Bad attendance has nothing to do with a bad stadium. Most people dont know there are 4 minor league stadiums on the way to the rays stadium if you are outside of st pete. Look it up. 3 of the 4 minor league teams have fairly new stadiums. So anyone coming from tampa or orlando has a closer baseball option and a better stadium experience than going to tropicana field. If the rays were in tampa they would attract way more fans. I live in tampa and everyone i talk too says tropicana field is too far. if you want to drive from tampa to st pete you will pass one of the 4 minor league teams before getting to tropicana field so why not go to those stadiums? I keep seeing people bash the rays attendance and blame the fans without even knowing that the tampa area has more pro baseball per square foot than any other area in the world. The problem with rays attendance is there is too much baseball in the area. I literally have friends on facebook who post pics of themselves at these minor league games daily. I like the new stadium idea but until something is done with these minor league teams in the area i dont see many people from tampa driving to st pete to watch a game. it takes me 50 minutes to get to the stadium while it only takes me 20 minutes to get to the Tampa yankees (tarpons) field. It also only takes me 30 minutes to get to the Bradenton pirates (Marauders) stadium. I can also get to the Dunedin Blue jays, and Clearwater Threshers in about 45 minutes. im not sure why nobody brings up these points when talking about attendance. If the tampa area was such a bad area for pro baseball why are there 5 teams separated by 30 miles? The rays or mlb should deal with these teams. Make some move to orlando or another city.
Anyone remember "Ballpark Village" in St. Louis? It was long on promises and little was delivered. Of course, Phase A is the stadium. Somehow B, C, and D will run into budgetary problems. Bet on it.
As a person living in the Tampa Bay Area, I’ve been to this stadium and it’s so aged. Especially those baseballs on the roof outside. Now I see why rays attendance is so low… 😂
Until they get a train/metro to move people from, for example, Orlando to the stadium, there will be no change in crowd sizes. It is impossible to get to the location with traffic.
Good info. We’ll see how this goes. I hope the Rays get a nice new stadium, because I doubt anyone would dispute that the Trop is probably the worst in the MLB… even before the hurricane.
The Tampa Bay metro area is nearly three million people, but they are spread/sprawled out all over creation. And there is no integrated transit. Driving is the only way to get anywhere (one reason I moved away). Putting the new stadium in Tampa won’t solve the problem, nor will building a new one in St. Pete. The area really can’t support three major league sports. I was an original Rays season ticket holder, and I’d hate to see them move, but they are third behind hockey and football (and Bucs fans are bandwagoners anyway).
AYO TAMPA, JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN’T GET THE MEMO, DON’T PUT A GODDAMN ROOF ON IT. EVERYBODY KEEP BITCHING AT Y’ALL FOR HSVING A ROOF AND TERRIBLE LIGHTING AND YET YOU STILL DIDN’T TAKE THE ROOF OFF. HURRICANE MILTON WAS LISTENING AND ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR ROOF SITUATION 😂😂😂
that is the the thing it will cost to much money to fix up the stadium for them just to leave it in a couple years anyway . the Rays should find a home for the time being tell the new stadium is built i say why not then Bulldoze the Trop and built the new stadium there .
if they are going to build the new statuim in saint petersburg near the old one than they need 2 change the name from tampa bay rays 2 saint petersburg rays
@@Itshadow306 why Orlando? slightly smaller market and already has NBA & MLS. not sure they're going to want to spend hundreds of millions on a new stadium either.
