DAYTON DRAGONS MILESTONES
Feb. 23, 1999: Team franchise approved for Dayton
April 27, 2000: Dragons’ first home game at Fifith Third Field
July 9, 2011: 815th consecutive sellout, breaking record
April 12, 2013: Dragons’ majority owner says its teams are for sale
May 10, 2014: 1,000th straight sold-out game
July 2, 2014: Owners reach agreement to sell team to Palisades Arcadia Baseball
April 12, 2015: Dragons home opener with 1,051-game sellout streak intact and a new HD video board
Source: Dayton Dragons, Dayton Daily News research
The Dayton Dragons take the field for their 2015 home opener today with new ownership, several new fan-friendly amenities — and an emerging role as an economic-development stimulus for downtown Dayton.
Sandy Gudorf, president of the Downtown Dayton Partnership, said the Dragons impact on downtown has been considerable.
“When Fifth Third Field was built 16 years ago, we were still struggling with how to bring people downtown,” Gudorf said. “Since then, year after year, the Dragons bring tens of thousands of people downtown.”
The re-development of the area around the stadium has been slower to come, in part because city and economic development officials were still focusing their efforts on projects such as RiverScape MetroPark and the Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center rather than the area just east of downtown Dayton when Fifth Third Field is located, Gudorf said.
But development activity in close proximity to the ball park has picked up in recent months, with the $36 million Water Street commercial/residential project well underway near the stadium, and that project’s developer, Columbus-based Crawford Hoying, purchasing a former warehouse next to Fifth Third Field and unveiling plans to turn the warehouse into apartments atop ground-floor retail spaces.
In addition, Charles Simms Development wants to build a $4.5 million townhouse development near the ballpark district, and the Dayton Beer Company will soon open its new beer hall and brewing facility off East Second Street near the Dragons home field.
Those developments, Gudorf said, appear to be more sustainable than retailers that might have sought to capitalize solely on the 70 dates that the Dragons play home games.
Jason Woodard, principal of Dayton-based Woodard Real Estate Resources and joint-venture partner with Crawford Hoying in the Water Street project, said having Fifth Third Field on one side of the project, and the river on the other side, “is a big bonus for us.”
The team’s management will soon seek to measure that financial benefit. “An economic-impact study is on our list of things to do, probably this year,” said Robert Murphy, the team’s president who has served in that capacity since the Dragons were founded.
New ownership
Woodard said he and the Water Street project partners were somewhat concerned to learn of the late 2014 Dragons ownership change, but have now seen from the off-season investments that the new ownership is dedicated to the stadium’s and team’s success.
“It’s not just the direct dollars and cents,” Woodard said. “It’s the broad draw that the Dragons have, bringing people to the downtown area who might not otherwise come. That exposure is huge.”
Palisades Arcadia Baseball LLC bought the Dragons in August 2014 from what had been the team’s only owner, Mandalay Baseball Properties. Palisades Arcadia was founded by three friends who are Harvard University graduates, all of whom live on the east coast.
Co-owner and Dragons co-chairman Nick Sakellariadis reassured the community last August that he and his fellow owners plan no wholesale changes to the way the Dragons operate, and noted that the new owners’ first act was to retain the Dragons’ existing executive team, including Murphy and executive vice president Eric Deutsch.
Murphy said the ownership transition “has gone very easily, and very well.” And the Downtown Dayton Partnership’s Gudorf praised the recent enhancements and the team’s new owners.
“It’s great to see the additional investment they’ve made in this first season,” Gudorf said. “It shows that the team’s new ownership is committed to the long-term success of the Dragons.”
Economic impact
Three years ago, Harrison Plourde, a graduate student at Ball State University, studied the Class-A Minor League Baseball team’s economic impact on Dayton as part of a master’s thesis for his degree in urban and regional planning.
“While minor league baseball may be minor in terms of direct economic impact, the impact of consistently having over 8,000 fans downtown seventy days a year cannot be underestimated,” Plourde wrote. “Fifth Third Field showed that the city was ready to reinvest in downtown, and the instant and sustained success that the team has enjoyed from the community changed perceptions about the entire district.
“The Dragons have succeeded in maintaining consumer loyalty for over a decade not through flashy ballpark design, or abundance of increasingly absurd gimmick nights … Their success is a result of attention to customer service in and out of the ballpark, implementation of a variety of types of entertainment during games, and fan‐friendly amenities and prices.”
New this year
Murphy and the Dragons staff added to that list of fan-friendly amenities during the off-season. Here’s a sampling of the enhancements that will be unveiled starting with this afternoon’s game:
• A new 2,050-square-foot, high-definition video board that is among the first in minor league baseball to feature “13HD” technology, which is currently in use at a handful of Major League Baseball and eight National Football League stadiums. The total project cost of demolishing the old scoreboard and installing the new video board exceeded $1 million.
• A new barbecue smoker that Murphy called “a beast” and which will be used to prepare barbecue dishes such as brisket, ribs, chicken and pulled pork, served up with traditional sides at the “Monument Avenue BBQ” along the third-base line.
• Along the first-base side, a craft-beer destination called Milano’s Tap Room that will feature 10 taps of a rotating selection of craft beers, including at least one local or regional brew.
• Entertainment that includes a new Dragons mascot named “Princess Sunny,” who will arrive via carriage during her special appearances, and visit from The Chicken, Jesse White Tumblers, and an extreme Pogo team, among others.
Murphy said the new video board and other off-season investments illustrate the desire of the Dragons’ new ownership to maintain fan loyalty that has resulted in 1,051 consecutive sellouts, a record for professional sports. The Dragons have placed at the top among all Class A minor league teams in attendance each season of their existence.
“They get it that we need to be first class, that we need to be professional, that we need to be at the head of the pack,” Murphy said.
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