It may have taken a $2 kids night, a Joe Maddon Gnome giveaway, and the World Champion Giants visiting, but the Rays have posted four straight strong showings at the gate, including Sunday's sellout win. (It doesn't hurt there was some great baseball and the Rays keep on winning)
The team's season average is now up to 18,476, which is a few hundred fans a game more than the 30th-ranked Marlins, but still far below last year's average at this point of 20,647.
There are certainly signs if the Rays can keep up their unbelievable play that they could continue to grow their audience into the fall. But a lot of that depends on the buzz around the Buccaneers and Lightning, too.
No matter how you slice it, at least the Rays aren't getting the kind of press the Marlins are: disappointing news on the ballfield and embarrassing news in the stands.
For those of you keeping score at home - like Maury Brown with the Biz of Baseball - the Marlins are just a touch in front of the 1999 Rays in the hotly-contested race for worst-sophomore season in a new ballpark.
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I think the giveaways have to continue. If it gets people out to the Trop, then why not? I admit, I do not know the economics of giving stuff away and if it makes fiscal sense. But I have to believe those are sponsored by whatever business which would make it low cost to the team.
ReplyDeleteIt would definitely be useful, if for no other reason than for valuable data collection, for the Rays to experiment with varying ticket prices - if they do enough of this they will get multiple data points where the dots might connect in a very understanable way. So they have had the $2 per ticket data point. So now try $3, than $4, than $5, etc. For sure, the Rays will get a lot better sense of how sensitive the fan base is to the cost of tickets. In this Tampa Bay economically weak area, this will be extremely valuable information to gain. And it will bring home the message loud and clear that stadium location is very secondary to the fact that we don't have a super-abundance of prosperous baseball fans. And location is really tertiary when you factor in the importance of having a winning team. Bottom line - only chance for perceived success (Bud Selig Point of View) in TB is a winning team with a winning economy.
DeleteBTW, Sunday's game was not a sell out - just 10 short - 34078/34088. I was there with a friend. If only I had 10 more friends!
Oops - MY BAD
DeleteCapacity is 34078 - it was a sell out - now I don't have to find 10 new friends.
"There are certainly signs if the Rays can keep up their unbelievable play that they could continue to grow their audience into the fall."
ReplyDeleteExcept their next two homestands are against Seattle and Toronto, teams whom the Rays have played against in front of crowds less than 10k in recent years.