Nobody goes to see the Rays

[Guest 41Forever]

The Rays are planning to close the upper Deck at Tropicana Field, reducing capacity to about 25,000 seats — by far the smallest in the majors.





http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25683771/tampa-bay-rays-eliminate-upper-deck-seating-reduce-capacity-25000http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25683771/tampa-bay-rays-eliminate-upper-deck-seating-reduce-capacity-25000

[Fman99]

It's not like they draw 25k either. They should close everything past the first 9 rows.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I think the Rays should close up those first 9 rows, too, then close up the rest of the stadium, then play their games in Portland and not call themselves the Rays anymore. I fixed the Rays!

[Willets Point]

Not true. When I watch Red Sox games, the stands at Tropicana are packed with Red Sox fans.

[Frayed Knot]

Willets Point wrote: Not true. When I watch Red Sox games, the stands at Tropicana are packed with Red Sox fans.

Yeah, that's the thing, they sell real well for Sawx and Yanx games.

Not only do they get visiting snowbirds for April games, plus all those northeast transplants, but both those two AL East opponents have a long history with their ST sites on Florida's west coast

so there are native Floridians who were fans of BOS & NYY prior to the history of the Rays themselves.

[Mex17]

The location of the park apparently has something to do with it. They say that it is hard to get to St. Pete from a lot of areas where they want to draw fans. Ybor City, they have determined, would be a lot better for them.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

the ybor city plan they floated a few months back apparently won't happen. I could see them taking off for Portland. Perhaps they take over Miami and the Marlins go back to Montreal. That would be sweet

[smg58]

They and the Marlins have a similar problem in that most of the baseball fans in their market grew up rooting for somebody else. You have to build up your fan base slowly and carefully -- i.e., not jerking your fans around by holding fire sales more often than you put contending teams together. And even then it's going to take time. But I think they'd be better served charging something like $5 for the upper deck seats. Make it real easy to come to the game. If nobody is buying them anyway, why not? (And the vendors will love them too.) No attention-getting promotion is too ridiculous to be considered, outside of dropping turkeys from a helicopter.

[Mex17]

If they moved to North Carolina and became the "Charlotte Rays", they would have the perfect 7th Inning Stretch sing along song ready made for them.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGS56qJ0xIwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGS56qJ0xIw

[Mex17]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: the ybor city plan they floated a few months back apparently won't happen.

Link?

[Mex17]

Why does the well run team have no fans, while the team with a rabid fanbase have The Three Stooges in charge?

[seawolf17]

If they moved to North Carolina and became the "Charlotte Rays", they would have the perfect 7th Inning Stretch sing along song ready made for them.

That would be amazing.