Detroit plans auction for Old Tiger Stadium

ailAs of yesterday afternoon, there were no bidders, Zeiler said.

Zeiler said the city of Detroit and DEGC will auction “whatever people might be interested in.”
In 2005, St. Louis-based Schneider Industries organized a similar auction of equipment from Busch Stadium, former home of the Cardinals. The auction, one of the most successful of its kind, fetched almost $1 million.

“We’d like to sell everything from seats, section signs, turnstiles and maintenance equipment,” Zeiler said. “Somebody paid $15,000 for a trough urinal in another stadium auction.”
“Tiger Stadium is important to a lot of people in Detroit,” said Bruce Schneider, president and CEO of auction company Schneider Industries. He said he thinks the auction will be successful.

Josh Evans, chairman of Lelands.com, an auction company specializing in sports memorabilia, said his company sold a Detroit Tigers jersey in a previous auction for $167,000.

Zeiler said the DEGC is studying other stadium auctions because, “Each stadium had its own set of circumstances and we picked the best of each so we can have the most success.”

No one is sure how much revenue the Tiger Stadium auction will generate, but Evans said other sports auctions have generated as much as $27 million in sales. Items can cost from a few dollars to hundreds of thousand of dollars.

Zeiler said he isn’t sure which items are of value but, “the auction company that earns the bid will determine which items are worthy of sale.”
The auction will be internet-based.

“Online auctions are important because people can bid from the comfort of their own home, and there is a worldwide customer base,” Evans said.