By Neil Offen

noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646

DURHAM -- At the major league level, it's the holy grail, the golden egg at the end of a long search.

But making the playoffs for the Durham Bulls isn't a big money-maker. The good news is, these days at least it's no longer a money-loser.

"It's one of those weird things, the opposite of what you think normal sports would be," said Mike Birling, the Bulls general manager. "We have tremendous crowds throughout the regular season, but in the playoffs, we really struggle to get people in."

The Bulls begin their post-season run tonight, at home against the Louisville Bats in the opener of a best-of-five series. The team that drew around 489,000 during the regular season -- down a little bit from the year before -- hopes to have an attendance of, maybe, 1,500 this evening.

"Over a third of our ticket sales are group sales, and when you're not sure what dates you're going to have playoffs, well, it's just difficult to sell a lot of tickets," said Birling.

There are other reasons, too.

The post-season tickets aren't included in the regular ticket package. The games are in the middle of the week. "And the kids are back in school," pointed out Matt DeMargel, the Bulls' director of media relations.

And of course, it's September and there's football.

"That's our toughest job now," said Birling, "to remind people that even though it's football season, we're still here."

On Tuesday, the team sent out representatives with fliers to local college campuses, reminding students that it's still baseball season, too. "We're also doing a lot of e-mail blasts and social networking things, just letting people know we're here," said Birling.

The Bulls have made the playoffs in nine of the past 12 years, and as DeMargel put it, "it's always better to make the playoffs than not to."

But during the first few years, making the playoffs actually cost the team money.

When you don't know who you're playing until the last moment, traveling -- for equipment and personnel -- is expensive. "You have to charter a plane, and then there's revenue sharing -- part of the money from ticket sales has to go to the other team and part has to go to the International League," Birling explained.

In recent years, though, the Bulls have been able to eke out a little profit from their post-season efforts.

All the teams now use the same charter companies, so they get a better rate. And the league has helped out, changing the percentages of who gets what.

"If you make it to the first round, you barely make a little," Birling said. "If you make it to the second round, you will make a little larger profit ... but we're still talking about small numbers."

While the playoffs have little impact on the Bulls' bottom line, they do have an impact on the city's.

"Anytime you have the opportunity to have the Bulls in the playoffs, you are providing another opportunity for dollars to be spent in downtown Durham, and that's a really good thing," said Casey Steinbacher, the president and CEO of the Durham Chamber of Commerce.

And whatever the size of tonight's crowd, it means more folks at local restaurants and businesses, Steinbacher said. "Most of the people going to the game will stop around the area -- the businesses at American Tobacco always do better when the Bulls play," she said. "People make it part of a night of entertainment."

The Chamber of Commerce estimates that during the season, the Bulls' overall value added impact to Durham economy's is $19.6 million. But a playoff run, Steinbacher added, also has more intangible benefits for Durham.

"When the team is playing this well, you not only get the notoriety nationally, you get the players going up to the majors, and each time that happens, we get that national exposure -- so and so was brought up from the Durham Bells," she said. "You put all that together, it's very valuable."