Can someone please force this team to move? Tampa/St. Pete hates this team and have refused, for all of its history to go see them play unless they are playing the Yankees or Red Sox. Their new stadium deal just got shut down so now the plan is to fix their dome, which was destroyed by a hurricane. What a waste. They haven't even sold out Opening Day at the 11K seat minor league stadium that they are playing at.
OT: Tampa Bay Rays
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
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I seem to recall Dick Vitale going off on Rays fans (I guess he is one of them) for not selling out the World Series. I guess it isn't always easy for these cities with a bunch of transplants to adopt a new team. Lightning, Panthers, Coyotes, Marlins, Rays, etc.
they should hire everyone from the Pirates marketing team. Best in baseball. They put lipstick on a pig and the yinzers still flock to PNC park year after year. "An enjoyable night at the ballpark", even the supposed objective sports writers used to buy into it.
Where would they move?
Orlando seems like it would have the same issues, the Braves would lobby hard against Charlotte or anywhere else in NC, and then you're looking at places like Nashville or Salt Lake City which are a much smaller market if they want to break into new areas.
Does Texas need a 3rd team by putting it in the Austin/San Antonio area? Probably not.
Orlando seems like it would have the same issues, the Braves would lobby hard against Charlotte or anywhere else in NC, and then you're looking at places like Nashville or Salt Lake City which are a much smaller market if they want to break into new areas.
Does Texas need a 3rd team by putting it in the Austin/San Antonio area? Probably not.
Anywhere they move will have better support than Tampa. The state of Florida despises MLB unless the Yankees or Red Sox are playing. Terrible baseball market.
Make 'em the new Expos.
And I do think Nashville would be a good baseball town, also.
And I do think Nashville would be a good baseball town, also.
Is their management really Crap? I guess it comes down to how you measure success, what you think they should be doing. I don't know enough about the Tampa Bay Rays to comment much more, but that management team has managed to have them in the playoffs 9 times in the last 17 years. I'd take that.
They're going to be back in the same boat in 10 years if the team moves to Montreal.
I agree someplace like Nashville or SLC would be an improvement because they'd get local fan support even though the market is small, and they seem to have people who are willing to spend money to enhance the city's stature (and see professional sports as achieving that goal).
Market size matters immensely in MLB because of how their revenue is generated, but it's looking increasingly likely that will begin to change in the near future.
I'm surprised there are five teams behind us in attendance, given the product we've put on the field for the better part of 30 years. I mean we still have some pretty embarrassingly (or deservingly, depending on how you look at it) attended weeknight games, but you'd think this town would be more beaten down than it is. If they didn't hit the jackpot with PNC Park's architecture I'd be curious what attendance looked like.
If you added the attendance for the two Florida teams together, they still wouldn't be in the top half of the league.
First off, Yinzers shouldn't be pointing at any other franchise when it comes to playoff attendance. Everyone was butt hurt when the locals got dogged when Three Rivers didn't sell out in the playoffs.
MLB doesn't work in Florida outside of spring training because most of the population is a fan of another major league team. They're likely stuck in Tampa because there really aren't many other major league markets and the few that exist already have a wannabe ownership group preventing an existing club from moving there.
MLB doesn't work in Florida outside of spring training because most of the population is a fan of another major league team. They're likely stuck in Tampa because there really aren't many other major league markets and the few that exist already have a wannabe ownership group preventing an existing club from moving there.
If the Tampa Bay organization were running the pirates they would have had the team in the playoffs 5 times in the last 10 years, especially when you consider the division has no dominant large market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox.
Nutting is a piss any cheap skate. The rays know how to draft talent and develop players. They also make better trades when it’s time to let better players go because of salary escalation.
Nutting is a piss any cheap skate. The rays know how to draft talent and develop players. They also make better trades when it’s time to let better players go because of salary escalation.
Should MLB have teams in cities where the locals aren't fans of the team? I am positive that an MLB team would do extremely well in Nashville, Charlotte, SLC, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, etc.
MLB isn't going to let the Rays move, because if they do they will move to a city that is going to be willing to pay $2 billion to get an expansion team in a couple of years.
It is much more likely that MLB is going to try to force Stuart Sternberg to sell, and they are going to use him cancelling the stadium deal as their cudgel.
It is much more likely that MLB is going to try to force Stuart Sternberg to sell, and they are going to use him cancelling the stadium deal as their cudgel.
Buccos got the city/county to pay for their stadium, though. When you combine marketing gimmicks with a beautiful stadium that makes an evening at the stadium an enjoyable night out, you can get some people to attend. Local gov't in Tampa Bay area is not giving them a decent stadium option.
Maybe Nashville. Carolina is iffy. Doesn't matter. If you think Tampa has terrible average attendance, the Pirates aren't much better. All comes down to whether or not the ownership is making money. Both seem to be doing pretty well.
Tampa has terrible attendance but is a really good team, usually. Had the Pirates been as good as the Rays, every game would be sold out. If they are this good in Charlotte or SLC or Sacramento, every game would be sold out.
Yeah, that's a good point. It's not that this isn't a baseball town; it's more like any town can only take so much. Our attendance, even though it's bottom five or whatever, is higher than it should be. It should be dead last, and it's not even up for debate. 30+ years of sucking, small market, northern city.
How can anyone think their management is bad?!?
They are consistently rebuilding into contenders
They are consistently rebuilding into contenders
Seems unlikely when the average attendance for the league is 30,000. Pirates best season in recent memory (98 wins) was only a hair better and still about 20% short of capacity so either Pirate fans really suck or it's just not reasonable to assume that any other small city is going to get huge numbers.
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The attendance is bad when they suck, which has been like 27 out of the last 30 years, but people showed up big in that 3 year stretch where they were competitive. If any fans have earned the right to be "fair weather", it's Pirates fans. They still do very well in local TV ratings too.
People pay good money to watch minor league baseball in Pittsburgh. There are very few towns who would do that.
There are lots of reasons why Pirate attendance has been bad throughout the years. And it has been bad. Even the 3 glory years they averaged at best 15th highest attendance in MLB. That's not one of the best baseball towns in America.
By percentage of capacity those years, they were 15th, 10th, and 9th best. "One of the best in America" is hyperbolic. It's a good baseball town when they given people a reason to go.
Run your own numbers. Everything you throw out there has been wrong. Did you already move on from your attendance per win ratio? Because that didn't prove your point.
I guess if you put stock into % of capacity that is something. I would cite one of the best in America to be Cleveland's run of 455 consecutive sellouts. Our attendance has been below average most years and average with winning teams.
When you play in one of the smallest ballparks in the league percentage of capacity should be taken into consideration.
I don't like the notion that Pirate fans are "fair weather". Like, when is the weather ever "fair" for a franchise that hasn't won a division since the early '90's or a playoff series since most of us were kids. There isn't any "fair weather" and that's why the needle never moves for the fan base. The fans showed up pretty well for six straight years and got to watch them win two playoff games, have two losing seasons, and witness a pretty nasty assault on a Gatorade cooler. But we got one cool highlight of a guy losing his composure on the mound that makes for good social media content.
That's why I put it in quotes. It's easy for say, Browns fans to look commendable for showing up no matter how bad they are, but that's 8 or 9 home games a year in a league where there's no systemic imbalance. The Pirates play in a league where the owner is incentivized to put a cheap product on the field, and there's 81 games where you're asking people to show up to watch a bad product.
Wasn't directed at you so much as an observation. Pirates won't ever average close to 90% capacity. Just the reality of the current demographic.
Football is also treated differently by the fans. Crummy football teams with stronger fan bases still have good turnout because the games are more like events. A chance to party. I know guys that don't even go into the stadium when they don't have time on Sunday for Steelers game. They show up early, tailgate, and leave. Blows my mind but they have season tickets in the lounge area and almost never use their seats.
Attendance also increased from 73.5% of capacity in 2013 to 804% in 2015. I'd guess that number would've grown if they kept putting together a quality teams.
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