The Tampa Bay Rays officially remain bewildered that attendance isn’t better. Oh, it’s improved from last year, but that requires context. The improvement’s built on a very modest base. Relative to most other franchises, let alone one that made it to the World Series, the Rays remain laggards at the box office. They are 24th out of 30 Major League franchises.
And that recent three-game set with the Phillies, which averaged less than 20,000 per (mid-week) night, soberly underscored the point to Rays’ management. That same series would have drawn sold-out, capacity-plus crowds in Philly, or more than double the crowd size at the Trop. The uncomfortable truth may be that baseball just doesn’t play that well here. And maybe the answer ultimately lies in relocation.
As a native of Philadelphia – and a FORMER Phillies’ fan – I’ll weigh in.
First of all, baseball in cities such as Philly, Chicago, Boston or New York are societal fixtures. It’s what you do – generation after generation, good teams and bad – in the summer. The tradition here is that of cut-rate, casual, spring exhibition baseball with tourists following their home-town teams while on vacation. It’s not the same thing. Not nearly.
This is still a life-style market, with most folks from somewhere else, some still clinging to former allegiances. Golf, tennis, fishing, swimming, boating and retreating to western North Carolina are big. There are, quite arguably, better things to do in the summer than go to a baseball game.
But if you’re inclined, it would help if the home team didn’t play in the ill-suited, much-maligned, cat-walk house that is the Trop. And in an asymmetrical, non-traditional market sans mass transit, it hardly helps that the field is not closer to the population centers, especially Tampa – and even Orlando.
Plus, the Tampa Bay market is saddled with a dearth of corporate headquarters. This key sector generates more than sponsorships; it’s also typically responsible for a critical share of a franchise’s season-ticket base – that which ensures good turnouts on a regular basis.
Other than that, who can figure why only 19,000 live ones show up on a given (non-concert) night in June in St. Petersburg for a World Series rematch?