The Rays draw 19,000?

[Matt]

stop complaining about the number of fans at the stadium.

there is support in the community.  the sales of jerseys, hats, shirts, are through the roof.  fact of the matter is, if you work in tampa and get off at 5pm you can NOT go home to new tampa, brandon, riverview, westchase, even south tampa and get your family then get to the game in time during the week.

so quit the bitcihing.

look at the weekend attendence...havent had a game under 30K

[Jamie]

Most teams draw signifcantly worse on weeknights than they do on Fri-Sat-Sun. That's just a fact and it has nothing to do with market size or the quality of the team. Look at the Dodgers - they're drawing 15,000 fewer fans Mon-Thur than they are on the weekends.

And speaking of them, look at who they're playing this week, the White Sox. They made the playoffs last year and the best team in baseball is visiting for three games. And they're in a huge market. The crowds the last two nights have been 22,251 and 20,142.

The only teams that draw the same on any day of the week are the ones who sell out every game, which means the Red Sox and Cubs.

P.S. If Rays fans were truly pathetic, then the Trop should have had THOUSANDS of Philly fans in there tonight, and that wasn't the case. It's an economy and location problem, not a "Rays fans suck" problem.

P.P.S. If it counts for anything, I have tickets for four of the six games the Rays are playing in Texas. The fifth is a Sunday night game, and the sixth is the day USF plays FSU.

[Joe]

Its not just me. Silverman had some similar feelings in the Trbune this morning.

only three teams hd worse attendance than the Rays Tuesday night...even the Nationls filled thei park for a marque game.

T-shirts and stickers are fine, but owners need ticket revenue to survive.

Again Silverman and Maddon have made comments about how people didn't show for this series...It's a major issue.

[Bullpride08]

Its not just me. Silverman had some similar feelings in the Trbune this morning.

only three teams hd worse attendance than the Rays Tuesday night...even the Nationls filled thei park for a marque game.

T-shirts and stickers are fine, but owners need ticket revenue to survive.

Again Silverman and Maddon have made comments about how people didn't show for this series...It's a major issue.

The comments were made for the eventual new stadium.

The statistics speak for themselves.  Where the current stadium is located at, the feasibility studies, one done by the Rays and Pinellas County, both showed that within 30 minutes of the Trop there are just over 600k fans available.  However, if they moved to a stadium in the Gateway/Carillon Area that 20 mile hike alone would put them in a range where nearly 1.4M fans would be within that range.

The MLB average for stadiums based on location is 1.4M....so effectively it is presumed attendance could nearly double by just relocating the stadium to a more optimal, and visible location.  The point is this stadium is remote, and couldn't have been located in a worse place if it was trying to attract the true urban core of Tampa Bay.  In the downtown St. Pete area, many of those 600k also comprise of retirees, and seasonal inhabitants, unlike areas like Tampa.  For example, Ray Jay's location is within 30 minutes of nearly 1.6M people.  The idea is you located close to the most people for convenience, and the fringe fans will still drive on a occasion to fill the gaps.  Not locate so remotely that it isn't convenient to the family urban core of the city.

I am glad the downtown waterfront idea failed, St. Petersburg was stupid not to get completely behind it because it was there only way to keep the Rays in that area.  Now you can almost guarantee that within 10 years they'll be somewhere in North Pinellas or Hillsborough.  The ownership group sees it, the statistics from feasibility studies by both sides are mindboggling how badly this stadium is located in relation to the urban core.  There is no way in the world that if the stadium moved to Carillon/Gateway, or even in Hillsborough...that the attendance wouldn't jump by an average of 25-30% immediately.

That move would be great for me.  I live approximately 1 hour away from the stadium now in Land-O-Lakes.  I am avid fan, have already attended 4 games, with 4-6 more at least this year, and average 10-15 each year.  However they're so far away it isn't even an option to consider for me on many occasions.  And it sucks because my wife loves them too, and would go to a game in a heartbeat.  Put it in Carillon Area, and that cuts 20+ minutes off my commute.

[BULLfreak]

Its really hard to complain about the attendance when it is up 23.3% over last seasons while the attendance has dropped nearly 5% across the sport in 2009

[Matt]

only three teams hd worse attendance than the Rays Tuesday night...even the Nationls filled thei park for a marque game.

umm...the nationals were playing the red sox.  do you have any clue how many red sox fans there are in the DC area?

cant compare that to rays vs phillies

[813knight]

if they built a ballpark in Channelside it would be a huge boom for the city of Tampa. Yeah parking would be an issue but it's always an issue at nice parks in the center of everything, all those empty condos/apartments might start filling up when you have the choice of 40 home hockey games, concerts, and 81 home Major League baseball games a walk a way, more restaurants/bars would open up around downtown...property values start rising even more...it's nothing but a positive....Tampa needs to find a way to steal that team from Pinellas before the Rays end up out of the market completely

[Joe]

Excuses...that's all anyone has.

It's not just me, it's the owner and the president. The excuses keep coming, but they're lame.

Sorry.

[Bruce Blingstein]

Excuses...that's all anyone has.

It's not just me, it's the owner and the president. The excuses keep coming, but they're lame.

Sorry.

all excuses.

people who defend everything, defend nothing. 

major issue to say the least, write 12 paragraphs about it, but in summary...its sad. 

[BULLfreak]

Excuses...that's all anyone has.

It's not just me, it's the owner and the president. The excuses keep coming, but they're lame.

Sorry.

all excuses.

people who defend everything, defend nothing. 

major issue to say the least, write 12 paragraphs about it, but in summary...its sad. 

I have a half season package what else can I do.