USA - Stadium and Arena Development News

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by Archbishop

Rays don't have bad fans, they have a bad stadium location. Rays are top 10 in local TV viewers but Tropicana is in a terrible area that no one can get to. I love the new Rays proposal but it will never work because it is still in St. Petersburg.

Sorry, but every ranking I can find, consistently ranks the St. Louis Cardinals as having the best fans and the Tampa Bay Rays as having the worst fans. St. Louis draws 44,000 for a game on a hot muggy day that is 41C (105F) against a last place team. The Rays barley draw 28,000 for the Yankees (by the way the Yankees are the most popular team in Florida not the Rays or Marlins) and less than 15,000 for everyone else. Time to move the team to Charlotte.

[joezierer]

To be fair, the Trop is a dump compared to Busch III.

[Calvin W]

Charlotte? WTF are you smoking? A city with no stadium and can hardly support a AAA team?

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by Calvin W

Charlotte? WTF are you smoking? A city with no stadium and can hardly support a AAA team?

Charlotte is a growing city that seems to be on everyone's short list, plus they are building a new downtown stadium. Charlotte can't be any worse than Tampa Bay and to be honest, there are not that many realistic options available. Charlotte does suck on minor league attendance, but what are your other options? Allentown? Louisville? Memphis? Sacramento? Columbus? Austin?....... I don't seem them as MLB cities.

Personally I would move the team to North Jersey for a third team in the NYC area, but I don't know if the Yanks/Mets would allow such a move. Where would you move the Rays?

[eMKay]

Originally Posted by Welkin

Where would you move the Rays?

TAMPA!

[Calvin W]

Originally Posted by Welkin

Charlotte is a growing city that seems to be on everyone's short list, plus they are building a new downtown stadium. Charlotte can't be any worse than Tampa Bay and to be honest, there are not that many realistic options available. Charlotte does suck on minor league attendance, but what are your other options? Allentown? Louisville? Memphis? Sacramento? Columbus? Austin?....... I don't seem them as MLB cities.

Personally I would move the team to North Jersey for a third team in the NYC area, but I don't know if the Yanks/Mets would allow such a move. Where would you move the Rays?

Where would I move the Rays? I wouldn't mate. MLB makes more than enough money as a league. Time to level the field and put n a proper salary cap and revenue sharing...

Everyone on the same level

[Archbishop]

Originally Posted by eMKay

TAMPA!

Yes, thank you. It's amazing that so many people don't understand this.

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by Archbishop

Yes, thank you. It's amazing that so many people don't understand this.

Why would you throw good money at bad fans just because the stadium would be across the bay. The Rays are having another great year on the field, yet they are only averaging 18,500 fans per game (down 5,000 from last year) and their viewership on Sun Sports is down 34% this year. Nobody in Tampa Bay is going to the games or watching the games on TV, yet your solution is to spend $650-$750 million on a new stadium in Tampa in the hope that someone will bother to show up. By the way, how is Miami's $650 million investment doing this year? Are the taxpayers of Hillsborough County going to shell out $750 million on a new stadium for a team that nobody cares to watch? I know the owner of the Rays would never drop that kind of cash on a new home in Tampa only to see his team draw maybe 25,000 per game. Lets face it, the Rays are staying in St. Pete until the end of their lease, and then they will probably move to some city willing to provide them with a new stadium (Charlotte, Portland or Montreal). It is a shame because they are such a fun team to watch.

[Lumbergo]

dupe

[Lumbergo]

Originally Posted by Archbishop

Yes, thank you. It's amazing that so many people don't understand this.

Originally Posted by eMKay

TAMPA!

indeed. near the ice palace / times forum would thrive I think. it's easy to get to and doesn't require you to drive several miles over a bridge that gets backup from traffic / weather fairly regularly.
the parking lots (really, they are dirt lots) in front of the arena could easily fit a ballpark and it's within walking distance to hotels / bars / downtown in general (i've stayed downtown to go to concerts and hockey events before, walking to the arena is a breeze.)

[Archbishop]

Originally Posted by Welkin

Why would you throw good money at bad fans just because the stadium would be across the bay. The Rays are having another great year on the field, yet they are only averaging 18,500 fans per game (down 5,000 from last year) and their viewership on Sun Sports is down 34% this year. Nobody in Tampa Bay is going to the games or watching the games on TV, yet your solution is to spend $650-$750 million on a new stadium in Tampa in the hope that someone will bother to show up. By the way, how is Miami's $650 million investment doing this year? Are the taxpayers of Hillsborough County going to shell out $750 million on a new stadium for a team that nobody cares to watch? I know the owner of the Rays would never drop that kind of cash on a new home in Tampa only to see his team draw maybe 25,000 per game. Lets face it, the Rays are staying in St. Pete until the end of their lease, and then they will probably move to some city willing to provide them with a new stadium (Charlotte, Portland or Montreal). It is a shame because they are such a fun team to watch.

Because there is a huge difference between Tampa and St. Petersburg, and they aren't bad fans. Tampa gets very good local TV viewers, and that's because people want to watch but can't get to the dumpy stadium across the bay. They aren't bad fans at all. Why even mention Montreal?

[RaiderATO]

Originally Posted by Calvin W

Time to level the field and put n a proper salary cap and revenue sharing...

Everyone on the same level

MLB has the most parity of any American professional league. All that done without a salary cap. (Luxury tax/revenue sharing exists though)

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by Archbishop

Because there is a huge difference between Tampa and St. Petersburg, and they aren't bad fans. Tampa gets very good local TV viewers, and that's because people want to watch but can't get to the dumpy stadium across the bay. They aren't bad fans at all. Why even mention Montreal?

1. They don't show up in person, and TV viewership is down 34%.

2. There is not a stadium waiting for them in Tampa. Someone has to spend $750 million to build one. No strong support = no tax money for a new stadium, especially in high unemployment, recession racked Tampa Bay.

3. There are 31,000,000 Google hits on "Rays to Montreal". Not too many years down the road Montreal will be putting a plan in place (including a new downtown stadium) to lure a team back north. They have their eyes on the Rays. Check out: http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/8/30/32...treal-baseball

[Calvin W]

Originally Posted by RaiderATO

MLB has the most parity of any American professional league. All that done without a salary cap. (Luxury tax/revenue sharing exists though)

Sorry, not a chance of agreeing with you on that one mate. Take a real look at salary max and minimms.

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by RaiderATO

MLB has the most parity of any American professional league. All that done without a salary cap. (Luxury tax/revenue sharing exists though)

MLB has the worst parity of any of the major leagues. The NFL has by far the best parity.

Yankees $198M, Phillies $175M, Red Sox $173M, Angels $155M, Tigers $132M..... Padres $55M, A's $55M, Astros $60M, Royals $61M, Pirates $64M, Rays $64M. The top teams outspending the bottom teams by a 3.5-1 ratio. Yeah that's parity, right?

NFL: Detroit Lions $118M, the next 17 teams between $112M-118M. Jacksonville is the lowest at $91M. This is the definition of parity.

[joezierer]

Originally Posted by Welkin

1. They don't show up in person, and TV viewership is down 34%.

2. There is not a stadium waiting for them in Tampa. Someone has to spend $750 million to build one. No strong support = no tax money for a new stadium, especially in high unemployment, recession racked Tampa Bay.

3. There are 31,000,000 Google hits on "Rays to Montreal". Not too many years down the road Montreal will be putting a plan in place (including a new downtown stadium) to lure a team back north. They have their eyes on the Rays. Check out: http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/8/30/32...treal-baseball

Oh so that's why you are hating so much on Rays fans, you want the Expos back. Now it makes sense. Trading one set of poor attendence (St. Pete) for probably the worst attendence MLB has ever gotten (Montreal) would be a terrible idea.

[Archbishop]

Originally Posted by Welkin

1. They don't show up in person, and TV viewership is down 34%.

2. There is not a stadium waiting for them in Tampa. Someone has to spend $750 million to build one. No strong support = no tax money for a new stadium, especially in high unemployment, recession racked Tampa Bay.

3. There are 31,000,000 Google hits on "Rays to Montreal". Not too many years down the road Montreal will be putting a plan in place (including a new downtown stadium) to lure a team back north. They have their eyes on the Rays. Check out: http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/8/30/32...treal-baseball

Show me where it says TV ratings are down. The comments say everything in that poorly written article too.

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by Archbishop

Show me where it says TV ratings are down. The comments say everything in that poorly written article too.

I haven't seen the final ratings for 2012 (who knows the Rays may be up) but for the final 2011 ratings, the Rays were down -37.5%.

TEAM RSN CHANGE^ (2011 RATING)
Cleveland SportsTime Ohio +108.9% (6.31)
Milwaukee FS Wisconsin +59.0% (7.95)
Pittsburgh Root Sports Pittsburgh +49.1% (4.89)
Kansas City FS Kansas City +31.4% (3.35)
Boston NESN +31.1% (7.80)

Bottom 5
Minnesota FS North -28.3% (6.24)
Los Angeles Dodgers FS Prime Ticket -30.1% (1.14)
Tampa Bay FS Florida/Sun Sports -37.5% (3.67)
Houston FS Houston -40.3% (1.51)
San Diego Cox/SD 4 -41.4% (3.15)
AVG. AUDIENCE SIZE

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by joezierer

Oh so that's why you are hating so much on Rays fans, you want the Expos back. Now it makes sense. Trading one set of poor attendence (St. Pete) for probably the worst attendence MLB has ever gotten (Montreal) would be a terrible idea.

I don't hate the Rays and I am not an Expos fan. I am a long suffering Jays fan. I was only pointing out that if the Rays don't work out in Tampa, there might be some people in Montreal that would like another shot. I my point was that it does not make a lot of sense to spend $750 million on a new stadium in Tampa to attract the team from St. Pete when the team is really not all that popular to begin with. They have already tried this in Miami and the results have been less than outstanding. The Marlins had the lowest first year attendance of any new stadium built in the last 11 years. Why would Tampa expect anything better.

[RaiderATO]

Originally Posted by Welkin

MLB has the worst parity of any of the major leagues. The NFL has by far the best parity.

Yankees $198M, Phillies $175M, Red Sox $173M, Angels $155M, Tigers $132M..... Padres $55M, A's $55M, Astros $60M, Royals $61M, Pirates $64M, Rays $64M. The top teams outspending the bottom teams by a 3.5-1 ratio. Yeah that's parity, right?

Orioles, A's, Braves, Reds, Nationals, all in the playoffs, and all in the lower 50% of payroll (and all with less that 1/2 of the top 3 $$$$ teams). Half the playoff teams are in the lower half, and all the playoff teams are fairly equally spread throughout the payroll spread. Looks to me like payroll has less to do with success in MLB than any other sport.

NFL: Detroit Lions $118M, the next 17 teams between $112M-118M. Jacksonville is the lowest at $91M. This is the definition of parity.

What you're talking about isn't the parity I was talking about. You're talking about the effects of a salary cap. MLB doesn't have a salary cap, yet attains the most parity (in performance) of any american professional sports league.