Padres CEO Jeff Moorad was in the Channel 4 Broadcast booth during Saturday's Spring Training game. I wasn't near a computer and I didn't have any note taking devices so I tried really hard to memorize his every word. Here's what I remember of his talking points:
New HD video screen for 2012
Moorad's goal is to install a new HD scoreboard by next year. He says it will cost approximately $15 million. The hardware itself is only $5 million but other costs (shipping? tax? installation?) will be about $10 million.
If I remember correctly, our current scoreboard is ancient. It was purchased right after Prop C was passed and sat in storage while court battles held up the building of the ballpark. So really the scoreboard we are looking at now is a decade old.
I'd like to see them upgrade the screen on the back of the batter's eye too. Maybe move one of the old jumbo trons out to the kids playground. I want these screens looking so good that I don't even have to look at the field.
Padres pay $17 Million a year in ballpark debt
Moorad said that Forbes report on team finances neglected to mention their huge debt payments each year.
Padres Store might move to Candy Factory
They are thinking about moving the Padres Team Store into the Showley Brothers Candy Factory located in the Park at the Park. That would be a really big Padres store filled with really overpriced Padres gear.
I'd prefer they turn the Candy Factory into a Padres museum. It'd be a great place to tour in the off-season as well as during a slow game. They could even hold events there or use it to archive historical artifacts.
They should make it a creepy museum with Padres relics, wax figures, curiosities, etc. They could put unsettling artifacts on display, like Tony Gwynn Jr's hamate bone that was removed last year or the despised Padres mascot Bluepper costume.
In the corner I'd put a small dark museum gift shop run by an old Chinese man. He'd sell you Padres oddities, like gauze from botched Padres surgeries, medical photos of inflamed venereal diseases, shrunken heads sewn with baseball style stitching, used spit tobacco or a Mogwai.
Maybe even have an area that is a tomb where past Padres presidents lie in state.
Padres Ownership Group now up to 15 members
Moorad said that Padres ownership group all met up in Arizona this weekend. I imagine they met in a Bohemian Grove type setting with secret ceremonies and goat masks. He mentioned that they had a quorum of 15 members. FIFTEEN?! It took us 2 years to figure out who the secret 12th member of the ownership group was and now we have to find out 3 more.