Are people in the Tampa Bay area too cheap to support a major league baseball team? (Bay Hill: living, restaurants)

[BucFan]

He makes a lot of money from TV rights - probably as much as he does selling tickets

[BucFan]

Rays Only Have 300 Season-Ticket Holders From St. Petersburg | Rays Index

[BucFan]

Rays execs tell Pinellas commissioners they want stadium options | TBO.com

[FloridaKash]

Put it right next to Raymond James. Build a parking garage to make up for lost space that can be utilized by, the Bucs, Rays and Tampa Yankees minor league team. Or better yet... put the stadium downtown. Obviously the Lightning are able to pull decent numbers for their games in a downtown location. Not to mention, this would be a another thing to help revitalize downtown. Although, I think Raymond James is easier to access for weekday games.

Also, the Lightning just do a great job of promoting their team. On the way home last night I saw 3 billboards advertising the Lightning game that night along with two radio ads. The Rays need to step up their advertising, have more interesting promotions and push them harder.

[gonzoUSF]

Originally Posted by BucFan

Rays Only Have 300 Season-Ticket Holders From St. Petersburg | Rays Index

It's been widely known that the majority of the Rays fans support has come from across the Bay, from the likes of Hillsborough and Tampa, but the fact that only 300 (so far) St. Petersburg residents have season tickets is an absolutely abysmal figure. It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those and how much of those tickets are from businesses versus residents. It would also be interesting to know the figure for Hillsborough or Tampa.

As for the Lightning, bouncing off from what someone posted above, they are by far the superior organization in the Bay area and I think attendance figures backs that up. One of the things I have noticed is they are the most prevalent in the community, they always have activities, events fan appreciation events, downtown ice skating, etc., the list goes on an on. Not to mention they have one of the best front offices and owners in all of sports. I am sure that reason, coupled with the downtown location, stadium experience and on ice product is the reason for such good attendance numbers. Last nights game, on a Tuesday night was sold out, pretty impressive.

[tampagator89]

Originally Posted by gonzoUSF

It's been widely known that the majority of the Rays fans support has come from across the Bay, from the likes of Hillsborough and Tampa, but the fact that only 300 (so far) St. Petersburg residents have season tickets is an absolutely abysmal figure. It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those and how much of those tickets are from businesses versus residents. It would also be interesting to know the figure for Hillsborough or Tampa.

As for the Lightning, bouncing off from what someone posted above, they are by far the superior organization in the Bay area and I think attendance figures backs that up. One of the things I have noticed is they are the most prevalent in the community, they always have activities, events fan appreciation events, downtown ice skating, etc., the list goes on an on. Not to mention they have one of the best front offices and owners in all of sports. I am sure that reason, coupled with the downtown location, stadium experience and on ice product is the reason for such good attendance numbers. Last nights game, on a Tuesday night was sold out, pretty impressive.

This a good post, as it brings up the four fundamental things for a sports franchise to be successful in a given area: it needs to be good, in a nice stadium, convenient, and with good fan relations. Rays have 2/4, which = last in attendance. Bucs have 2/4, which = very low attendance. Lightning have 4/4 = sellout.

The problem this area has is you pretty much have to nab a 4/4 to be successful, whereas other areas you might just need 3/4 to sell out...unless you can work your way around this system (ie, building a stadium with a roller coaster in it or something so that if the team is bad, people still attend for the roller coaster). This is why MLB has questions about Tampa and wants to move the team to a potential "3/4" location.

[BucFan]

Originally Posted by gonzoUSF

It's been widely known that the majority of the Rays fans support has come from across the Bay, from the likes of Hillsborough and Tampa, but the fact that only 300 (so far) St. Petersburg residents have season tickets is an absolutely abysmal figure. It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those and how much of those tickets are from businesses versus residents. It would also be interesting to know the figure for Hillsborough or Tampa.

As for the Lightning, bouncing off from what someone posted above, they are by far the superior organization in the Bay area and I think attendance figures backs that up. One of the things I have noticed is they are the most prevalent in the community, they always have activities, events fan appreciation events, downtown ice skating, etc., the list goes on an on. Not to mention they have one of the best front offices and owners in all of sports. I am sure that reason, coupled with the downtown location, stadium experience and on ice product is the reason for such good attendance numbers. Last nights game, on a Tuesday night was sold out, pretty impressive.

Only 1/3 of the fans come from Hillsborough County, 1/3 from Pinellas County, and the rest from elsewhere (Pasco, Manatee, Sarasota, Orange).

[vaughanwilliams]

Originally Posted by boxus

Maybe people just do not like baseball, it happens, some markets have lots of baseball loving people, others do not.

True. When the St. Pete Cardinals were here, we use to go to 20 night games a year, but I just don't get into the big leagues at all. The minors were just more fun.

[BucFan]

I'll go to the usual 10-20 games as long as they're here. If they leave, I'll just find something else to do w/ my disposable income. There's always baseball on the HDTV.

[HughMcs]

I would have thought that with all the retired transplants there would be a lot of northern baseball fans going to the Rays games. When we visit the St Pete area during baseball season I always try to take in a game at the Trop. While I'm not a big fan of indoor baseball stadiums the Trop is deal for Florida summer weather (meaning the afternoon thunderstorms). I love the price because is it so much cheaper than going to a Yankee game in the Bronx (parking is $35 beers are about $12 and hot dogs go for $8). I usually stay in Pasco and I didn't find the drive to the Trop to be bad at all (when compared to NYC traffic). I go have a feeling that MLB will allow the team to go out of state because moving the team nearer to the football stadium will never solve the problem that the entire area will not support an MLB team (damn shame).