Joe Henderson
Amy Hollyfield is the Senior Deputy Editor for News at the Tampa Bay Times. She is smart, engaging, relentless, and respected by her colleagues and by me.
She also is a devoted fan of the Tampa Bay Rays. They finished the home part of their regular-season schedule Wednesday night against the New York Yankees.
As you may have noticed, the Rays are having an exceptional season. They are in a three-way scrum with Oakland and Cleveland for two American League wild-card playoff spots. As you also may know, poor attendance has been a chronic problem for the Rays and a source of much discussion in the Bay area.
In a commentary this week for the Times, she unloaded on the attendance problem. She described walking into Tropicana Field Monday night in the middle of a playoff race and feeling “shame” at the size of the crowd.
“The stadium had the feel of the closing days of a record-losing season, rather than the buzz and excitement of one of the most exciting stories in baseball,” she wrote.
“Walking around, it was empty. Bleak. Grim. Announced attendance was 8,779, but looking around, it felt like I could count the fans.”
Shame? Yikes! I don’t know about that.
Granted, the puny crowd size got my attention, which takes some doing. I’m basically numb to Rays’ attendance stories by now. They will again finish with the lowest total attendance in the American League. And that is with a vibrant young team that could win the World Series.
Expressing understandable exasperation as a fan is one thing. But as a journalist with a forum, Hollyfield seemed to imply it’s people’s civic duty to buy tickets and support the Rays.
I do not agree, even though the Tampa Bay area is better because the Rays are here. How much better, though? That is a legitimate topic to discuss.
I love baseball and sincerely believed this would be a good market for the sport. It was a great miscalculation.
My love of baseball doesn’t grant me the right to tell anyone to spend their money or time. If fans, particularly those in Hillsborough County, decide it’s too much hassle to fight the traffic on a weeknight, there is no shame.
It’s called life.
It’s also called location, location, location.
The Tampa Bay Lightning begin a new National Hockey League season soon. They have sold out 201 consecutive games, counting playoffs, at Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa.
The arena has a little more than 19,000 seats. It sits in the center of the sprawling Tampa Bay region, unlike Tropicana Field. People can get to the games in a reasonable amount of time. It is everything the Trop is not.
Alas, prospects for a new stadium in Tampa are iffy. Owner Stu Sternberg has flatly stated that he doesn’t believe the will exists in Hillsborough to help the Rays build the kind of stadium they need.
He also put out a take-it-or-leave-it plan for the area to share the Rays with Montreal. That, too, would require a new stadium somewhere, which won’t happen for a half-season tenant.
Sternberg has said it’s either shared with Montreal or nothing.
“(Keeping the Rays) all for their own is not going to be an option going forward,” he said in June when announcing the timeshare.
So, I wonder how many fans read that and decided they wouldn’t invest any more time or money under Sternberg’s terms?
“… have your written them off, as gone, goodbye?” Hollyfield wrote. “That would be a shame.”
Actually, it would be a choice.
14 comments
VintageVNvet
September 25, 2019 at 7:58 pm
I have a 70 year career in baseball,playing and watching,,, and a 68 year career in newspapers, selling at first, and then, when i could and since, reading them, and, for once, i agree with the spirit of Joe’s article, if not all of it…
Baseball in Florida in the summer is best left to the kids, including the kids of the Rays. I went to my last game at the Trop a few weeks ago, just down 16th Street from my current abode, and was amazed at the profiteering at every possible level, but even more amazed by the funky air inside.
Somehow and some when, We the People will want to watch baseball in a small outdoor park as we did those many years ago at Payne Park, where my best bud and I fought hard to run down and capture the fly balls the ‘Splendid Splinter’ et alia hit out side the fences down the foul lines or over the outfield wall… NOT in some dank dungeon, etc.,etc
If the kids of all ages, including the AAA teams can play outside, so can the kids in MLB. And let us old folks just be allowed to watch in fresh air…
Thank you.
Dale Brown
September 26, 2019 at 5:59 pm
You have a right to be wrong. But the low attendance is because it’s not in Hillsborough county. Where people from Winter Haven, auburndale Orlando mulberry all the small little towns in between could make it to the game. My sister and her husband live in Winter Haven and they would love to go to more games and they get there maybe once a year because they would have to pack a lunch to get there. Crossing that bridge in work hour rush…you are kidding me. My husband and I love to go to the games. we rarely make it because we have to drive across that bridge in rush hour traffic. if you want to pack a house and get more fans you have to get a more centralized location.
Raymond
September 26, 2019 at 8:50 pm
As a Rays fan, it is embarrassing to see so few people in the Trop for such a big home stand. The geography makes it very difficult to attend weekday games (it would take me 90+ minutes to get over after work) and people in Pinellas who are in proximity of the stadium don’t seem to care about baseball. Maybe embarrassed is a better word. No one is really telling folks how to spend their money. But the complete indifference to a winning baseball team in St Pete is hard to fathom. Within the sports world, Rays fans are a punchline. I get her frustration. I love having the Rays here, and yet I accept that their departure is inevitable. Tampa Bay will never have Major League Baseball again. And that’s a shame.
Sandra Guggino
September 28, 2019 at 11:07 am
No indifference where television ratings and streaming services are concerned. Consistently one of prime time’s most watched program on cable. I also read where Wednesday night’s game against the Yanks was most streamed ever on Fox Sports Go.
MLB-wide is experiencing attendance problems that will only worsen if they do not figure out how to engage younger generation who cut cable cord, do not read newspapers and have shorter attention span.
Raymond
October 2, 2019 at 9:07 am
The television ratings obviously measure the entire media market. I agree that there is a great deal of interest in the team in the Tampa Bay region; however, in St Pete, the area in proximity to the Trop where people can easily attend games, there is indifference. The Rays have won 186 games in the last two seasons, and still drew only 8,000 to a crucial game against the Red Sox during a playoff run. This would not happen in any other MLB market, including Miami. It wouldn’t. When you win consistently and the St Pete community can’t be bothered to show up, they are indifferent. It is not a baseball town and never will be.
Terry
September 25, 2019 at 9:26 pm
How about the media spending time showing how all sports attendance is down. 75 inch and cold beers, how could I go wrong? Why not get the jump and report all parks are going, or should be, smaller? The future is pay for view. Quit reporting a trend and report solutions. The sky is falling is getting old but who am I to worry the world as we know it will be gone in what…………….12 years?
Jeremy
September 26, 2019 at 12:48 am
Lightning huh…. What about the buccaneers?
Phil Compton
September 27, 2019 at 2:21 am
The Buccaneers are another story. You may have noticed they’ve been pretty lousy the past 12 years, during which time the Rays and Lightning have each made the postseason numerous times, the Bucs not once. Lots of fans have given up on the Bucs, but if they ever do have a good season, they’ll be back. Location isn’t really a factor for the Bucs, one way or another – driving across the Bay on Sunday morning is so much easier than at rush hour when Bolts and Rays fans must. In the case of the Bolts, helps that so many more fans are so much closer than the majority of Rays fans are.
Steve
September 26, 2019 at 1:02 am
St. Pete isn’t a good location for the Ray’s, but no place in Tampa is very good either. The Ybor site, despite being in the “center” of the region, was only marginally better. It still would have had the lowest population within 30 minutes of any market in MLB. It would be closer to East Pasco and East Hillsborough suburbs, but would be even further from West Pasco, North Pinellas, and SRQ. And the argument that more people would come from Orlando falls flat. Orlando is as far from Tampa as Philadelphia is from New York; most Disney-area tourists planning on seeing the Rays would abandon the idea as soon as they realized how much of their vacation time they’d be giving up for the Rays instead of some extra time at the parks or on International Drive, the same as confused tourists in LA would quickly give up on plans to swing by the Golden Gate Bridge. Tampa Bay may be a large media market, but it’s physically larger than some states. It’s sparsely populated and decentralized compared to every other MLB market, which makes it a poor market for a sport with 81 home games held mostly on weeknights.
The Bolts do better because they have half as many games, many fewer weeknight games, and the organization makes an effort to keep its famous players and put a dominant team on the ice, unlike the Rays tendency to let players go as soon as they become notable and to only be mildly competitive. The Lightning also do a better job of selling themselves to the market, while the Rays have been doing their level best to associate themselves and their stadium with crappiness in potential customers’ minds even when they play well.
Jerry
September 26, 2019 at 9:53 am
I think they would do much better in a thriving metropolis city like Jacksonville. The Jaguars don’t seem to be having any attendance problems.
Kei
September 26, 2019 at 12:13 pm
Somebody has to bring up the rear in the attendance/fan support rankings every year. It’s just that the realities of the Tampa Bay market — chief among them, the comparatively low incomes; fewer sources of corporate revenue; the fragmented allegiances of local baseball fans who mostly grew up rooting for other teams; the presence of two other major sports franchises (both of whom have had their own attendance struggles at various points in their histories) — make it susceptible to bringing up the rear year after year.
I’m not sure if a new stadium anywhere in Hillsborough County would be enough to resolve this issue. Waiting for generational support to build up locally seems like a fool’s errand, given that the younger fans that they do have are growing up under the belief that the physical act of going to games is not worth it, and isn’t a “cool” thing to do at any rate. An even bigger fool’s errand might be in hoping that a new ballpark would make them more of a regional team, even outside of the immediate Tampa Bay area: as Steve said, Orlando is as far from TB as New York is from Philly, and the two regions share very little in common beyond the same state and similar demographics (low-income, transient populations, few roots in the immediate local areas).
Nobody wants to bring this possibility up, but speaking strictly from the attendance standpoint, maybe Tampa Bay isn’t capable of supporting three major pro sports franchises at once
Dom Del Prete
September 26, 2019 at 11:23 pm
No one has a solution for the Rays’ attendance woes. Absolutely no one! I proudly support the organization and will continue to do so, regardless of attendance. Reasons: The organization fields an excellent team, treats fans wonderfully and contributes tirelessly to the community.
William McAttee
September 27, 2019 at 4:32 am
I have lived here 3 years. Lived all over the states. So I’ve seen my fair share of pro sports games. The trop is an abomination. Worse than most 1950 structures. I remember when Houston – yes powerhouse Houston – was losing 100 games a year. You could bring in your own cooler, food, drinks, and do this with a $1 ticket. Not a one time deal all year in 2012. We must have went 40 times that year. The point is if the team is good or bad how much marketing and fresh ideas that are dealt out come from the top. This owner has basically stated that he will do anything to move the team. Why should anyone support his pockets? If you add up the current payroll and then add in what they get from the CBA I’m sure he makes a tidy profit. But if I had to guess I’d bet he wants a free stadium that can be put together at one hell of a selling price. I don’t know what this owner is or made his money but if he is angling out for a big sale then he is going about it the right way as a business. To bad fans – me – don’t view the owners as business people just keepers of the teams we love. And does it matter if anyone goes to the games? The Rays will be gone soon enough but not before they pull off one heck of world series win this year. So please all of you stay away!!! I need cheap world series seats!
Ed
October 8, 2019 at 4:58 pm
I am a loyal Yankees fan that had to flee the insanity of socialist New York City. That being said I live 110 miles from Tropicana field, but I always make as many Yankees games there as possible. Very few adults are going to switch the team they love just because they were forced to move. Florida is full of transplants whether the crackers like it or not. So the Rays and any baseball team from Florida is doomed.
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