 home games) have a top price of about $165 per.

Follow me here: Add $430 and $165 and divide by two. What do you get? $297.50.

What a coincidence. Nationals’ team president Stan Kasten happened to come up with a top price which is within a half a hotdog of the average top price for Wizards or Caps games.

While we’re at it, on the low end, the lowest priced ticket for a Nationals’ home game will be $5. The low end of Wiz and Caps are $22 and $15 respectively.

Actually, there is nothing about the Nationals which doesn’t have Stan Kasten’s imprint on it.

Kasten’s sports biography is astonishing. In a backgrounder written by Washington Post reporter Dave Sheinin last year, he pointed out that Kasten had been – simultaneously – the president of all three major sports teams in Atlanta – the Baseball Braves, the Basketball Hawks, and the Hockey Thrashers.

Kasten understand the business of sports. At the news conference Kasten said that the Nationals have to be successful as a business venture but, he said, it is the premium ticket and skybox buyers who allow the team to make seats available to “Joe fan” at $5 and $10.

Kasten also understands the sport of sports. From Sheinen’s 2006 piece: “In 1991, a year after finishing last for the third straight year, the Braves captured the National League West title” and then ran off thirteen straight through the 2005 season.

When D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was Councilman Fenty he opposed the plan to have the District put up the money for the new stadium. But since becoming Mayor, Fenty has moved consistently to consolidate and streamline decision-making authority for major projects like the stadium and the development of the surrounding area.

Anyone who thinks Stan Kasten hasn’t been in close contact with the Mayor probably doesn’t understand either man. Kasten oversaw the construction and development of the new structures for all three professional teams in Atlanta and Fenty is plenty smart enough to listen to a man who has actually done it.

As I looked down on the construction site which, in about 10 months will be the Nationals’ home stadium, I thought: None of this would be the same without Stan Kasten.

There would be a Major League Baseball team in Washington, but it might not be owned by the Lerners. Even it if were, without Kasten the Lerners might not have decided to invest tens of millions of additional dollars in long-term development because without Kasten there would be zero confidence in the region that a successful team will be built from the bottom up.

Whoever owned the team might well have succumbed to the siren song of buying fan loyalty with high-priced free agent talent. Ask Dan Snyder how that worked out for him.

And, without Kasten, there would be a stadium, but it would probably look like the HUD building with the roof taken off.