(EDITORS NOTE: The author is a published sports journalist who gives readers a first-hand account of the Staten Island Yankees rocky relationship with the New York Yankees, its unprecedented lawsuit against MLB and the Yankees, attendance and financial struggles, internal strife within the franchise, and deteriorating ballpark conditions. Human-interest angles, such as COVIDs impact on team personnel, are examined as well.)

SECOND IN A SERIES

Minor league baseball inside Robert Pimpsner admits that Staten Island may not have the tourism lure of Coney Island or other NYC hotspots.

However, he argues the Staten Island demographic should not be overlooked, especially in terms of its love for baseball. With a population of almost half a million, the Island has a potential market larger than that of Oakland, Minneapolis, Anaheim, St. Louis, Cleveland, and other Major League cities. Staten Island also has the highest median income of the five boroughs many families there can easily afford a night at a minor league ballpark.

With an attractive market, why did the team draw so poorly? In addition to factors already discussed in part 1 of the series, Pimpsner points to a dearth of marketing in the franchises backyard.

READ PART 1 OF THE SERIES HERE

There was a weak connection with the community, Pimpsner claims. The team was too focused on trying to attract people from Manhattan and New Jersey.

Pimpsner notes the Cyclones may have advertised more effectively on Staten Island than the home team; the Brooklyn club even had signs along Staten Island roadways. He estimates close to half of Staten Islanders are Mets fans who may have been turned off by a squad named Yankees.

And there was always the running joke between fans that citizens on the south side of the borough were not even aware of the Staten Island Yankees existence.

Attendance woes plagued the Staten Island Yankees in recent years. Nearby construction of the Empire Outlets and New York Wheel, costing valuable parking space, is partly to blame; others also cite a weak bond between team and community. (Staten Island Advance/Victoria Priolo)

BALLPARK EXPERIENCE WAS LACKING

David Percarpio, who worked for the Staten Island Yankees from 2014 to 2020, first as senior account executive, then as group sales manager, and eventually as director of merchandise though, views the ballpark experience as the main issue.

The team never did anything to entice people to come to the park, Percarpio says. And there wasnt enough of an effort to reach out to the people who had had a negative experience at the stadium.

People had been conditioned to expect more giveaways and better promotions. When the team began to scale back in that department, it started losing fans.

Pam Cocozello, a die-hard S.I. Yankees fan and season ticket holder since 1999, also observed a decline in fan-centered promotions.

Early on the promotions were better, Cocozello says. They used to give away tickets to Broadway shows, oil changes and car washes, gift cards, and more.

Percarpio also complains that jersey and bobblehead giveaways, which fans loved, waned over the years. But it was the inflexibility and lack of variety that irk him most.

It became the same crap every year, Percarpio sighs. Our gameday promotions, presentation, and much of our merchandise were old, never changed, and werent creativeand fans began to notice.

Even the celebrities brought to the ballpark were lower tier. The Cyclones always blew us out of the water when it came to promotions. The problem was that our marketing budget was incredibly shrunk over the years.

SOME HUGE PROMOTIONS

Percarpio and others also acknowledge the home runs the S.I. Yankees hit in the promotions department, even if they believe there were few. The team held a wildly successful Game of Thrones night in 2015 and featured a Pride night to celebrate the LGBTQ community before either MLB team in New York had done so.

Here is a look at the uniforms, merchandize and food associated with the Pizza Rats games at Richmond County Bank Ballpark in 2019.

The promotion that generated the most buzz also managed to polarize fans. Back in 2016, the team had sought to drop Yankees from its name and permanently adopt a new moniker. Five names were chosen as possibilities. Pizza Rats, in reference to the 2015 viral video of a rat dragging a slice of pizza down NYC subway stairs, was one of them. The name was to be decided by fans and was put to a vote. Pizza Rats won. Management, however, missed filing deadlines to make Pizza Rats the new name and logo.

Pimpsner adds that the name change had received considerable pushback from some Staten Islanders, including season ticket holders, and the New York Yankees. In its lawsuit, Nostalgic Partners LLC claims that the Major League club vociferously rebuked the name change and threatened to terminate affiliation with Staten Island. Plus, Percarpio says some team sponsors opposed the Pizza Rat moniker as well. With these obstacles, Pizza Rats became only a temporary name for a handful of games mostly on Saturday nights during the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Many Staten Islanders feel the name had little connection to their home. They have a point: Pizza Rats is derived from an insignificant occurrence in another borough. Staten Islanders voices in the matter may have been muffled to an extent: the vote was also open to fans outside of Staten Island and the whittling down of possible names to a top five was done by the team, not the fans. Additionally, the team had used the help of a branding company in making these decisions.

SOME FANS BOYCOTTED THE PIZZA RATS GAMES

Cocozello and fellow die-hard fan Beverly Vaiano, both from Staten Island, loathed the Pizza Rats name and boycotted the games in which it was used. Vaiano, a season-ticket holder since 2001, and Cocozello even emailed team management and MiLB, expressing their displeasure.

The Pizza Rat name may have sold merchandise, but I dont think it helped contribute that much to attendance, Vaiano says. People were going to those Saturday night games regardless, partly because of the fireworks and partly because it was a Saturday night.

The change of the name was the death of the team, Cocozello plainly states. Management should have had a meeting with the season-ticket holders and asked for our input. We knew what worked and what wouldnt work.

However, from a short-term business and marketing standpoint, the alternative identity was undeniably successful. The rebranding drew national press. Pizza Rat merchandise was flying off the shelvesout-of-state and international orders were coming in. Some employees say Pizza Rat merchandise sold 10 times more than other items.

The Pizza Rats promotion was great, Reicin insists. If you understand minor league baseball and what its all about, you have to love it.

There are Mets fans on Staten Island as well, and changing the name from Yankees probably helped in attracting their attention. I know that traditionalists and the Yankees may have had a distaste for it. But if Trenton could temporarily be the Pork Roll, what was wrong with Pizza Rats for Staten Island?

Like Reicin, Smith loved the alternative moniker and believes it wasnt as resented by Island residents as thought.

UNFORGETTABLE PROMOTION

I once talked to a fan at a game who hated the idea of the Pizza Rats name and promotion, Smith recalls. But when he saw the logos, he was soon posting a picture to social media of him wearing a Pizza Rats shirt while smiling and with his thumbs up. Point is, I think a lot of people came around to it.

It was an unforgettable promotion and an organic way to draw new fans.

That may be the case, but some will argue the cost of that marketing ploy was drawing the ire of the New York Yankees.

The S.I. Yankees ending their partnership with Legends Hospitality (the company that had run the stadiums concessions) in 2019 also irritated Bronx higher-ups, according to Pimpsner and Percarpio. The New York Yankees were supposedly unhappy because Legends Hospitality is their concessions operator as well.

Reicin refutes this, saying the Yankees were pretty accommodating regarding the decision. He says his team discontinued its relationship with Legends Hospitality to assume more control and increase flexibility in the concessions department. Percarpio, though, viewed it purely as a financial consideration, since the team would increase profits from merchandise and food sales if concessions were operated internally.

According to Percarpio and Anthony Silvia, the clubs stadium operations manager from 2017 to 2019, such profits were far from enough. Both claim the team was in dire financial straits during the second half of the 2010s.

The team was hemorrhaging money, Percarpio says. I dont think there was one year where we hit our budget goals. We continually finished in the red.

The place was an absolute money pit, Silvia remembers.

Several employees estimate ownership had to pay out one to two million dollars per year just to cover losses, but this has not been verified.

(Coming tomorrow: Staten Island Yankees claim they always felt like the redheaded stepchild)

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Pinstriped Purgatory: Weak connection to the community, Pizza Rats promotion doomed Staten Island Yankees - SILive.com