Unlocking the Mystery of Rays’ Poor Attendance

John Romano of the St. Pete Times revisits the question of why, in the heat of a pennant race involving the historically dismal Tampa Bay Rays, the home crowd can’t do better than 12,678 people for a game. ↵↵⇥And what they see is a community running out of excuses. It’s no longer about poor ownership, because Sternberg’s crew has done everything possible to reach out to the fans. And it’s no longer about losing because the Rays have been among baseball’s best teams for four months.↵⇥↵⇥So if it’s not about the team or the owner, then it is an indictment of the market or the stadium location.↵⇥

↵↵True. Tampa is a genuinely weird place: there’s little to do besides go to the beach, little to see but the beach, and little in the way of complaint from locals who, having nothing to do, seem more than happy with the arrangement. ↵↵I stab because I care: I lived in the Tampa Bay area for two years, and know and sorta tolerate it well enough. You may wonder: what are people actually doing in Tampa besides going to baseball games? Fortunately, as an experienced Tampa-watcher, I have your answers in convenient graph form:↵

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↵↵There! Mystery explained. In short, Tampa’s stadium stinks, it’s too hot to sit outside in the summer, and old people are too cheap to go to games instead of the dog track. While the graph is a joke; that last bit is not. The dog track in St. Pete does way better business than the major league franchise, and having been there recently, I can say safely that it is just as entertaining in its own sordid, campy way. ↵

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