Looking at Spring Training & Rowdies Crowds

As you recover from a weekend full of Spring Training, the Grand Prix of St. Pete, the Valspar Championship, countless other Tampa-area sporting events...and oh yeah, March Madness.....here's a pair of sports business reads from the last week you shouldn't miss:

1. Can Tampa Bay Support MLS?  Times' columnist John Romano echoes some of the concerns made by this blog about adding a fourth big-league team to a sports market already stretched very very thin.  He also wonders about that $150 million expansion price tag, on top of $80 million in supposedly-self-financed stadium renovations.
2. Spring Training Attendance Down: Watchdog blogger Tom Rask is not impressed by the attendance numbers from the start of spring training.  Especially as the Blue Jays seek tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers to renovate & expand their Dunedin home.  Anecdotally, I've been able to get Tampa Yankees tickets pretty easily online at the last minute (despite $40 million in renovations this winter) and there have been a lot of empty seats seen in Florida stadiums during some recent telecasts.  Hmmmmm.

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