While nobody could have envisioned the entertainment Goliath the Dragons have become, this was baseball, after all, as opposed to minor-league basketball or Costa Papista buying the old Dayton Bombers and piloting the now-defunct hockey team nose-first into the ice.
And as we quickly learned, the Dragons were run by people who knew what they were doing, by people who understood the importance of marketing and how if you treat fans to a good show, there’s a good chance you’ll see them again. And maybe they’ll tell a friend or two and then, before you know it, you’ve got 5,700 season-ticket accounts in a stadium with 7,230 seats and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today are knocking at your door wondering how you did it in this economy.
Tonight, midway through their 12th summer, the Dragons will break the Portland Trail Blazers’ record for consecutive professional sports sellouts on this continent. It’s not Hank Aaron passing Babe Ruth, but when you consider what downtown Dayton looked like from April to September in the years before the Dragons debuted, it’s a home run.
And, for so many reasons, not that much of a surprise.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2408 or smcclelland@Dayton DailyNews.com
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