Once again, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has addressed the issue of the Tampa Bay Rays’ attendance. For the record, it’s up more than 7 percent so far this year, and for what it’s worth, TV ratings are up 58 percent. But Tampa Bay is still 29th (out of 30) in Major League Baseball attendance. Bud Lite called the Rays’ pre-All Star game average of 20,500 “inexcusable.” I prefer frustrating.
Let’s, once again, try to put this Rays’-attendance issue in context. The reasons–or lame “excuses” to some–are a long-familiar, local litany by now:
*Tampa Bay is smaller than most MLB markets.
*And that market is asymmetrically skewed with an inadequate, revenue-unfriendly facility on the western fringe (Corpus Christi is nearest city to the west).
*There are few corporate headquarters (typically responsible for two thirds of season-ticket sales).
*No mass transit.
*No serious tradition (tourist-driven spring training exhibitions don’t count) of MLB here.
*Many residents are from somewhere else with allegiances other than here. Still. In fact, annoyingly so.
*Lifestyle: For a lot of locals, June-September in Tampa Bay means swimming, boating, tennis, golf and summering in the Carolinas–not catwalk baseball in St. Petersburg.
But what I want to know is how Bud Lite characterizes the attendance of the Cleveland Indians. It is the only franchise ranked behind the Rays. The Indians’ average is 19,200. And they play in a bigger, traditional market with a state-of-the-art facility and mass transit. And they have a winning team. Now that might be “inexcusable.”