SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Syracuse Chiefs plan to cover five sections in the third deck of NBT Bank Stadium in what the minor-league baseball club is calling an effort to “right-size” the facility to “better fit the population of the area.”
That’s according to a news release that the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals distributed during its announcement on Wednesday at NBT Bank Stadium.
The Chiefs will cover sections 314, 312, 310, 307 and section 305, eliminating 1,519 seats. The seats in those sections would often go unsold at the team’s games.
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The reduction will bring the total number of seats in NBT Bank Stadium to 9,891 with a new capacity of 11,731.
The current number of seats at NBT Bank Stadium is 11,071.
The Chiefs also hope to generate cost savings from the move.
“We no longer are going to have to clean those areas. We’re no longer going to have to send security up there. We’re no longer going to have to send the ushers up there,” Jason Smorol, general manager of the Syracuse Chiefs, said in his remarks at the announcement.
The seats will be covered for the entire season, Smorol added.
The Chiefs are also adjusting their ticket-pricing structure for the 2016 season.
The newly created “upper reserved” (formerly general admission) seating will be $7 if sold in advance, up from the $5 charge for general admission.
Standard discounts for children, seniors and military will remain the same, the team said.
The team is also raising the price of all tickets bought on the day of a game by $1 each.
Size, population comparison
NBT Bank Stadium is a “giant” compared to other stadiums and populations of cities in the Triple-A International League, the Chiefs contend.
The Syracuse metropolitan-statistical area (MSA) has a population of more than 661,000 and NBT Bank Stadium offers more than 11,000 seats.
By comparison, the Charlotte, North Carolina MSA has a population of more than 2.3 million and its BB&T Ballpark has 8,500 seats.
The Columbus, Ohio area has a population of more than 1.9 million and its Huntington Park has 8,800 seats.
Closer to home, the Rochester MSA has a population of more than 1 million and Frontier Field offers 10,800 seats.
The Chiefs noted that other professional sports teams are also covering their seats to reduce capacity, including the Oklahoma City Dodgers and teams in the Florida State League.
The Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball also utilize this seat-covering method in the O.co Coliseum, which was known originally as the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
O.co is short for overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK), a Salt Lake City, Utah–based online retailer.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
PHOTO CAPTION: Syracuse Chiefs plan to cover upper-deck seating sections (right to left) 314, 312, and 310 along the third-base side, along with sections 305 and 307 along the first-base side for the 2016 season. The team is calling it an effort to “right-size” the facility to “better fit the population of the area,” according to a news release. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN)
