Monday, June 1, 2015

The Rays Would Play Regular Season Games in Montreal...Except...

Good friend of this blog, Maury Brown (@BizBallMaury), wrote today on Forbes.com "5 Reasons Why The Tampa Bay Rays Should Play Some 2016 Regular Season Games In Montreal.

No surprise, one of the reasons would be the pressure it would put on Tampa Bay politicians to work on a stadium faster.

But one problem....
St. Pete has made it clear it would take legal action - if necessary - to protect its contract and prevent the Rays from talking to other baseball markets.  And while many Tweeps brought up the precedent of the Orlando series the Rays played a number of years back...there's one more problem...
So au revoir to that idea...






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16 comments:

  1. Mayor Coderre to the 6-7 MLB teams that want to play in Montreal: Who want to play their home games against the Rays in Montreal?

    MLB teams Owners: Me, no me, NO ME!

    Now, guess the names of the teams ready to come in Montreal to play home games against the Rays!

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    1. BTW, Mayor Coderre probably already informed mayor Kriseman that Rays may play away games in Montreal in 2016 just before Darcy Raymond stop by to say Hello at the restaurant!

      You know how to play chess? You need to plan the moves way before the other player.

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  2. Your post is missing a crucial point. Who said that the Rays need to be the home team? In fact, why would anyone bother even barking up that tree and negotiating with the city council? Instead, the same objective could be accomplished by having the Rays play as the visiting team. It's simply a question of finding a team that is permitted to play home games outside of its home ballpark (there's a bunch) and then lining it up to have Rays as visitors. Can't imagine how this couldn't work if you have willing parties who want to make this happen. City council could do nothing about it.

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    1. The post is also missing a key piece of information: How many times the Montreal investment group met with Sternberg in NY in 2014?

      And one time is not the right answer.

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  3. Rays could still play AWAY games in Montreal. It wouldn't really be their place to ask the home team to move the series to Montreal, but if that particular home team was already open to the idea (ie one of the 6-7 already interested) ...

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    1. I could easily see the Jays hosting a weekday series against the Rays in Montreal. Usually they draw 12-14000 during the week, so three days of 40K+ would be good for their numbers. It makes sense for the Jays to show their commitment as being Canada's current team, and they'd probably get less flack from their fans than say Cleveland or Miami for example, who have less of a reason to be in Montreal, aside from the attendance push. Plus the fans may stay away from anything to do with Loria.

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  4. I'd love for the Rays to play in Montreal simply because it would maybe speed up the process of St Pete actually doing something. However, even as the visiting team, people would read between the lines and it would only further hurt ticket sales at the Trop.

    The being said, legal actions and whatnot aside, I'm thinking it would still be pretty tempting for the Rays from a brand perspective. After all, have they ever had three near sell out regular season games at the Trop? I still don't understand why people stay away from games. They've been super competative for nearly 8 seasons. I don't live anywhere near them, but am still happy to watch on MLB.TV, and when I flew to Tampa last year, it didn't seem that diffucult to get in or out, compared to any other MLB city I've been to.

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    1. I agree. Sense of urgency is the only card the Rays can play to make things happen.

      Regarding Montreal, it will be easy to have at least 32 000 fans per game if the Rays are in town. Especially in the summer time.

      It will be like U2 or Arcade Fire ticket sales. A matter of few hours to sell them all for sure.

      Evenko (own by the Montreal Canadien) is behind those games and it is a big marketing machine to promote events (sports and entertainment). So I have no doubt that it will be a success. Evenko even asked for 12 games back in April 2015.

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  5. Funny how the masses fall for the MLB created propaganda.

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  6. As a Montrealer, I can tell Rays fans who don't want the team to move that playing games in Montreal would be the best thing that could happen. I'm a baseball fan and do not believe for one second that MLB will come back to Montreal for a very simple reason: there are not enough fans in town to support a team. If the Rays played three 3-game series in Montreal (9 games total), attendance will dip below 20 000 by game 3. Sure we can pack the Stadium twice a year for a couple of games but that's about it. Before fellow Montreal Russell Martin signed with the Blue Jays last summer, ticket sales for the two Toronto-Cincinnati games were very slow. I looked at available tickets online a couple of months before the games were played (about three months after they were announced) and less than half the tickets were sold. Regular game series in Montreal will bury this Bring-the-Expos-back fantasy. As much as I'd love a team back, it ain't gonna happen.

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    1. Selling tickets in the winter and selling them in Spring or Summer is a complete different story. You can't compared that.

      Pace of selling tickets during winter what the same as the previous year, with the difference that in 2013, the tickets were released at lest 4 weeks before 2014.

      If regular MLB season games are played (games that have a signification for Montrealers), we will be there.

      And you missed the most important point: Season Tickets. There will be lot's of season tickets sold especially to companies in Montreal which is not the case in TB.

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  7. The city needs to get this ball rolling.

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  8. Shadow of Al Lang? When a city sells or leases an asset to a sports franchise, how much research is it required/allowed to do into the operations of the sports league?

    http://screamer.deadspin.com/how-the-fifa-busts-reach-the-heart-of-nasl-1709614566#

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  9. The Rays can still play in Montreal as the visiting team - the UA for the Trop does not prohibit that.... That will be the most likely scenario... until they move

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