getting people to the ballpark

Teams normally do promotions to get people to the ballpark.  Very popular promotions have been the Beanie Baby promotions of the late-90's, to the Bobblehead promotion which has been very popular for the last 10 years.

One promotion that I thought had gone away was the reduced price on beer nights.  There was a promotion in 1974 called "Ten Cent Beer Night."  It was held in Cleveland to help with sagging attendance.  The game was forfeited by the Indians because of fan's unruly behavior from excess Stroh's consumption.  If you want more info, the Wikipedia link does fine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Cent_Beer_Night .

A fan participating in Ten Cent Beer Night on the baseball field

However, one of the big stories of the 2011 season was the beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow took while attending a Giants/Dodgers game in Los Angeles on April 4.  Stow was beaten in the parking lot, and is still in a coma.  The assailants have not been found despite a $100k reward.

In response to this brutal beating, the Dodgers have agreed to cancel six planned half-price beer nights for the 2011 season.  It looks like after 37 years, teams are still using reduced beer prices to increase attendance.

With this incident, the Dodger's are becoming more known for this incident than what actually happens on the field....