Will 2023 Oakland A's set modern team record for season losses?

[dmoy]

It's also important to note the insane season ticket price increases that the A's implemented after the pandemic. I had been a season ticket holder since 2003, albeit a partial plan. My costs increased by 60% before the 2020 season to 2022 when they reopened seating to no distancing.

With this 60% increase, almost all of the season ticket holder benefits were taken away: parking discounts, merchandise discount at the team store, and various food/drink deals.

This is almost the plot to "Major League" to a tee; going into 2022, they raised prices, stripped away benefits, and dismantled the team's roster to its bones that had been on pace to a historically bad record this year prior to this recent winning streak. And it's important to note that the Coliseum is now 57 years old with a plethora of upkeep issues (sewage, infestation, et al.) Unlike the older stadiums like Fenway and Wrigley, the Coliseum is a dilapidated concrete bowl shaped for "multi-purpose use" since they had shared with the Raiders.

As an analogy, assume you had a favorite restaurant that you'd been going to weekly, but this restaurant just replaced all of its staff with unproven junior staff, while raising prices and letting its decor deteriorate, would you blame the customers for not going to this restaurant after the changes or blame the ownership?

In 2014, the A's averaged 25k in attendance when they started that season on an incredibly hot start (66-41 through July 31st) that sputtered into a miserable loss in the wild card game against the Royals.

I'll quickly give one reminder about the team's ownership behavior recently: they were the only team that had avoided paying their minor leaguers $400/week during the 2020 Covid shutdown until enough public pressure forced their hand to comply.

Final note: when I called into sadly cancel my season ticket plan after 18 years, the phone call lasted two minutes with no effort for retention or any substantial conversation about why I wanted to cancel my plan. At best, this doesn't like a smartly-run business to not try to retain loyal customers; at worst, this was a premeditated plan to actively drive customers away.