I'm sure we're going to be reading many more preachy stories from the national and Boston media over the next week about the Rays' lousy attendance and why Tampa Bay doesn't deserve a team -- unless taxpayers give ownership a new stadium of course. Well, here's a little perspective.

2008 was the Rays' 11th year, and they drew 1,811,986 fans and averaged 22,370 a game.

In the Astros' 11th year, they drew 1,469,247 and averaged 19,206.

In the Padres' 11th year, they drew 1,456,967 and averaged 18,099.

In the Mariners' 11th year, they drew 1,134,255 and averaged 14,003.

In the Angels' 11th year, they drew 926,373 and averaged 11,437.

Why do I get the feeling that Bud Selig would be pushing Tampa-needs-a-new-stadium stories even if they drew 2 million this year?

I think you need to compare the Rays average attendance to the league average for 2008 and do likewise for the other teams you noted in your post to their respective years. Otherwise, we are lacking some important context.

Also those teams records that year (and probably the previous year as well). After all success has an impact on attendance.

What ended up happening to the new stadium proposal for having the park with a sail-like apparatus right on the bay? The models looked pretty cool, but I seem to recall that plan getting nixed.

Here are pictures for those of you who are interested:

I really hope they get it. That'd be a gorgeous park. I'd have to take a trip down there to catch a game

I bet THEY won't have bumper boats at the ballpark, though...

What a nice location strategically close to a large body of water. Won't the next hurricane have a lot of fun with that thing?

The Tampa/St. Pete area will get the storm from the hurricane, but it rarely gets hit square on by one, they either hit the eastern side, or swing up into the gulf.

They've shelved the park for now. Pinellas County is one of the big spots where the credit crunch has hit hard, and I just don't think there's the public money for a stadium. They'll get it eventually, but not now.

Also, teams lie about their attendance... by a lot.

How? Assuming we're not talking about a team claiming tickets sold rather than actual attendees, I'd imagine that's not in a team's interest to do so. If they're claiming 20,000 are there when there's 12,000 sold tickets, that's going to present problems when the taxman comes.

I imagine the Astros never got 15,000 Red Sox fans showing up for a series in their 11th year, either.

They "sell" tickets very, very cheap in exchange for ad time. They just flat out give away tickets. I remember the Nets a few years ago got a new PR dude, and he came on Mike and the Mad Dog and told them he sold out the season opener, a really rare feat in that dump, and so Mike and Chris, all impressed, make sure to go to the game. Next day they came on and tore the guy apart, apparently there were 8 or 9 thousand empty seats.

That's fudging it, but it's not a bald faced lie. They distributed 20,000 tickets, just 12,000 came to the game.

Tampa's biggest problem is they came out of nowhere. They have fuck-all in season ticket holders, so they relied on walkups every single night. Final night of American Idol? They get less people. Bad weather? They get less people (for example, Fay held down attendance for a big Angels series). Less than marquee opponent? Less people, since you could get tickets to the Red Sox or Yankees if you wanted to.

They sold out their playoff tickets in ten minutes, which is a lot better than the Braves and A's.

My wife and I traveled to Tampa for a series with the Sox during the last week of 2004. 4 major hurricanes made landfall in Florida that year. The last (on a Saturday night) was headed straight for Tampa and took an unexpected turn just before hitting the city. Our flight on Moday am was one of the first allowed into the Tampa airport. On Wednesday we took the ballpark tour. Our guide told us that the Trop might be used as a shelter in some instances, but the there were fears that the strength of this strom would have taken the the roof of the place had it not shifted course at the last minute.

If the Rays really want a new stadium, they should take a cue from the bailout and offer an equity stake in the team to the city/county/state in exchange for the public subsidy.

There would be no short-term impact on the cash flows that ownership claims it needs to compete. On the other hand, there's no question that if taxpayers build the Rays a new stadium, it will increase the value of the franchise. When the team is sold, taxpayers should get a piece of that price appreciation.

In the Red Sox 11th year, they had 503,961 fans! 6,588 a game!

I can't be the only one whose eye caught the blue skyscraper in the background and thought for a split second that this was a rendering of Boston.

As for cutting Rays fans some slack - there isn't much of a public transportation system in Tampa/St. Petersburg, and traffic is brutal. Lots of backups, draw bridges, ect...

The transportation factor alone will hurt attendance during weeknights.

This would be 2008 (duh!). They were 97-65, finishing FIRST in the AL East. They were 12th of 14 AL teams in attendance. Average MLB Attendance was 32,539

This would be in 1972. They were 84-69, finishing 3rd in the NL West (10 1/2 GB of the Reds). They were 4th of 12 NL teams in attendance. Average MLB Attendance was 14,507.



This would be in 1979. They were 68-93, finishing 5th in the NL west (22 GB of the Reds). They were 8th of 12 NL teams in attendance. Average MLB Attendance was 20,748.

That would be 1987. The Mariners were 78-84, finishing 4th in the AL West, 7 Games Behind the Twins. Their attendance was 13th of 14 teams in the AL. Average MLB attendance was 24,709 per game



This would be 1971. The Angels finished 76-86, finishing 4th in the AL West, 25 1/2 GB of Oakland. Their Attendance was 6th of 12 team in the AL. Average MLB attendance was 15,064.

[Baseball-Reference is used for all data other than historical Average Attendance, when this Chart is utilized.]

None of the non-Rays teams were in Playoff position... two teams averaged MORE fans than the Average MLB teams of the same season... and only one (the Mariners) were similar to the Rays on a percentage basis. Essentially, the Rays are really bad at attendance, and picking 4 random teams in their 11th year of service to show they drew fewer fans than the Rays doesn't hold up since it misses the fact that baseball attracts a lot more fans than it did even 20 years ago (let alone 40).

Cuzitt, the problem with your argument is that the 2007 Rays also out-drew the Angels and Mariners in their 11th season (and in their 10th seasons too, just to keep it apples to apples). And in case you forgot, the 2007 Rays finished in last place.

The point is that fan bases take time to develop. The Rays' attendance increased 31% between 2007 and 2008 -- the biggest increase of any MLB team. Just to put that into perspective, the Tigers' attendance increased 27% during their revival season in 2006 and the White Sox attendance was up 21% in 2003 (the year they won the Series). Yet because Selig and Sternberg want a new stadium that they won't pay for, they're pushing stories critical of the fan support.

But that isn't apples to apples since it doesn't take into account baseball's increasing popularity (or at least ticket sales). Just because Tampa Bay is now getting 22K a game doesn't actually meant that is a good number or an expected number. They were still 26th of 32 teams. I just don't see the utility of looking at the attendance of a team in 1971 and a team in 2008. They are completely different environments (and, if I am not mistaken, different accounting rules - actual fans in the seats vs. tickets sold).

I have no idea if getting a new ballpark will actually help increase the ticket base for the Rays. But, I know that 22K a game for a Division winning team is depressingly bad... regardless of how much better it was than the year previous.

That being said, the Trop is a horrible baseball park. The sooner they get rid of it, the better for Major League Baseball.

Agreed. But if MLB or the Rays want a new ballpark, they should pay for one.

They'll just say that an extra 8,000 people bought tickets that didn't. Teams that have lower than average attendance do it all the time in every sport. Some teams have an "announced" and an "actual" attendance which differ wildly. They exaggerate their attendance in order to keep the value of their sponsorship packages up. If your sales team can tell potential sponsors that the team averages 20,000 per game rather than 12,000 per game, you're going to make more money.

The taxman doesn't have anything to do with it because the teams' announced attendance is consumption for the fans/media/sponsors and has no legal bearing on the actual amount the team made in ticket revenue.

I would hope/think a reasonably well informed, educated sponsorship buyer would be totally aware of this practice too - and discounts reported attendance when doing an assesment of an opportunity.

I know I've been at plenty of Indy games (Northern League & Golden League) in my town where the announced attendance was over 1000, and there were maybe 300 people in the stands. It was more when the team was just getting started, but it still happened from time to time this year too.

I worked in Minor League Baseball for 6 years. We lied about attendance figures all the time. It was to increase the value of sponsorhip packages.

All the time.

In Minor League baseball it's an extremely common practice, even with high attendance teams. Many minor league teams actually list their ballparks' capacity as being much higher than it actually is. I know of one ballpark that holds less than 1500 seats (no bleachers) yet has an announced capacity of 3500. There are a few ownership groups that do not allow their GMs to have and announced attendance, but they are few and far between.

In many MiLB stadiums, the number of seats has nothing to do with ballpark capacity. General admission and standing room only are the norm in most MiLB stadiums. The team I worked for had approximately 5,000 seats. On a fireworks night at the end of the summer* we would legitimately have 7,000 to 7,500 bodies in the park. Of course, we would announce something like 10,000-12,000.

*Like many teams, we sold unreserved, undated tickets. The number of these tickets redeemed would go up with each passing weekend. Of course, we counted them whether they were used or not.

It takes a while for fans to warm up to a franchise that has been a non-factor for years. Need proof. On Sept. 26, 1967, the Red Sox had four games to play and were tied for first in an incredible four-team pennant race.

So as they played the Indians in Fenway on Tuesday and Wednesday, here's what they drew:
Sept. 26: 16,652
Sept. 27: 18,415

The Impossible Dream Red Sox played two games in the final week with Fenway half-full. That's worse than what happened in St. Pete this year.

The real test for Rays fans will be next year.

Except... it isn't. Based on Average Baseball Attendance in 1967... the Red Sox were above average. 15,005 people (on average) attended Major League Baseball Games in 1967.

The Rays averaged 10,000 less than the major league average this year. In the age of corporations buying season tickets, this is really really bad. Comparing the Rays to teams 40 years in the past isn't going to change this reality.

As someone alluded to earlier, the Trop is a b!tch to get to. It is not served by public transportation of any kind, and it is located 45 minutes away from downtown Tampa in St. Pete, and there is essentially one bridge to get there. Let's be honest, if you could walk up and buy tickets to any game, if you are the average person, would you really haul ass to get out of work at 5, go home, fight traffic and maybe make the first pitch at 7 against the Royals on a Tuesday night? If you look at their weekend attendance, without the problems of rush hour traffic, the Rays did quite well the second half of the season.

I do think things will be a lot better for them next season, with people jumping on the bandwagon and more season tickets sold.

Is Fenway Park easy to get to? Yeah, subway, but do people not living in greater Boston know how to use it? Last time I was back there from CA, we parked at a relative's in Brookline, took, what, the Greenline in, but after the game, we got on the wrong one and ended up in Brighton, having to walk a mile to get to the car. One of my local teams is the A's and it's almost as easy to get there as it is to get to a supermarket on Main Street USA. There is stadium parking large enough to hold all cars that get there for a given game, which charges, guessing, 15 - 20 bucks per car. Then there is BART, like your MTA, that stops every 15 minutes or so, ~ 10 minute walk from the Coliseum. And, if you still want to drive, BART has a gigantic parking lot that is FREE. Still, even in the A's glory years, they didn't sell out much. Thing is that if a team has hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dedicated fans, they'll find a way to get there. Most teams just don't have enough fans, which is short for fanatic.

First, I don't live in greater Boston, and I know how to use the subway I have probably taken it to Fenway at least 25 times and never had a problem. You are comparing apples and oranges here. The Red Sox have been consistent winners for much of this decade and every game is sold out. People will deal with extra crap to get there because they might only have tickets for one or two games a year. You think people really want to go to a series with the Blue Jays in April? No, but if those are the only tickets they can get, they will go.

If you are in Tampa, you know darn well you can walk up five minutes before the first pitch and get into any game you want, including Boston and New York. Why, then, would you go through a whole pain-in-the-butt rigamarole to go to a game during the week when you know you can walk up on a Saturday night without the hassle and get tickets? Sure, diehard fans will put up with a lot to go to a game, but casual fans won't, especially when you know you can see a game anytime you want.

And using Oakland in this scenario is ridiculous too. Their ballpark is huge, and will never sell out. I looked, and in 1990, the height of their heyday, they averaged 35, 805 fans a game and were second in the AL in attendance. The only team ahead of them was Toronto, averaging over 47,000 a game playing in a brand-new Skydome. Part of attendance is the scarcity of tickets. More people want to go when the game is sold out. That is why I laugh at people who say the Red Sox should build a 50,000 seat ballpark, since it would probably actually cut demand, since there would be enough tickets to go around.

So because teams like the Kansas City A's couldn't draw flies, the Sox should be cut some slack by doing better than average and having a half-filled park in the last week of the season in the first pennant race since 1950? I don't see it.

The Rays basically had NO identity, except losing, before this year. Everyone 30 or older in Tampa/St. Pete rooted for someone else in high school because there was no team in Tampa Bay. No one 20 or older went to a Rays game as a little kid - when it's truly magical - to see a game for the first time because there was no game to go to.

The Red Sox were the franchise of Williams, Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Pesky. They had been around forever. 10,000 people turned out at Logan Airport when they cAme back from a big road trip. But they still drew awful crowds for those games, at a time when tickets cost peanuts (even when adjusted for inflation).

Well, my whole point was that there is very little demand for A's tickets, and, even in their heyday, they practically gave away tickets to keep attendance looking good. I'm talking about $1 tickets just because it's Tuesday night and neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees are in town. No limit either. And, as someone pointed out, teams lie about attendance. People just don't give a flying you know what about the A's around here, and never did. Why do you think they're trying to move to Fremont, which doesn't look like much better, where whites are now in the minority and the majority hardly knows what baseball is. The Red Sox and the Yankees, and a few other teams are unique in having the fervid following that do.

Except corporations were not buying season tickets before this year. The Rays have a tiny season ticket base of about 7,000. By comparison the Yankees had 38,000 (including adding several partial plans up to a 1 full season equivalent). The Giants had 28,000 full season season ticket holders a few years ago. In other words just to get to the MLB average the Rays had to shift more seats per game as the Yankees. That's their problem in a nutshell and it goes to what curly said - if you can walk up and get ANY GAME, then there's no reason to bust ass on a Wednesday night against traffic to see the Royals.

I guarantee that even if the Rays turned into a pumpkin next year they will outdraw this year, just because season tickets are going to at the very least double and possibly even go beyond that.

I mean for God's sake this was baseball's punchline no more than 2 years ago. Perennially awful expansion team in a horrible ballpark in the middle of nowhere and an aura of comic ineptitude about them. They were this decade's Washington Senators. Excuse the good people of Tampa for not coming out in sufficient numbers to please the burghers of Boston. It's not like Tampa got 10K to Ted Williams' last game or anythin'.

No... because attendance was different 40 years ago we should not be comparing a team from 1967 with a team from 2008. They are completely different business environments, completely different baseball environments, (likely) completely different ticket accounting environments (tickets sold vs. actual in stadium accounting)... basically, the whole attempt to cut Tampa Bay slack in comparing different baseball markets at different times in the past is comparing apples with tennis shoes. We should stop this madness.

Now, I have no idea if the Rays should have been getting more fans in or not. I have no idea if the Florida market should actually have MLB regular season baseball. I absolutely agree that now that the team has shown that they can be winners, it may help them next season (and hopefully in the future) in actually marketing the team and gaining a fan base. The fact that Vince Naimoli is out of the picture may help the team as time goes on. There is a chance that Tampa Bay may surprise us in the next few years with their increased attendance.

But, let us not be silly. They were 26th of 32 major league teams this year in attendance. In their last non-weekend home game this year... they brought in 17,296. In this day and age given the baseball environment in the US, that is a crappy figure. The fact that they increased their attendance by 20% this year (or whatever the actual percentage is) is only proof of how crappy their base actually is/was.

and that's 45 minutes, on a good day.

The problem with the Rays is location. They are a regional team, but they are located a) 45-60 minutes from the largest population center in the region (Tampa), and b) in the extreme southwest corner of the region, surrounded on three sides by water. Imagine if Fenway were in Manchester, NH and you'd get an inkling of an idea.

Tampa proper is kind of a weird place, because if you look it up it only has about 400,000 people, but the county it's in (Hillsborough) is mostly unincorporated urban sprawl, with about 980,000 people who live within 30 minutes of downtown Tampa, and most within 20 minutes. Anywhere else in America these places would be part of Tampa. In fact, there are highly populated areas neighboring Tampa that are so identity-less that people think they live in Tampa, even when they don't. I lived just off campus from USF (which is in Tampa proper), like a 10 minute walk, but I was not considered a Tampa resident by the local census.

In contrast, St. Petersburg (where the Rays play) has 250,000 people, and takes up most of southern Pinellas county. You have to go a ways north in Pinellas before you get to another large town (Largo or Clearwater)

Add to that the completely non-centralized location of the Trop.

This is what most people consider the Tampa Bay area. That green arrow is the Trop, in St. Pete.

If you live north of Tampa, on this map you are within 50 minutes of Tampa. East goes about 70 minutes, but in bigger towns like Lakeland and Plant City, you're talking a 30 minute drive to Tampa vs. a 75 minute drive to St. Pete.
Just off this map, if you keep going on I-4 passed Windemere, is Orlando, which is a 1hr 20 minute drive to Tampa (not crazy for a weekend game) vs. a 2 hr 10 min drive to St. Pete.
Sarasota/Bradenton is the only place on this map that's closer to St. Pete, but the difference is about 20 minutes.

On top of that, a lot of people in St. Pete already work in Tampa (St. Pete is a nicer place to live), so it wouldn't be like they moving away from their St. Pete fans.

They'd probably get at least 30,000 a game at a park in Tampa, especially if they were doing as well as this year. Only thing is, the previous owners signed a terrible lease with the City of St. Pete that locks them in the town until 2025. They could probably pay them off, but if you look at something like what Seattle got for the Sonics ($45 mil to buy-out just 2 years), you're talking over $300 mil. Not happining any time soon. Not getting a stadium deal was a blessing in disguise. The owners should wait 4 or 5 years and buy themselves out of there and into Tampa.

I'm not knockin St. Pete. If there was anywere in Florida I'd live again, it'd be there. It's pretty and has great beaches. But it is preposterously out of the way for a sports franchise with 81 home games. Honestly, football would be fine there, but not baseball.

Infidel, from what I gather from your post, there are nearly 1,000,000 people living within an hour of the Trop. and according to other posts, there is absolutely no problems obtaining tickets. Folks seem to have no problem driving hours to get to Sox games. I'll grant you that the product has been worlds better than what Tampa has been offering for the past 20 years, but Fenway can be much tougher for many to get to.

Umm, maybe within an hour of the Trop sans traffic. I have friends in Lakeland, and it takes at least 2 hours each direction to get to the Trop for a ballgame because of traffic. Traffic in that part of Florida is a nightmare. Combine that with the fact that to get to a game you are competing with rush hour Tampa to St. Pete traffic and you have a positive disaster. The only way a stadium in St. Pete is feasible is if a commuter train system is built to ship fans from Tampa and North of Tampa to the games and back. Otherwise, they need to move the team to Tampa so that the team is accessible to the population base. With sustained success, this would also start to draw fans out of places like Orlando, where the 2 hour drive isn't too unreasonable, I know I used to make that sort of trip to Fenway when I lived in Western Mass, if you are going to see a winning team. The St. Pete location really takes Orlando out of the picture as a potential fan base and really hurts the franchise.

The location coupled with a 10 year history of being a laughing stock made it really hard for Tampa to make significant inroads into attendance this year. Especially since no one who doesn't read BP really expected much of anything from the Rays this year. I'd expect another huge jump next year that'll put them in at least the mid 20,000's in attendance. Fixing the stadium location could bump that up another 5,000-10,000 a year, although that is a far more involved problem.

1,000,000 people live within an hour of Manchester, NH, but they don't have a team because most of that million live in and around Boston. It's the same thing with St. Pete and Tampa.

How many people who live an hour away buy season tickets? Would you buy season tickets to the Sox if they played in Manchester and you lived in Boston, and everything else you did was in Boston?

The difference is, some people don't have a problem driving an hour or so to go to Sox games, but those aren't the fans the Sox depend on for the majority of their ticket sales. Most don't have to because they live a shorter distance away because Fenway is in the middle of the population center. For 81 games that makes a giant difference, especially for walk ups. A lot of folks don't even have to drive to Sox games, whereas everyone has to drive to Rays games.

For Tampa Bay, since the team is not in the population center, most fans have to travel an hour to the game. I used to go to a 5 or so games a year, but even if I was a die hard Rays fan i couldn't justify driving an hour there and back 81 times a year.

It used to be that the nice people in New Orleans could say that NOLA rarely got hit square on by a hurricane. Then came Katrina. They probably don't say that anymore. (And Katrina really nailed Mississippi, not New Orleans. But they still wouldn't say it.)

I grew up on the Gulf Coast (and don't miss it). That location will get hit by a hurricane. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Just like San Francisco will get hit by another earthquake.

And like San Francisco, it won't be a good reason to stop doing anything. Make the sail-roof strong or easily replacable, but you can still have a sail-roof.

I NOLA's case, most of the damage isn't done by the wind itself, but by the flooding which occurs afterward. There are several geographical reasons for this, including: 1) NOLA being below sea level and 2) the Gulf being in between NOLA and the path of hurricanes. Neither is true of Tampa. Tampa will get hit with wind (they've had games canceled before, and it will happen again), but you won't see the level of destruction from NOLA or Galveston.

As a long time Orlando area resident and Boston area ex-pat I might have a few relevant comments. There is little doubt the Rays have nearly nil following out of Orlando. This may change in future years if they continue their success. The NFL Bucs have a significant Orlando area following, for example. When the Lightning first came to Tampa I was a half season ticket holder. There are still Orlando area people who hold full season packages. Both the St. Pete Times Forum (NHL) and the Bucs stadium are east of the bay and within shouting distance of 275 in downtown Tampa.

I have been to less than 10 games at the Trop, all Red Sox, all in the past few years (I have lived in this area for 7 of the 11 years the Rays have been here). BTW, there has been corporate participation for season tickets. I have more than once sat in the Outback box or seats. There are many others who extend back to the origination of the franchise.

Indfidel pretty much hits it on the head. It is a first class PITA to get to St. Pete even from within the greater Tampa area much less well east as the Orlando metro is. Starting last year, the Rays have played a regular season series at the Disney Sports complex in an effort to increase their Orlando area following. In local terms, Disney isn't exactly an easy venture either, similar to what St. Pete is to metro Tampa people - well southwest of the metro. The games while well attended, did not sell out. I think they hold around 10k at Disney with the lawn seats. I have been to two Braves ST games there. I don't care much for the place, frankly. When they had Toronto in this past season, I was working a contract at a place less than five miles from the Disney stadium. I had to drive by it to go home. For a week prior to the games I asked around and could find no one who was interested in going. I didn't go either.

When I go to games in St. Pete it has usually been a multi day affair. Most have been weekend series. Trying to get to St. Pete for a 7PM start requires a 4PM exit from Orlando and Orlando traffic begins to build around 3:30. You will hit eastern suburbs of Tampa right at 5PM. The traffic can back up to the I-75 junction some 10 miles still east of downtown Tampa. Add to that for the past few years there has been an ongoing major construction project to widen I-275 in downtown Tampa and you have a wall of problems getting to St. Pete from parts east. The last time I went, I took 75 south to the 275 junction north of Bradenton and saved time, yet added some 15 miles to the trip.

The local area around the Trop isn't the best neighborhood but staying with the main drags isn't too bad. I usually book my hotel closer to Clearwater when I go. There is a place called Ferg's very close to the Trop which I highly recommend for both scenery and sports bar atmosphere. Almost worth the trip by itself, both pre and post game.

LoweTek or other Orlando people - Do you think if the Rays had spring training and an FSL team in/near Orlando, would it increase the number of Rays fans there?

Kind of related because of what TBs exec. VP Andrew Friedman said in an intervew on the Jim Rome show today...one of Rome's questions was can you compete with the Red Sox and Yankees every year. His answer was 'not 10 out of 10 years'. Then he went on to say that they are looking at Billy Beane's A's as the model to copy, having to select only certain players to keep. The way he put it was Beane is not interested in an 81 win team. He'd rather partially blow it up and start over and hope for a, well, like a Rays of today. I thought maybe his answer would be built around assuming the Rays attendance would continue to rise, but instead his stance was pretty conservative. Another way of staying lean and mean is to lock up certain players early, like Longoria. Sharp guy, and only 31 years old. Not sure I'd want my team emulating the A's though. That ship has sailed.

Not brought up was the Trop. How about gathering up a few hundred locals that need work, buy them putty knives, have them scrape that miserable looking half gone carpet, bring in a few hundred yards of loam and plant grass? Oh, no retractable roof. I think an indoor grass has been developed, but not sure.

I think ST would help but they had a AA Southern League affilliate in Orlando for several years. I was a season ticket holder. Attendance at the rickety old Tinker Field in a crappy neighborhood west of Downtown Orlando was abysmal. They moved it to Disney expecting us to follow them there. I mentioned the convenience of the Disney field in the above post. As a result, they lost most of the season ticket base (including me) and expected apparently that tourists would make up the difference. They lasted a few years there but have since moved the franchise to one of the other Southern League towns. I'm not even sure TBR has an affilliate in the Southern League anymore. Orlando had a SL team forever. It was originally a Twins affilliate, then the Cubs, then the Mariners and Rays (I saw Tek when he was in the Mariners system), then the Rays alone. I saw a lot of interesting players over the years, including the guy in The Rookie movie, Huff, Chipper and Klesko, Michael Jordan (with Tito), a lot of really good players came through. I miss it. I went to more than half the games along with the other 250-500 regulars. It was a bargain, $300 a seat. I had four in the front row at the visitors on deck circle.

Orlando has not had a ST franchise since the Twins moved to Ft. Myers in 1991. When the RS were in Winter Haven, Detroit in Lakeland, KC in Polk County, Reds in Plant City, Astros in Kissimee, ST was great around here. Once the Twins started the dominos falling everybody left. To be fair, Tinker Field is an old field and the City was in no mood to match what Ft. Myers was doing for the Twins. Everybody wants to be nearer to the beach. I can think of only a few inland teams in Florida ST now. There used to be quite a few.

There have been a few proposals over the years for both ST and MLB franchises but Orlando has not proven a baseball town. I can see a business case for TBR to put their ST in Orlando. But I doubt it will happen. I actually believe there is a long term contingency to move the team here in the event lack of support continues in St. Pete. That would be interesting.

The FSL games are very poorly attended, FWIW. The closest one now is Kissimee (Astros). Still a long trek from Metro Orlando.

This game isn't close to being sold out.

I think you mean that this game isn't close to being fully attended.

I'm pretty certain that all the tickets were sold within hours of when they were offerred.