Tampa Bay's Front Offices Keeping Busy

Aside from the craziness that surrounds a Lightning playoff run and the tough decisions that come with a battle for first in the AL East, the front offices of Tampa Bay's pro teams are quite busy with a number of non-personnel moves.

First, with the NFL lockout extending into the summer, the Buccaneers announced a four-day furlough for all front-office employees. The team says more are possible if the lockout extends into the fall, but this could actually work out quite well for employees. If the season gets underway in September (as many experts expect), the employees will be reiumbursed for the furlough, meaning four extra vacation days. Additionally, the Bucs say the move helps avoid layoffs.

And the Rays quietly made another committment to the region, giving the Tampa Bay Partnership free ad space on the left field wall at The Trop. The private group, which the Rays are paid members of, promotes business development across Tampa Bay. While the team has been criticized for its lack of marketing around the region in recent years (possibly tied to attendance efforts?), this shows they're still activly courting business partnerships and plan on remaining in the region in the long-term.

May 23 Attendance Watch

Last week, the Rays did themselves a pair of favors when it comes to attendance numbers. Not only did they draw decent crowds to The Trop for a weekend Orioles series and a pair of weekday Yankees games, but the Rays also helped kill the Marlins' weekend numbers in Miami.

The "Sunshine State Showdown" drew 18,111 on Friday, 21,814 on Saturday, and 15,432 on Sunday. The Marlins' season average actually climbed to 17,180 after the weekend, but they also fell into dead-last in the MLB ranks.

As for the Rays, their 18,020 home average is off quite a bit from last year's numbers, but they still rank 27th in the league. Since most of the league's attendence numbers are down right now, the Rays aren't all that far behind the 22nd-ranked Blue Jays (20,752 average), the 21st-ranked Orioles (21,551), or the 20th-ranked White Sox (22,423).

But as long as Tampa Bay sports fans are still distracted by the NHL playoffs or HD television sets, we can still expect plenty of good seats available at The Trop next homestand.

How the Rays are like Big Oil

Last year, I wrote how the Rays were like Pensacola Beach after the BP oil spill.

Now, I think I can draw comparisons between the Rays and BP itself.

This week, many Democrats scoffed at Republicans' refusal to drop subsidies to BP and other big oil companies. Meanwhile, all the arguing over whether the Rays should get a new stadium has to do with how much the public would have to subsidize.

I don't think many Americans would honestly want the big oil companies to fail (or banks, auto-makers, etc.). Thus, there's support for subsidies to keep their products affordable.

Similarly, most Tampa Bay residents support subsidies (tax breaks, interest-free loans, etc) for businesses that help out the region. That's why the public pays for the stadium that allows the Rays to turn a profit.

The big debate, however, is always over how big is too big of a subsidy? While Democrats argue oil companies are too profitable for subsidies, it's often Republicans making the case that team owners are too rich for stadium subsidies.

There's no right answer, but it's why many sports teams invest in lobbyists to push their political agenda.

Indians Make Rays Look Great

If there's a silver lining in the Rays' uninspiring 2011 attendance numbers so far, it's that the Indians make them look great.

Not only does the Tribe sport a 22-11 record, but its paltry 14,275 attendance average is several thousand behind the Rays for 29th place. Weather has been a factor in Cleveland this year, but remember, fans there once filled Jacobs Field for 455 straight games.

Hard to blame the economy, either, when the NBA's second-worst team, the Cavs, was the third-best draw in the league. They averaged 20,112 fans per game without LeBron James.

Maybe Cleveland fans are protesting Charlie Sheen's ties to the Indians' franchise. Maybe they'd rather watch Anderson Varejao's hair or Baron Davis' beard than a winning team. Maybe the whole city is just a glutton for punishment (insert Cleveland joke here).

Whatever the reason is, don't expect a huge bump in the Indians' attendance numbers this week - the Rays are visiting Tuesday through Thursday.

2011 Rays Attendance Updates

Through six weeks of baseball, the first-place Rays once again have very little to show for their success at the box office. Ranked 29th in the league, the Rays are averaging just 16,311 per game.

That number will climb once kids get off school and some better teams start visiting The Trop, but other teams will fare better too after those brutal April temperatures morph into beautiful summer nights up North.

I don't think the Rays did themselves any favors by moving their April weekday games from 7:10 p.m. to 6:40 p.m. My thought is that for every family that could go to the game because they were spared a late-night drive home, there were business people that wouldn't deal with rush-hour traffic to get to The Trop.

Regardless of whether I'm right, after three straight years of climbing the league standings in average attendance (to 22nd last year), the Rays' are already in serious danger of slipping in 2011.

My thought on the factors contributing this year:

• A weak April slate that didn't see either the Yankees or Red Sox visit The Trop.



• The continued preference of fans to watch the Rays on TV - rather than in-person - a problem that's mimicked league-wide.



• Competition for limited entertainment dollars (and media attention) from the resurgent Tampa Bay Lightning. After the Rays opened the season 1-9 and Evan Longoria hit the disabled list, the Lightning went on a 7-game playoff winning and have dominated local headlines.



• The Rays may be loved locally, but many marginal baseball fans in Tampa Bay have been disenfranchised by the team's search for a new stadium. It can't be a majority, but in my dealings across the region, people tell me they swore off The Trop last summer after Stu Sternberg upped the ante in the stadium saga.

The good news for the Rays is that they can expect a significant boost in their next homestand when Darius Rucker kicks off their summer concert series on Saturday night and the Yankees come to town Monday and Tuesday.

Promises of "Baseball in Orlando" Empty So Far

It's now been 16 months since former Congressional hopeful Armando Gutierrez promised to bring a Major League Baseball team to Orlando...a promise which eventually evolved into any professional baseball team.

And eight months ago, Gutierrez held a press conference implying the Tampa Yankees were ready to move to a new ballpark he was going to build in Orange County. Months went by with no progress.

Now, Gutierrez is proposing a 5,000-seat stadium next to the Orange County Convention Center (and away from Downtown Orlando). Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas panned the proposal in no uncertain terms:

Former Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry once called us the "low-forehead, nose-picking yahoos of Orlando."

That impression must still exist, because a developer from South Florida is making us an offer that only low-forehead, nose-picking yahoos would accept.

...

But this is his offer: If we give him a 65-year lease, he will give us 75 cents for each ticket sold. According to the proposal, we will keep getting 75 cents for the next 65 years, no matter how much the tickets go up in price.

The economic-impact study calculates ticket sales will bring in $183,750 a year, based on selling 3,500 tickets for each of the 70 games.

I wonder how many shots of tequila it took to get those numbers.

Of course, when the Orlando Rays (AA) existed, their attendance numbers were nowhere near 3,500 per game.

Right now, in a city similar to Orlando, the Tampa Yankees are right at the league average with 1,634 fans per game. The highest-drawing team in the league is Charlotte with 2,621 fans per game.

Gutierrez says convention-goers in Orlando would help fill the stands. But as Thomas suggested, that idea is drunk on something. I know if I flew in from Scranton, Pa. for the National Paper and Printer Convention, I wouldn't go watch minor-league baseball when I could do it at home.

Thomas continues:

No private landowners on I-Drive would do this deal or anything close to it. That's why Gutierrez isn't bringing it to them.

The odds of finding low-forehead, nose-picking yahoos are much better in government.

Only a yahoo would tie up such a valuable piece of land for 65 years based on phantom revenues. Do you know what that property would be worth if you could put a casino on it? And don't think that day isn't coming.

Gutierrez is using social media to urge fans to write their county commissioners in support of the proposal. And, as Thomas concludes, some good ole'-fashioned political strategies too:

Apparently, former Mayor Rich Crotty blew off the deal, but now Gutierrez is back with current Mayor Teresa Jacobs' campaign manager as his lobbyist.

Talk about inside baseball.

As I pressed him with questions, Gutierrez got flustered.

"It's obvious you're not a baseball fan," he said. "If you were a baseball fan, then you'd understand the honor that it is to have the Yankees in your backyard."

USF Students Bear Athletic Dept's Growing Pains

By the time the average senior walks across the stage to get his or her diploma this week at USF, he or she will have paid more than $1,600 in fees to help fund the Athletics Department.

With full-time students paying anywhere from $320 to $400+ a year in athletic fees, the university collects $14.5 million of its $34.9 million athletics budget from students. The 42% dependence is more than double any other school in the six major conferences.

Continue reading here.

St. Pete Retaining Bankruptcy Attorney

Remember those "tricks" Mayor Bill Foster said he and St. Petersburg were prepared for?

One of them is the possibility of the Rays declaring bankruptcy to get out of their iron-clad use agreement. The city is in the process of hiring a law firm to monitor the possibility and advise if necessary.

"We have no reason to believe we'll ever need their services," Foster said today of the firm, "but best practices says we should be prepared."

Foster added that he had no indication the Rays had ever - or would ever - consider bankruptcy. But other professional teams have used the strategy to get out of leases in other cities and overtures made by Bud Selig and other high-ranking officials leave the city on alert.

Commissioner: Send Stadium Money to Pinellas Parks!

With the Rays itching for a new place to play and the debt on Tropicana Field expiring after 2015, Pinellas Co. Commissioner Norm Roche has an idea of what to do with the available bed tax money in 2016: put it toward a different kind of park.

Roche is currently looking into the legality of spending heavily-restricted tourist tax dollars on parks like Fort DeSoto. The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) has suggested a $5-per-vehicle fee at the park to help deal with another year of budget shortfalls.

Click here to read more.

Unique Stadium-Funding Idea: Tax the Players!

Not sure why free agents would want to play for a team where they'd be taxed an extra 5 percent to help pay for the stadium, but as Field of Schemes explains, the idea - along with a tax on memorabilia - would be an interesting way to finance a new Minnesota Vikings stadium:

The vast majority of the state money (more than two-thirds) would come from a sports memorabilia tax, with a 5% income tax surcharge on Vikings player salaries a distant second; taxes on luxury suite rentals and satellite TV services would amount to not much more than rounding errors. Also, since all sports memorabilia would be subject to the tax surcharge, this means that this "user fee" would be hitting Twins and Wild fans even if they had no interest in football.

I don't know how well that will go over in Minnesota - let alone more conservative places (tax-fearing Florida) - but it's unlikely the players would have much say in the matter. Since the state would be doing the taxing rather than the owners, the surcharge would likely be enforceable.

Could Glazers Bid on Dodgers?

With the Glazers' liquid assets seemingly stretched thin, this may not be worth the webpage it's printed on.

But with MLB taking over the Los Angeles Dodgers, could it be possible the owners of the Buccaneers make a bid for the franchise like they did in 2004?

Malcolm Glazer lost the franchise to Frank McCourt, who would be making a tidy profit on his $430 million purchase had a messy divorce not ruined his plans.

Back then, Glazer settled for buying Manchester United (not a bad consolation prize other than the fact that they financed the majority of their purchase and now that the interest has come due, the Brits can't wait for him to sell).

Nothing would make fans happier in Old Trafford than if the Glazers sold the soccer team. And sure, MLB would love to have a well-known, reputable family interested in buying the Dodgers. But it probably won't happen if for no other reason than Malcolm is no longer controlling the family's pursestrings.

The Rays Stadium Saga: What's Next?

Another Rays season is off and running...but if the team doesn't right its ship on the field soon, Tampa Bay's attention could shift quickly to their off-the-field matters. Namely, their search for a new stadium.

But despite three-plus years of exploration, negotiation, and intimidation, we don't appear any closer to a long-term solution to the team's problems than we did in 2008.

So what's next?

Contrary to the timeline I mapped out two years ago, I actually think things will remain civil for a while longer.

Given the economy, it would be in poor taste for the Rays or MLB to push the issue any harder right now. But they will eventually.

The next major piece of news will likely come from the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, a private group studying the difficult issue of stadium funding.

The group is decidedly pro-stadium and although it isn't advocating a preferred site right now, location won't matter as much as how they could possibly pool the $300 million in public revenue to get a deal done.

In an ideal world, multiple counties around Tampa Bay would contribute to a new stadium to lock up the team for decades to come. But cooperation has never been Tampa Bay's strongest characteristic and most residents balk at the idea of paying for a stadium in a different county.

I also expect the report to suggest a diverse range of public funding mechanisms from Tax-Increment Funding (TIFs) to Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs). These are easy pills for politicians to swallow since they don't immediately increase tax rates for most residents.

However, both TIFs and PILOTs are both taxes, and with an anti-tax climate permeating the state and anti-tax politicians holding most important county offices, even these mechanisms may not fly.

So while the Rays may hail the suggestion as innovative, local municipalities still may not "play ball" if they don't have to. And honestly, I don't expect St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster to open his city's wallet when they've already got the Rays under a fool-proof contract until 2027.

Which means 2011 may look a lot like 2010 in the Stadium Saga. A report comes out; the team and politicians go through their song-and-dance with the media; and nothing changes.

As I've said before, this process will likely play itself out over a number of years, not months. And it will undoubtedly get tense, if not ugly.

The lone bright spot for the Rays' efforts is new Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn has been a stadium advocate and may give them the power and/or leverage they need to get the ball rolling. How active he wants to be could determine how quickly the Stadium Saga plays out.

More Contraction-Bashing

I said it was Time to Redact the Contraction Talk. I said Why MLB Contraction Won't Happen. And I lampooned national writers who get used by the league.

Fortunately, there's a growing number of writers discrediting stories - and the people that write them - about contraction.

They now include:
Maury Brown from The Biz of Baseball
Craig Calcaterra from MSNBCJoe Henderson from The Tampa Tribune
And even Bud Selig himself (via The St. Petersburg Times)

Enjoy the reading.

MLB Using Columnists to Push Agenda?

Maury Brown of the Biz of Baseball chimes in on the contraction non-debate by saying yet another column speculating about contraction - this one by Forbes' writer Mike Ozanian - means "MLB appears to be serious about getting the word out."

Brown also echoes a theme I have written about before: with MLB turning $7 billion in revenue a year, the problem isn't Tampa Bay's or Oakland's - the problem is the league's:

"The issue is internal. This is MLB’s problem, not one that requires fans to lose a team or two in what Bud Selig has called 'Baseball’s Golden Age'."
...
And really, in the end, isn’t this really about trying to new stadiums built at taxpayer expense? It was the case with the Twins and Marlins, and it worked. Whether politicians are any wiser now than they were then remains to be seen.

There are arguments that might be made that contracting the Rays, who have performed exceptionally well in the standings, but abysmally at the gate, should be relocated. Contracting them, even if it made sense, is an impracticality. Baseball needs to figure out its own problems with relocation before the hollow threat of contraction is passed around through the press."

One more thing: I had indicated the Forbes column was baseless yesterday. I'd like to add it was also ignorant. In reading author Otzanian's comments at the bottom of the page, I see he based a large part of his argument about contracting the Rays on their poor broadcast contract.

However, with record TV ratings last year and an impressive start to 2011 as well, the team stands to make a huge windfall in 2016 (or sooner) when that deal is renegotiated. Both the Rays and MLB know this well and don't want to pull a team out of Tampa Bay.

Really? Again With the Contraction Talk?

I don't know Forbes' writer Mike Ozanian, but I know his sources are pretty lousy:

"Groundswell building in Major League Baseball to dump the Tampa Bay Rays. From what I am hearing, I doubt there will be any baseball at Tropicana Field after 2014 even though the team’s lease runs to 2027."

I'll keep my reaction simple. Why MLB Contraction Won't Happen.