Much has been made of that seemingly throw-away-but-spoke-volumes line tossed out recently by Tampa Bay Rays’ owner Stu Sternberg. He was participating in an otherwise amiable round-table chat with Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and Bucs co-chairman Bryan Glazer. It was part of the upbeat Sneaker Soiree at TPepin’s Hospitality Centre, an annual love-in for local sports.
Sternberg’s line: “The water is a big divide.” It was in answer to a stock question lobbed up by a local member of the sports media: “What have you learned about the Tampa Bay area that you didn’t know before you bought the team?” The initial audience response: rapt, awkward silence.
Maybe it was like talking about halters in the house of the hanged. Or just things you don’t bring up in polite, let alone celebratory company.
Actually, it was more like acknowledging the 900-pound gorilla on the lanai.
Not unlike many others, Sternberg apparently misread a key element of the Tampa Bay market. One not apparent from a distance. One not gleaned from demographic data. One not to be deduced in assessing an area with a world-class airport, a major seaport, a large media market, multiple professional sports teams, one of the biggest universities in the country and an utterly appealing life style.
Tampa Bay is a well-defined body of water. But Tampa Bay is not a well integrated market with an acknowledged conventional hub and key complementary spokes. It has identity issues and no mass transit.
It has lots of residents from other places with other allegiances. Many have already raised their kids and paid their taxes elsewhere, and they still care more about the Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees than the Rays.
Provincialism and parochialism don’t show up on PowerPoint presentations. But they remain endemic around here. This is not a coherent market as traditionally defined. Politics and way of life often vie. There’s countywide as well as cross-county competition. In fact, Pinellas was once part of Hillsborough County until it seceded.
Over the years, Pinellas became increasingly resentful of Hillsborough for having the audacity to attract TIA, the main USF campus, the football stadium and even Busch Gardens. That has everything to do with why St. Petersburg finally went and built the Trop on spec to lure a baseball franchise not to this area–but to St. Pete, a less than ideal location for a less than adequate indoor facility.
On this side of Tampa Bay, there is the city and there is the county. By stereotype, the downtown and South Tampa liberal elites vs. those conservative, family-values rural folk. The light rail referendum, for example, passed in the city, not in the unincorporated areas. It was an apt metaphor for an ongoing political and cultural divide.
On the other side of Tampa Bay are two dozen municipal fiefdoms plus the cities of St. Petersburg, with its happening, artsy, water-fronting downtown, and Clearwatertology to the north. Not exactly a coherent market either. Plus, it’s a motorist’s nightmare.
And between the two sides there is the literal Tampa Bay. Three bridges span its divisive waters, but they are for commuters and tourists. By tradition and habit, they are much less so for discretionary travel. Such as for baseball games. Sans mass transit, that’s not changing.
Basically, the “big divide” exacerbates Sternberg’s inherent problem.
Tampa, regardless of who disagrees, is the hub of this multi-county market, albeit one skewed by water. That’s why the Bucs and Bolts play here — and will continue to. The closest market west of St. Petersburg is Corpus Christi. The Rays are last in Major League Baseball in residents living within a 30-minute commute. Even Milwaukee has more. A lot more.
Plus, this region is corporate headquarters-challenged. Businesses traditionally buy a majority of season tickets. Regional offices and call centers don’t make those kind of commitments.
Moreover, an attractive lifestyle explains why a number of residents are here in the first place. It’s called golf, tennis, boating, fishing, and swimming. And heading for North Carolina in the summer can seem eminently more appealing than indoor, catwalked baseball.
Then there are the aforementioned issues of mess transit and athletic allegiances from past lives.
Any wonder Sternberg believes his only shot at making baseball work down here is to ultimately focus on the one variable that could counter all the other market deficits. A Tampa location for a revenue-friendly modern stadium. The odds are obviously formidable. The economy for openers and the seeming zero-sum strategy of the city of St. Petersburg — one that has legally forewarned all entities outside Pinellas County not to “tamper” with its franchise while the Rays’ lease is in force. Through 2027. No taking one for the regional home team in St. Pete.
Talk about a “big divide.”