Tampa Bay Rays new stadium

gotsparks09

Here it is in the "roof closed" position. Pretty neat to keep the rain off the field/fans, but still be outside. Completion date isn't set, but it could be as soon as 2012.



Article

softparade

They are not getting that cool looking stadium from proceeds from ticket sales THAT IS FOR SURE

Michigan

Pretty cool, looks like a giant sail.

It should also keep that direct summer sun off of some of the players and fans (can't tell, does it cover the whole stadium or just a part?)

bsidegrve

Doesn't look like it has alot of seats.........
good thing since 80% of them were empty in the old (not really old) stadium





nice stadium though....

Morgoth

Is it me or is it silly that they removed the word Devils from their name. It is a freaking animal's name who is really going to think the team is evil for having the word devil in it. Are they changing their logo to a Sun, or Ray Charles or Sugar Ray?

Michigan

I'm not sure why they changed it, perhaps they felt that "Devil" had negative connotations to it and that was symbolically reflected in the
teams generally terrible performance over the years.

I have thought it ironic that Duke University in the bible belt of North Carolina would have a nickname like "Blue Devils". Maybe a lesser
class of devils than "red devils" so they felt it was OK? Guess I'll have to just google that info up to find out the history of the nickname.

Connecticoin

Cool!

Goot

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest, because I agree that they Rays attendance is historically bad...HOWEVER, I find it hilarious when fans of a team such as the Yankees make fun of the small attendance numbers. The Yankees are practically a century older, which = people being raised on the team, growing up going to games, etc. Not to mention the fact that the population of your city alone is 2/3 the population of the STATE of Florida. The Rays on the other hand play in an area where all of the old retirees live and they are practically all from the North and already have their allegance to a team up north.

You want to find something funny? How bout the fact that the Rays averaged only a few thousand less fans a game than the Royals and Pirates, who are both garbage today but are in big cities and have a great deal of history.

Another huge point that I think A LOT of people miss, is the fact that the Rays play in St. Petersburg and NOT Tampa. St. Pete is all the way on the other side of Tampa Bay and on a weekday at 6 pm can take as long as an hour and a half to get from Tampa to St. Pete alone. This is a huge deterrant to most fans who are based in Tampa. I personally believe that if they moved the team to Tampa they'd increase their attendance exponentially by being in a more metropolitan area, as well as being next to one of the 10 largest Universities in the nation (univ. of South Florida) and putting it in a young area rather than in an area surrounded by older people who either 1) can't travel to games or 2) already are fans of their hometown team.

Laugh all you want, but there is more to the story than just the attendance figures that everyone sees.

grote15

Gotta say that Goot's post is very well stated on this topic.

Michigan

I don't think anyone is really making fun of them other than the name change, all the points you make are good ones and simply
calls into question the wisdom of putting the team where they did. MLB I believe did not research the Florida market well when they
made the decision to put a team there but instead fell prey to someone flashing a big wad of money and yelling "we want an expansion team".

Connecticoin

<< <i>Gotta say that Goot's post is very well stated on this topic. >>



I agree.

If they build a stadium like that, the Red Sox and Yankess games are guaranteed to sellout. I hope it happens.

Michigan

<< <i>

<< <i>Gotta say that Goot's post is very well stated on this topic. >>



I agree.

If they build a stadium like that, the Red Sox and Yankess games are guaranteed to sellout. I hope it happens. >>




Should be easy sellouts when the Yankees or Red Sox come to town, with the large numbers of retired Yankee and Red Sox fans
living in Florida they should pull them in from more than just the Tampa/St. Pete area.

Goot

<< <i>

<< <i>

<< <i>Gotta say that Goot's post is very well stated on this topic. >>



I agree.

If they build a stadium like that, the Red Sox and Yankess games are guaranteed to sellout. I hope it happens. >>




Should be easy sellouts when the Yankees or Red Sox come to town, with the large numbers of retired Yankee and Red Sox fans
living in Florida they should pull them in from more than just the Tampa/St. Pete area. >>



Yep, most of the home games against the Yankees were played on weeknights to help those Wednesday night games that normally draw as little as 9,000 (see Wed. May 2nd vs. the Twins) depending on opponent. The average attendance of Yankee games played at the Trop was roughly 28,000 (I say roughly because I rounded numbers to make the addition easier). That's a 75% increase over their normal average attendance. The Red Sox average attendance was a little less, but was still about 26-27,000 per game.

I also want to make a point to further solidify my argument about the after work traffic playing a role in attendance on weekdays. If you look here, you can see that most series where they play your average team the attendance is normally in the 13,000 range. When you look towards the weekends though, the attendance figures jump up to a range of 17,000 to as high as 25,000 for games not against the Yankees or Sox. It's normal to see attendance jump on the weekends but when it doubles and nearly triples at times, you know it's something else playing a role in those people not showing up during the week. Plus, if the team can put a .500 ball club onto the field over the next few years then you'll probably see the average bounce up to the 22,000 range, whether a new stadium is built or not.