When it comes to getting fans in the stands for Angels games, team owner Arte Moreno believes more people care about affordability than a winning product on the field, and that hasn’t sat well with the MLB Players Association.
Moreno told local reporters on Friday that the “number one thing fans want is affordability” and that “winning is not in their top five.”
The Angels’ owner cited surveys the club had done, but did not appear to provide much more detail. New union head Bruce Meyer told The Athletic on Sunday that “players took notice of it” and that “we took notice of it too.”
“The bottom line is players are competitors. They grew up competing every day. They go out, and they try their hardest to win every game. And players want to see owners doing the same thing,” Meyer told the outlet.
“The number one thing fans want is affordability,” Moreno had said in Friday. “They want affordability. They want safety, and they want a good experience when they come to the ballpark. Believe it or not, winning is not in their top five.”
He went on to explain that “moms” are looking for affordable activities to take their kids to,
“Moms make about 80% of the decisions,” he said. “They want to be able to bring their kids and be affordable and they want safety and they want to have a good experience, so they get all the entertainment stuff or whatever. The purists, you know, it’s just straight winning.”
The Angels slashed payroll, sitting around $155 million, which accounts for the deferred payments to injured third baseman Anthony Rendon.
The Angels have been dealing with the fallout of the loss of local television as they, along with eight other franchises, recently left Main Street Sports Group, owner of the FanDuel Sports Networks.
Seven of those nine teams joined up with MLB Media to broadcast the games, but the Angels have yet to decide on a course of action.
“Will [payroll] get back to $200 million? Probably,” Moreno told reporters on Friday. “We’ve got to get our TV thing worked out, and we just have to improve our brand.”
But Meyer seemed to feel that the Angels’ approach was part of a larger issue with certain teams not spending the way they should, especially in a major market like Los Angeles.
“If you can’t have a successful operation in Los Angeles, it’s hard to see what the problem is,” Meyer said. “It’s easy to make excuses, but certainly the Los Angeles Angels have resources to compete in every respect.
“To come out and say that winning is not a priority, not even in the top five priorities, is really pretty remarkable.”