MLB 2021

[SFGiants58]

If it wasn’t for the lease, the Rays would’ve left by 2012. Stu has less faith in Tampa Bay (rightly or wrongly) than Schott/Hoffman, Alvarez, Wolff/Fisher, Fisher, and Kaval had in Oakland, combined.

 

Of course, the Mausoleum wasn’t built in an area with barely any public transit or only accessible through rush hour chokepoints. The Trop doomed Tampa Bay baseball by the time it was rushed into construction in the mid-‘80s.

[DEAD!]

17 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

I can't lie, I'm sad for the hardcore Rays fans getting :censored:ed by Stu even though it means a second Canadian MLB team. This is basically the same stunt Loria pulled to move the original Expos to Washington, only instead of purposefully tanking the team, it's a cheapass owner deciding to try and make money off of playing in two cities instead of just one.

 

Like seriously, if Stu wants to move to MTL so badly, just :censored:ing go all-in. At least then you're not pissing off two fanbases with a team that pussyfoots around being in either market.

The Expos playing in two cities was NOT under Loria's ownership, but MLB's ownership.

[BBTV]

18 hours ago, the admiral said:

If you're gonna do it, do it right: full-time Montreal Expos switching places with the Marlins to keep East Coast scum coming to Florida and one Canadian team in each league. I miss Cubs-Expos games. I don't think it'll happen, though. Florida will cough up the money.

that makes the most sense, rather than having 40% of the AL East being in Canada. I never liked watching expos games on tv when they were in Olympic Stadium, but if they were to get a nice park, I’d love it if I had a chance to drive up to se the Phillies play there once a year. 
 

Despite their successes,  neither Florida team has any equity built up with either it’s fans or league, so to hell with them - Marlins to the AL, Expos to the NL.  Maybe have the Marlins split their games somewhere else too. 
 

one thing is for sure - leases will explicitly spell out the minimum number of games that need to be played there from now on. 

[selgy]

11 hours ago, Gothamite said:

I hate relocation with a passion.   But as much as I feel for the Rays fans, the market hasn’t done anything to demonstrate that they can support a team, even a good one, even a great one.

 

Best to just rip off the bandaid and put them somewhere they can thrive.  Is that Montreal?  I don’t know.  But it isn’t Tampa Bay. 

Our stadium has the lowest number of fans within a 30 minute driving radius of all MLB teams (minus Toronto - They werent in the study for some reason). 

We don't have a real mass transit system. 

This areas started in a 6 foot ditch and have been trying to dig out of it the entire time due to the stadium location. 

If the stadium was located in Tampa we would go from dead last (670k within 30 minute driving radius), to just around 2million in a 30 minute driving radius (depends on exact location in Tampa). That triple the fans within a 30 minute driving radius and put us on par with practically mostly every other MLB team. 

See chart below. 

[BadSeed84]

7 hours ago, selgy said:

Our stadium has the lowest number of fans within a 30 minute driving radius of all MLB teams (minus Toronto - They werent in the study for some reason). 

 

Makes sense since they played most of their games in Buffalo last season and most of this season.

[spartacat_12]

On 9/25/2021 at 7:26 PM, the admiral said:

If you're gonna do it, do it right: full-time Montreal Expos switching places with the Marlins to keep East Coast scum coming to Florida and one Canadian team in each league. I miss Cubs-Expos games. I don't think it'll happen, though. Florida will cough up the money.

 

I think keeping Montreal in the same division as the Blue Jays would be the better move. You're guaranteed big draws for every game they play against each other, regardless of how the teams are doing.

[JTernup]

16 hours ago, selgy said:

Our stadium has the lowest number of fans within a 30 minute driving radius of all MLB teams (minus Toronto - They werent in the study for some reason). 

We don't have a real mass transit system. 

This areas started in a 6 foot ditch and have been trying to dig out of it the entire time due to the stadium location. 

If the stadium was located in Tampa we would go from dead last (670k within 30 minute driving radius), to just around 2million in a 30 minute driving radius (depends on exact location in Tampa). That triple the fans within a 30 minute driving radius and put us on par with practically mostly every other MLB team. 
 

 

What has happened here is a travesty. Stu and MLB are essentially like that Eric Andre meme asking why someone would kill their fanbase after doing it themselves. 

 

On top of all of the transit and location related concerns the stadium is well known as a DUMP and that isn't underselling it. Easily the worst of the 10 ballparks I've been to. Everything is EXPENSIVE, there is almost no secondary market because they don't sell enough tickets and the team refuses to offer many good deals or anything. I've been to a few games this year and the cheapest seats were $30 before fees for a Sunday vs. the Angels, $40 for a Saturday vs. the Red Sox, and $20 for a Monday vs. the O's. I've never had a problem finding baseball tickets that were below face value as I have for the Rays. That feeling is compounded when you see the entire upper deck is tarped off and the stadium is 80% empty, it leaves the feeling that they'd rather rip me off for full price with 10k others than offer a good deal that would draw 20k. Then when you get to the area there are very few fun or exciting things going on near the stadium. I had 3 hours to kill and ended up at a coffee shop and a sh!tty restaurant/bar. Parking is limited and going to cost you $20 pretty much anywhere. Then I went to the game and literally couldn't buy a jersey for a single player on the team at the store. They had custom, full price Majestic jerseys I could've picked up at the end of the game. 

 

So if I wanted to take my family to a Rays game as the average Tampa area fan I'm going to have to drive 1.5 hours round trip in terrible traffic, pay minimum $100 on tickets for a family of 4, $20 in parking, and pay $50 for a meager selection of food (this is the only thing that isn't miles behind other parks IMO). All so I can go to a poorly lit bottom 2 ballpark in the league to watch a game that is free at home. Honestly the math just doesn't add up and although all parks are expensive the Rays have the only ballpark experience where I felt I was literally being screwed over just for going to the game because the value proposition is so bad. The damn Yankees wouldn't average more than 15k if they had to deal with all of that for 81 games a year.

[Sec19Row53]

Rays fans -  how many of those games did you go to over the last 7-10 days where tickets were $10?

 

If the answer wasn't something along the lines of 'a lot of them', then ticket price isn't an excuse any more.

[JTernup]

Just now, Sec19Row53 said:

Rays fans -  how many of those games did you go to over the last 7-10 days where tickets were $10?

 

If the answer wasn't something along the lines of 'a lot of them', then ticket price isn't an excuse any more.

Somebody didn’t read what I said or the quoted post. One of the biggest issues is that the Trop is not very accessible. Them when you get there it’s not a compelling value. I never said it was an excuse but it’s a pretty simple value proposition. 
 

As for me in particular, I went to 0 games in the last 10 days because I live 131 miles and over 2 hours away. My case is extreme but the point you missed is this: Fans far from the Trop > Terrible stadium experience > Too expensive to overcome those challenges for too many fans. The Rays are middle of the pack in TV viewership so it seems pretty obvious that the park is the problem.

[Sec19Row53]

3 minutes ago, JTernup said:

Somebody didn’t read what I said or the quoted post. One of the biggest issues is that the Trop is not very accessible. Them when you get there it’s not a compelling value. I never said it was an excuse but it’s a pretty simple value proposition. 
 

As for me in particular, I went to 0 games in the last 10 days because I live 131 miles and over 2 hours away. My case is extreme but the point you missed is this: Fans far from the Trop > Terrible stadium experience > Too expensive to overcome those challenges for too many fans. The Rays are middle of the pack in TV viewership so it seems pretty obvious that the park is the problem.

That wasn't directed at just you, which is why I didn't quote you. Did I draw some from your post? Yup.

 

I've been to the Trop once. I drove from Clearwater Beach on a weeknight to get there. I'm a baseball fan, not a fan of either team I saw that night.

[The_Admiral]

Has anything changed with regard to Orlando being a possible way to keep the team in central Florida? Is there any way that could be viable? I don't believe in Montreal; soccer is the second sport there now and I don't think baseball can make it as the third. Tampa Bay seems permanently broken. 

[dont care]

3 hours ago, JTernup said:

 

What has happened here is a travesty. Stu and MLB are essentially like that Eric Andre meme asking why someone would kill their fanbase after doing it themselves. 

 

On top of all of the transit and location related concerns the stadium is well known as a DUMP and that isn't underselling it. Easily the worst of the 10 ballparks I've been to. Everything is EXPENSIVE, there is almost no secondary market because they don't sell enough tickets and the team refuses to offer many good deals or anything. I've been to a few games this year and the cheapest seats were $30 before fees for a Sunday vs. the Angels, $40 for a Saturday vs. the Red Sox, and $20 for a Monday vs. the O's. I've never had a problem finding baseball tickets that were below face value as I have for the Rays. That feeling is compounded when you see the entire upper deck is tarped off and the stadium is 80% empty, it leaves the feeling that they'd rather rip me off for full price with 10k others than offer a good deal that would draw 20k. Then when you get to the area there are very few fun or exciting things going on near the stadium. I had 3 hours to kill and ended up at a coffee shop and a sh!tty restaurant/bar. Parking is limited and going to cost you $20 pretty much anywhere. Then I went to the game and literally couldn't buy a jersey for a single player on the team at the store. They had custom, full price Majestic jerseys I could've picked up at the end of the game. 

 

So if I wanted to take my family to a Rays game as the average Tampa area fan I'm going to have to drive 1.5 hours round trip in terrible traffic, pay minimum $100 on tickets for a family of 4, $20 in parking, and pay $50 for a meager selection of food (this is the only thing that isn't miles behind other parks IMO). All so I can go to a poorly lit bottom 2 ballpark in the league to watch a game that is free at home. Honestly the math just doesn't add up and although all parks are expensive the Rays have the only ballpark experience where I felt I was literally being screwed over just for going to the game because the value proposition is so bad. The damn Yankees wouldn't average more than 15k if they had to deal with all of that for 81 games a year.

You are complaining about $40 tickets to see the Red Sox, while I would kill to pay that price to see any team in any stadium from the nose bleeds for that price. Ticket prices aren’t the problem

[SFGiants58]

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

Has anything changed with regard to Orlando being a possible way to keep the team in central Florida? Is there any way that could be viable? I don't believe in Montreal; soccer is the second sport there now and I don't think baseball can make it as the third. Tampa Bay seems permanently broken. 

Not really, no. It’s why I’d advocate for merging the Rays and Marlins as the AL Miami Marlins. Stu and the operating team take over the Marlins, providing a big upgraded experience over the Marlins’ mess.
 

Add an expansion team in the NL East for Montréal/Raleigh/Nashville. Or move the Pirates into the East and add a club in the CST somewhere.

[JTernup]

2 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

That wasn't directed at just you, which is why I didn't quote you. Did I draw some from your post? Yup.

 

I've been to the Trop once. I drove from Clearwater Beach on a weeknight to get there. I'm a baseball fan, not a fan of either team I saw that night.

You’re totally right, I guess I was preempting the kind of comment I received below.

 

1 hour ago, dont care said:

You are complaining about $40 tickets to see the Red Sox, while I would kill to pay that price to see any team in any stadium from the nose bleeds for that price. Ticket prices aren’t the problem

Idc what you would do to get to go to a single game. What I’m telling you is this isn’t a recipe for successfully drawing 20k fans 81 times per year. This isn’t a compelling value:

- Median attendance cost among MLB teams

- In a state with median income in the bottom fourth

- The worst (or second worst) stadium in the sport

- The smallest population within close driving distance of any MLB park

- Very little to do in St. Pete near the Trop

- Little to no marketing of the team

- A massive transplant population that largely supports the Sox and Yankees and is worse in the older St. Pete area than in Tampa.

- Only two choke points to get from Tampa to StP with horrendous traffic.

 

Any few of these can be enough to overcome but you can’t have to deal with all of them.

 

The solution is to move to Tampa, where you’ll attract way more nearby fans, play in a better ballpark, have access to a younger and more Tampa centric fan base that doesn’t have the strong ties to rival teams, is a more fun place to spend an afternoon and can ride the marketing of Champa Bay. The solution isn’t to split a team (idiotic) and it’s not to send them to an already failed market that hasn’t even been clamoring for the team back in a city where it would probably be the fourth team.

 

You can argue all you want but the way you’ve acted thus far just makes it abundantly clear that you’re ignorant to the issues Tampa Bay baseball faces.

 

 

[SFGiants58]

4 minutes ago, JTernup said:

Idc what you would do to get to go to a single game. What I’m telling you is this isn’t a recipe for successfully drawing 20k fans 81 times per year. This isn’t a compelling value:

- Median attendance cost among MLB teams

- In a state with median income in the bottom fourth

- The worst (or second worst) stadium in the sport

- The smallest population within close driving distance of any MLB park

- Very little to do in St. Pete near the Trop

- Little to no marketing of the team

- A massive transplant population that largely supports the Sox and Yankees and is worse in the older St. Pete area than in Tampa.

- Only two choke points to get from Tampa to StP with horrendous traffic.

 

Any few of these can be enough to overcome but you can’t have to deal with all of them.

 

The solution is to move to Tampa, where you’ll attract way more nearby fans, play in a better ballpark, have access to a younger and more Tampa centric fan base that doesn’t have the strong ties to rival teams, is a more fun place to spend an afternoon and can ride the marketing of Champa Bay. The solution isn’t to split a team (idiotic) and it’s not to send them to an already failed market that hasn’t even been clamoring for the team back in a city where it would probably be the fourth team.

 

You can argue all you want but the way you’ve acted thus far just makes it abundantly clear that you’re ignorant to the issues Tampa Bay baseball faces.

 

Indeed. Building a stadium near the RayJay was a possibility during the '80s, but it fell through. Frank Morsani, the guy behind those efforts, had this to say about The Trop:

 

 

Even in the '80s people knew this site was a bad idea. Now we see that the site has caused Tampa Bay baseball to flop hard, to the point where people think the market is a greater problem than the stadium location. Granted, the near-decade of teams blue-balling the market with promises to move and Naimoli's incompetence didn't help, but The Trop's terrible location has been the biggest factor.

[selgy]

13 hours ago, EddieJ1984 said:

 

Makes sense since they played most of their games in Buffalo last season and most of this season.

That report was from 2014
 

3 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Rays fans -  how many of those games did you go to over the last 7-10 days where tickets were $10?

 

If the answer wasn't something along the lines of 'a lot of them', then ticket price isn't an excuse any more.

I know of a few. But we have had gimmicks like these throughout the past 10 years. They have initial spikes, but then the attendance regresses back to the norm.  Ticket prices arent the issue. 
 

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

Has anything changed with regard to Orlando being a possible way to keep the team in central Florida? Is there any way that could be viable? I don't believe in Montreal; soccer is the second sport there now and I don't think baseball can make it as the third. Tampa Bay seems permanently broken. 

I would be much more inclined to share with Orlando. But the problem with this idea would be the TV market with Miami. 

Stu wants a second TV market all for himself. Orlando wouldn't bring anything to the table. He wouldn't be able to take over any of the Miami market and couldnt expand the market any more north due to the Braves. Teams make money on TV deals. 

[Marlins93]

On 9/26/2021 at 1:53 PM, BBTV said:

Despite their successes,  neither Florida team has any equity built up with either it’s fans or league, so to hell with them - Marlins to the AL, Expos to the NL.  Maybe have the Marlins split their games somewhere else too. 
 

one thing is for sure - leases will explicitly spell out the minimum number of games that need to be played there from now on. 

 

I'm always confused when people propose, even casually, that the Marlins split their home games somewhere outside of Miami. I don't think that anyone actually believes that this split city concept is some kind of viable, long-term model for building a successful team. Sternberg wants it to happen because he hopes that it would allow him to either relocate the Rays elsewhere (perhaps Montreal) or grant him more leverage in stadium negotiations with Tampa. If he gets a new ballpark built, it would dramatically increase the value of the team. It sounds like the Montreal/Tampa split has a bit more traction, but I still doubt that we see two new venues built, unless they are just glorified minor league parks.

 

In any case, the Marlins already have a stadium and there's no desire held by anyone to relocate them, so splitting their games doesn't make any sense. It would more likely kill off even more fans on top of those who have already become apathetic after years of fire sales and mismanagement. Ideally, from the Marlins perspective, the Rays would move out of state completely, allowing them to reclaim the Tampa and Orlando (plus the rest of the state) media markets. 

 

Baseball in Florida could theoretically work if an ownership group is confident enough in the revenue to actually invest in players.

[selgy]

53 minutes ago, Marlins93 said:

 

I'm always confused when people propose, even casually, that the Marlins split their home games somewhere outside of Miami. I don't think that anyone actually believes that this split city concept is some kind of viable, long-term model for building a successful team. Sternberg wants it to happen because he hopes that it would allow him to either relocate the Rays elsewhere (perhaps Montreal) or grant him more leverage in stadium negotiations with Tampa. If he gets a new ballpark built, it would dramatically increase the value of the team. It sounds like the Montreal/Tampa split has a bit more traction, but I still doubt that we see two new venues built, unless they are just glorified minor league parks.

 

In any case, the Marlins already have a stadium and there's no desire held by anyone to relocate them, so splitting their games doesn't make any sense. It would more likely kill off even more fans on top of those who have already become apathetic after years of fire sales and mismanagement. Ideally, from the Marlins perspective, the Rays would move out of state completely, allowing them to reclaim the Tampa and Orlando (plus the rest of the state) media markets. 

 

Baseball in Florida could theoretically work if an ownership group is confident enough in the revenue to actually invest in players.

I'm not sure why anyone immediately ties the fan issues of one Florida franchise to the other. Other than both being in Florida, the situations and circumstances for both clubs are exclusive and unique to each of those clubs. 

The Marlins have a solid core of good young players and will fill it with veterans come the 2023 season and will be strong for a few years. This ownership group looks like they are intended on winning and hopefully the fans wont be sold one year "oh look we invested" like previous attempts" and then sell offs. 

The Marlins park isn't the best location and was built about a mile from the high speed rail. But other than the stupid darkening of the stadium (come on Jeter, you really don't need to make it dark and dreary like Yankee stadium), I like the Marlins ballpark. 

But back to your point. The Marlins and Rays shouldn't be lumped in together. That's just people going for easy talking points. 

[BBTV]

6 hours ago, selgy said:

I'm not sure why anyone immediately ties the fan issues of one Florida franchise to the other. Other than both being in Florida, the situations and circumstances for both clubs are exclusive and unique to each of those clubs.

 

I'm not lumping them together.  I'm simply stating that regardless of the reasons, neither one has taken root, and I have no confidence that there's any way baseball in Florida will ever be a success.  It might be a failure in each Florida location for different reasons, but there's no reason to believe it would succeed anywhere in Florida. 

 

Would a perfectly-located stadium in Tampa work?  Maybe, but it can't happen so it's moot.  Would a great team bring people to that ugly-ass dull-dome that is the antithesis of what a stadium in Miami should look like?  Again, we'll never know.  Move them to Orlando, and the excuse will be that they're competing with Disney or some other reason.

 

I'm old enough to remember expansion in '93, and reading an article in SI about how one writer felt major-league baseball in Florida was a bad idea - and it turns out he was right.  Florida should cherish it's place as one of the two sprint training sites, and be good with that.

[spartacat_12]

12 hours ago, JTernup said:

The solution isn’t to split a team (idiotic) and it’s not to send them to an already failed market that hasn’t even been clamoring for the team back in a city where it would probably be the fourth team.

 

An organized effort to bring MLB back to Montreal has been going on for nearly 10 years, and the Blue Jays games at Olympic Stadium were very successful. The reasons for the original franchise moving have been well documented, and it wasn't simply because of  attendance issues. 

 

If baseball returns to Montreal they would absolutely be the number 2 team in town. Much like in Toronto & Vancouver, people in Montreal think they are above the CFL, so the Als wouldn't be much competition. As for MLS,  the Impact/Club Foot have been near the bottom of the league's attendance figures, and I've even heard rumblings that they could move into the CPL.