MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[PERRIN]

3 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

2 weeks from everywhere? I can fly direct to CDMX in 5 hours.

Must be some kinda geographical oddity, and ManilaToad must be a Dapper Dan man.

[FinsUp1214]

9 minutes ago, PERRIN said:

Must be some kinda geographical oddity, and ManilaToad must be a Dapper Dan man.

Forget it! I’ll take a dozen hairnets!

[maz]

On 3/11/2023 at 2:02 AM, who do you think said:

Unlike the Rays and A's, who never go more than a few years between playoff berths, Pirates fans have good reason to be pissed off and disengaged. Save for 3 and a half random seasons last decade, nobody under the age of 35 remembers that franchise being anything other than a willing and consenting cumdumpster for the rest of baseball.

 

But noooooo you can't just stealth merge them with the Rays and give them actual scouts and a player development program, teams for nobody that are really good at winning 88 games a year with no money and no fans are sacred and must be preserved!

 

I mean, you aren't wrong. There's good reason nobody gives a crap about the Bucs, and they would pack the stadium if they were competitive (see also: 2013, 14, 15 like you said).

 

But to the "stadium matters more" crowd's point, I did wonder: if they played in a dump half an hour out of town in Cranberry or something, would people still come out for a competitive Pirates team? I find it hard to believe. Steelers? Yes. Pens? I dunno. Bucs? I doubt it.

 

Oh and trust me, I'd love to inherit a top notch Baseball ops and some prospects from a competitive franchise. But Nutting would still find a way to ruin it. Now if there was some way for MLB to also take care of him...

 

[FiddySicks]

4 hours ago, ManillaToad said:

I don't get why Mexico City is the only place in Mexico people talk about when it  comes to the big four. 2 weeks from everywhere and the elevation is ridiculous. There's other cities with huge populations that are a lot closer to the border. Also all of them are in Mexico which is a big problem too

I mean, two weeks if you’re riding a donkey, maybe. 
 

It’s because Mexico City is, by population, the largest city in North America. It would be adding a market that’s even larger than New York City. 

[BBTV]

Yeah, I thin I flew to CDMX from EWR in around 5 hours.  Travel time isn't a concern.

 

The concern is that the altitude makes Denver feel like sea level.  Monterrey, which is pretty wealthy in its own right, is only around 1,700' above sea level, as opposed to CDMX which is over 7,500'.  Even Guadalajara is basically Denver.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

The other thing is Mexico City is awesome. I didn't know that until I visited, and that's probably true for a lot of people.

 

It doesn't help that American cultural presentation of Mexico as a country is a sepia-toned Juarez, and having an American pro sports franchise in CDMX would make a big difference.

[FiddySicks]

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

The other thing is Mexico City is awesome. I didn't know that until I visited, and that's probably true for a lot of people.

 

It doesn't help that American cultural presentation of Mexico as a country is a sepia-toned Juarez, and having an American pro sports franchise in CDMX would make a big difference.

Mexico City is by far the biggest city in North America and is also the oldest. I think I just learned that last year. It’s the most overlooked city in the world IMO.
 

It’s interesting because there’s this narrow band of land around where Mexico City is, and more than half of all Mexicans live in that area. It’s because the area to the north of that is almost all arid desert, and the area to the south is humid pre tropical climate, which also is difficult to live in. We as Americans don’t tend to talk about it much, but Mexico is a really fascinating country. It’s already more wealthy than a lot of European countries, and if it can ever find a way to separate itself from being continuously exploited by the two countries to the north, it has a ton of potential to become even stronger. 

[who do you think]

16 hours ago, BBTV said:

I, for one, chuckled at the visual of the Pirate Parrot being surrounded by a circle of all the other team mascots right on the pitcher's mound.

 

To stay on topic - regarding first team to move, I know it sounds ridiculous right now, but wouldn't it be the Golden Knights?  I know they have good support, and the one game I saw on TV looked like a great atmosphere, but 1) there's no way the Raiders are leaving for 20-30 years after that stadium was built, 2) if the A's get a stadium, they'll be locked in regardless that they won't get good attendance, and 3) the NBA (IMO) would thrive there.

 

Not saying the VGK are likely to move, but of the four, they're by default the most likely.

 

I was gonna say in the other post that I wouldn't be too shocked if the Raiders up and decided to shuffle back to California at some point, if only because they're the Raiders and they're weird, and the NFL carouseled another team into Vegas in their place (wouldn't be that much dumber than the events that transpired in 2017)... but upon further review the Raiders kicked in $1B toward building Allegiant Stadium, so not happening. 

 

I do wonder if the Knights are at risk of getting myspaced if/when an NBA team moves in, since I would bet on them mimicking the Diamondbacks and slapping together a superteam within 2-3 years of their inception. Especially if LeBron is in the ownership group.

 

16 hours ago, Sport said:

Twists the argument again, resorts to condescension.

 

Yeah, your specialty. Along with the "nuh-uh sweetie, this is what you ackshually said and this is what I ackshually said" twerk'n'jerk that you're looking to get going now.

 

I didn't twist anything. When you first dropped this argument in this post, you specified Rays' fan support. Which implies that visiting fans shouldn't be considered.

 

16 hours ago, Sport said:

We're not changing the point - You said "it doesn't seem like fans of popular teams have any problems coming out". The reason it appears like there's a lot of Red Sox fans at any one Red Sox game at the Trop is because they have fewer games at the trop. Your population of fans have fewer games to fill. You're not spread as thin. That's so obvious I can't believe I'm still explaining it. 

 

If there were more Red Sox road games at the Trop, we would come out for those, too.

 

16 hours ago, Sport said:

It is math, sweetie. Basic math. It's not my fault you don't get it.

 

Think really, really hard about what kind of phenomenon could be occurring that would result in 11% of the Rays' home slate getting the same meager turnout from local Rays fans as 100% of the Rays' home slate.

 

16 hours ago, Sport said:

You're projecting HARD. Hit me with a meme because memes are always a sign of a curious, not extremely online person. All the healthiest online minds use memes. Find a good one. Like something that's really reductive and dumb. Bonus points if it's anime again. 

 

 

9 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

I mean, two weeks if you’re riding a donkey, maybe. 
 

It’s because Mexico City is, by population, the largest city in North America. It would be adding a market that’s even larger than New York City. 

 

The rap on Mexico City that I remember is that it's really poor, and while there are 20+ million people in the area, only a portion of that population should be considered for sportz purposes. How much? Hell if I know. Half (10 million) is still a lot, on par with Chicago and GTA, to the point where leagues would probably be in much more of a hurry to move in if that was an accurate number to be working with. A quarter (5 million) puts it on par with Seattle, and there are plenty of cities below that with multiple big four teams. We still have the "so why hasn't it happened yet" question lingering. I don't think I buy altitude or language barriers as reasons why.

 

10 hours ago, maz said:

But to the "stadium matters more" crowd's point, I did wonder: if they played in a dump half an hour out of town in Cranberry or something, would people still come out for a competitive Pirates team? I find it hard to believe. Steelers? Yes. Pens? I dunno. Bucs? I doubt it.

 

I had to Google since I don't know anything about Pittsburgh, but St. Pete isn't that. The Cranberry equivalent here would be Palm Harbor or something.

[maz]

2 hours ago, who do you think said:

I had to Google since I don't know anything about Pittsburgh, but St. Pete isn't that. The Cranberry equivalent here would be Palm Harbor or something.

 

I was more referencing how distance in general is an issue for low attendance teams (and I assumed the Oakland Coliseum was way outside the city for some reason), so I guess a better equivalent is Three Rivers still being around. People would still pack the place for the Steelers and a Pirates team capable of consistently competing. Which is a thought that keeps me on the "relevance is more important" side, but I was 7 the last time I was there and too distracted by the excitement of it being my second-ever game (not counting when I was a baby), so it could've been almost as bad as Oakland for all I remember (though I do remember there being chunks of the concrete just straight-up missing).

 

[Sport]

12 hours ago, maz said:

 

I was more referencing how distance in general is an issue for low attendance teams (and I assumed the Oakland Coliseum was way outside the city for some reason), so I guess a better equivalent is Three Rivers still being around. People would still pack the place for the Steelers and a Pirates team capable of consistently competing. Which is a thought that keeps me on the "relevance is more important" side, but I was 7 the last time I was there and too distracted by the excitement of it being my second-ever game (not counting when I was a baby), so it could've been almost as bad as Oakland for all I remember (though I do remember there being chunks of the concrete just straight-up missing).

 

 

Good baseball attendance in any city requires two things: 1. An easy to access stadium that is a pleasant experience, and 2. a team that's worth seeing. Pittsburgh has one of those things. The Rays have the other. I live 5 minutes from a major league baseball stadium and I average about 5 games a year*. If I lived greater than 45 minutes from a major league baseball stadium I would maybe go to one. If the Rays went 162-0 there's still no overcoming the reality that for most of their metro market seeing a game in person is a chore. I've done it myself and wouldn't do it often if I lived there. 

 

You can't compare NFL attendance to other sports because games are events and there's so few of them. If baseball only played 8 home games a year you would see more Rays fans at any one game. This is the concept @who do you think is choosing not to understand with regards to his Red Sox playing in The Trop. 

 

When FC Cincinnati was looking for a stadium location the number quoted as to why they didn't want to build in the suburbs is you lose ~500 fans a game every game for every mile the stadium is outside a city's population center. The Trop is made even worse than that by being on the opposite side of town from most of Tampa Bay metro's daily comings and goings meaning they live north, northeast, and east of the city and commute to the center for work. St Pete is west of everything and requires a fight with traffic to get to, which means weeknight games are a non-option for most of the metro area. There's also, ya know, the water, which means there aren't alternative routes or neighborhoods to draw from. The Tampa Bay Rays' drawable market is effectively a third of what it should be if you only look at raw population numbers and their nearest neighbors aren't the most affluent communities in the region. It was a really stupid place to put a baseball stadium, but denying the reality that location is a valid factor for the Rays attendance problems is also really stupid.

 

*When the team is trying. I attended zero last year because, like the Pirates, the Reds actively not trying didn't sit right with me.

[BBTV]

3 hours ago, who do you think said:

The rap on Mexico City that I remember is that it's really poor, and while there are 20+ million people in the area, only a portion of that population should be considered for sportz purposes. How much? Hell if I know. Half (10 million) is still a lot,

 

From my brief (10-day) experience, it's like most other big cities.  There's wealth, then there's the poor, and some in between.  There's parts of it that you'd swear was just a more colorful Los Angeles, and then there's a part that no Uber driver would take me to (and in hindsight... that's probably a good thing.)  There's parts that reminded me a lot of Brooklyn, and some night clubs are exactly the same as you'd see in NYC (fun nugget, I was at one where Mark Jindrack (Marco Corleone), the CMLL champion was at.)  There's more than enough wealth to support a team, though (and a local would know a hell of a lot more about this than me) the government isn't building a US$1B stadium ever.  Monterrey and Guadalajara could also likely support a major US team, but again, public investment would probably be off the table.

 

Another thing about Mexico City (unrelated to sports) is while you wouldn't expect it, it's one of the world's greatest restaurant cities, and they're not cheap.

 

Again, the problem with CDMX is altitude.  I've been to Denver, CDMX, and Cusco Peru.  The latter two are night-and-day from Denver as far as the need to aclimate goes before doing any kind of really physical activity.  In Cusco, I took three days before hiking Salkantay mtn.  In CDMX, I hiked some volcano (it's surrounded by volcanos) an hour or two outside the city, and nearly passed out shortly after starting (granted, we had ascended via vehicle prior to starting, but still, the altitude is no joke.)

 

Completely unrelated: The US headliners at the music festival were ofMontreal and Mac Demarco.  Demarco was absolutely wasted, and went off on the crowd and cut a full-shoot heel promo, saying (paraphrasing because I don't recall exact words) "F you, I'm playing Monterrey tomorrow anyway and it's so much nicer than this s-hole city, there's a reason they're all filthy rich and paying me 100x more than this s-hole."  He proceeded to take two full 32oz cups of beer (they don't F around there with their beer sizes at festivals!) and throw them into the crowd, finished a song then left.

[BBTV]

9 minutes ago, Sport said:

Good baseball attendance in any city requires two things: 1. An easy to access stadium that is a pleasant experience, and 2. a team that's worth seeing. Pittsburgh has one of those things. The Rays have the other. I live 5 minutes from a major league baseball stadium and I average about 5 games a year*. If I lived greater than 45 minutes from a major league baseball stadium I would maybe go to one. If the Rays went 162-0 there's still no overcoming the reality that for most of their metro market seeing a game in person is a chore. I've done it myself and wouldn't do it often if I lived there. 

 

frankly, I think WhoDoYouThink is making some really good points that are getting dismissed due to the mob mentality and focusing on memes vs the actual points, but this is basically the only argument.  If I couldn't walk 20 mins or take a subway, I wouldn't go to Phillies games during the really down years where it didn't seem like they were trying.  Their in-game experience is awesome, and the park is awesome (unbiased, I think it's a better park than PNC, though PNC certainly looks better, has infinitely better views, and more around it - I'm just talking about the experience of watching a baseball game once you're inside.)

 

If I lived in the burbs and had to deal with traffic (and then dealing with it on the way home after having a few), I just wouldn't do it when the team is crappy.  Part of it is cost, but also the cost of my time and stress of traffic.   - Tampa is a relatively cheap game to go to vs most other cities, but I'm not sure it's worth the time to sit in a warehouse.  I average 20 games/year, but again, I can walk (and am fortunate enough to be able to afford it, since I don't have the "family of four that for some reason you have to buy hotdogs and t-shirts for" that they always cite in those dumb cost-of-attending stats.

 

Part of it is the team.  Honestly, despite them winning, there's nothing exciting about the Rays.  It's like watching the Devils all those years ago.  I want to see guys hit dingers, throw 120MPH fastballs, and for other exciting stuff to happen.  Not watch 9 clones get single after single and play solid-fundamental baseball.  Frankly, it's boring (to me, and probably to many casuals.)

 

The main indictment and counter is when it comes to the World Series.  It was literally cheaper for Phillies fans to fly to Tampa, get hotels, and tickets to WS games (which were readily available) then to attend games here.  Stadium and any other issues aside, the experience of a World Series should have attracted people.  It didn't.  I'd like to see how that team could do with a better-located park, but not at the expense of locking them in that market for another 30 years.

[spartacat_12]

On 3/10/2023 at 10:52 PM, FiddySicks said:

Imagine leaving a market like the Bay Area to play third (probably soon to be fourth once the NBA expands) fiddle in a desert wasteland filled with transients and no water. Good :censored:in luck, you clowns. 

 

To be fair, the A's are already the fourth fiddle in the Bay Area. At least in Vegas they'd have a proper stadium.

 

And the rush of pro teams popping up in Nevada isn't exactly unprecedented. Los Angeles got the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, and Kings in a span of less than 10 years.

[Digby]

I think we have enough years under the belt with both Tampa Bay and Miami at this point to conclude that maybe Florida just isn’t a good MLB market. I know both teams have not done themselves any favors but…you’d think if there was some latent pent-up demand for being a strong MLB market we’d have seen a glimmer of hope by now.

[WestCoastBias]

2 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

To be fair, the A's are already the fourth fiddle in the Bay Area. At least in Vegas they'd have a proper stadium.

 

And the rush of pro teams popping up in Nevada isn't exactly unprecedented. Los Angeles got the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, and Kings in a span of less than 10 years.

 

Except that in 1960 Los Angeles was the third most populated city in the country with about 2.5 million people and that's not counting the rest of metro area. The Las Vegas metro area is currently the 29th biggest in the country with 2.2 million people, which is less than just the City of Los Angeles had in 1960. 

 

Meanwhile the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area have about 7.8 million people, good for 4th or 5th largest in the country if it was counted as one metro area.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

7 minutes ago, Digby said:

I think we have enough years under the belt with both Tampa Bay and Miami at this point to conclude that maybe Florida just isn’t a good MLB market. I know both teams have not done themselves any favors but…you’d think if there was some latent pent-up demand for being a strong MLB market we’d have seen a glimmer of hope by now.

 

This is where I'm at. World Series runs for both teams. A new stadium for one of them. New branding for both.

 

If it's not working, it's not working.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

26 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

39 minutes ago, Digby said:

I think we have enough years under the belt with both Tampa Bay and Miami at this point to conclude that maybe Florida just isn’t a good MLB market.

 

This is where I'm at. World Series runs for both teams. A new stadium for one of them. New branding for both.

 

If it's not working, it's not working.

 

Right. Few things in life have been proven more conclusively than the notion that Florida is for spring training only.

[BBTV]

5 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Right. Few things in life have been proven more conclusively than the notion that Florida is for spring training only.

 

I don't really blame the fans too much.  If I'm in Miami, there's plenty of things I'm doing besides sitting in a lifeless domed park watching mediocre-at-best baseball.

 

I don't know the Tampa area too well, but I assume there's also plenty of awesome distractions.  Even here the shore season decimates summer attendance (with the exception of the 4-year sellout streak, but there's still there's the population and traveling road fans to support it, and I know that's not a unique situation.)  SoCal is a little different, because you have perfect baseball weather all the time, so it doesn't necessarily feel like you're depriving yourself by going to a game.  But Florida?  Nah.

[GDAWG]

Speaking of Florida, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa is probably going back to being about 60% empty now that TB12 has retired (for now).

[Digby]

19 hours ago, WestCoastBias said:

 

Except that in 1960 Los Angeles was the third most populated city in the country with about 2.5 million people and that's not counting the rest of metro area. The Las Vegas metro area is currently the 29th biggest in the country with 2.2 million people, which is less than just the City of Los Angeles had in 1960. 

 

Meanwhile the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area have about 7.8 million people, good for 4th or 5th largest in the country if it was counted as one metro area.

We were also delightfully and blissfully starry-eyed about westward expansion when teams moved to LA, whereas anyone paying attention now can see the Vegas population boom as unsustainable and that this all will be a weird bubble when looked back upon in 100 years. Will at least be interesting engineering as each new, redundant giant venue in Vegas comes up with new technology in water recycling.