Rays to announce stadium deal in St. Petersburg
- Thread starter ponder719
- Start date
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
Good to see franchises stay put, but what happened to their talking point about St. Pete practically being another planet for the majority of their fans? Will a good stadium fix that or was that always just a bunk argument?
Note: I've been to area, I'm well-aware that driving from Tampa to St. Pete can be a pain in the ass.
Note: I've been to area, I'm well-aware that driving from Tampa to St. Pete can be a pain in the ass.
ponder719
Haute Couturier
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle; the location likely is a hindrance, but not as severe as they were making it out to be in negotiations. Hopefully a good stadium, plus additional opportunities to develop the area around it, will help stabilize and make the place a bit more of a destination.
No Fun Shogun
34-38-61-10-13-15
Oh, and the locals are on the hook for half? Yeah.... that's a fleecing.
I live in Clearwater about 13 miles from the Trop. It can take 45 minutes or more to get there during rush hour. There are some infrastructure improvements already in progress that should help cut the travel time, but until those are complete and we see how they work in practice I'm still very skeptical of putting another stadium in the same spot. St. Pete is an awesome small city that has grown a lot (and continues to grow), but it's not an ideal location for a major league team.
I'm also concerned that Pinellas County could be on the hook for so much with other major projects in the pipeline. Our beaches are eroding rapidly, and the county is in a standoff with the Army Corps of Engineers over funding for the project. They need 100% of shoreline residents to provide a perpetual easement of their properties for public use in order to move forward. That's simply not going to happen. The county will likely need to fully fund the project, and that's WAY more important than a new ballpark that will be dipping into the same tax pool. It's critical for storm damage mitigation as well as tourism, which is a huge part of our local economy.
The Phillies have also provided intent to go forward with $570M in improvements around their spring training site in Clearwater, and I don't see it being fully privately funded. Still no word on the cost to both city and county taxpayers that I've seen laid out in concrete detail. The Rays would probably get priority over the Phillies/Clearwater Threshers, but that's a lot of money to throw at ballparks and surrounding development deals over a very short time period.
All in all, that's a lot of money that Pinellas County is going to have to come up with over the next few years, and I still feel that Tampa (located in nearby Hillsborough County) is a more accessible location for the majority of the local population. It would spread the taxpayer burden out across a greater geography and likely create both a better game day atmosphere and a more sustainable future for the team. I don't think this plan solves their attendance problems, and it creates a lot of questions for locals. I'm a Rays fan, and even I'm on the fence about this. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like the county is banking on a new ballpark and more stuff to do in the surrounding area to draw in more fans. There's no shortage of things to do in St. Pete as it stands today, so I really don't see this having a meaningful impact on attendance.
I'm also concerned that Pinellas County could be on the hook for so much with other major projects in the pipeline. Our beaches are eroding rapidly, and the county is in a standoff with the Army Corps of Engineers over funding for the project. They need 100% of shoreline residents to provide a perpetual easement of their properties for public use in order to move forward. That's simply not going to happen. The county will likely need to fully fund the project, and that's WAY more important than a new ballpark that will be dipping into the same tax pool. It's critical for storm damage mitigation as well as tourism, which is a huge part of our local economy.
The Phillies have also provided intent to go forward with $570M in improvements around their spring training site in Clearwater, and I don't see it being fully privately funded. Still no word on the cost to both city and county taxpayers that I've seen laid out in concrete detail. The Rays would probably get priority over the Phillies/Clearwater Threshers, but that's a lot of money to throw at ballparks and surrounding development deals over a very short time period.
All in all, that's a lot of money that Pinellas County is going to have to come up with over the next few years, and I still feel that Tampa (located in nearby Hillsborough County) is a more accessible location for the majority of the local population. It would spread the taxpayer burden out across a greater geography and likely create both a better game day atmosphere and a more sustainable future for the team. I don't think this plan solves their attendance problems, and it creates a lot of questions for locals. I'm a Rays fan, and even I'm on the fence about this. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like the county is banking on a new ballpark and more stuff to do in the surrounding area to draw in more fans. There's no shortage of things to do in St. Pete as it stands today, so I really don't see this having a meaningful impact on attendance.
BKIslandersFan
F*** off
Wasn’t the location big part of the problem? Because honestly Tropicana itself doesn’t seem awful aside from the roof.
BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
Sorry but the travel time being a barrier keeping fans away is the biggest load of crap going. People act like Tampa is the only stadium ever that sucks to get to on game day. For most Red Sox fans, getting to Fenway is a combo of 30+ min drive or 30+ min train ride and a 20+ minute ride on the subway during rush hour. Even the more centrally located stadiums have to deal with trying to get all those people into a city during rush hour on game nights.
The team will never draw there, period. First we heard "oh they suck, if they were good they'd draw" well they got good and didnt draw. The AL pennant winning team drew under 20k a night. Now its "the stadium sucks and it takes me more than 5 minutes to get there". If they ever truly solve that then some other excuse will magically appear.
The Rays mediasphere can blame on attendance on their location/quality of stadium all they want but the truth is their unwillingness to maintain any marketable stars long term outside of Longoria (regressed and then jumped ship at 31) and Franco (haha, lmao, lol) makes it extremely difficult to foster a large fanbase.
There's many reasons why the Rays don't get numbers but cycling through random generator players and churning out DS/CS appearances that everyone knows is going nowhere MIGHT not be the best strategy.
There's many reasons why the Rays don't get numbers but cycling through random generator players and churning out DS/CS appearances that everyone knows is going nowhere MIGHT not be the best strategy.
CharasLazyWrister
Registered User
yup.
It’s not about getting “more fans”, it’s about the franchise playing in a stadium surrounded by “rich fans” in a downtown location. It has zero public purpose. This has been a standard grift since the 1950s.
The idea that taxpayers should be subsidizing a private business’s right to occupy the best real estate in a given city is absurd. It doesn’t make anything “easier” or “more accessible” for the average resident/fan.
I’d have a lot more respect for franchises if they were just honest about what was going on, rather than pulling this nauseating rouse about how the team is somehow a charity/public asset that needs to be “supported” by anyone other than the people who own it.
Look Up
Don't be a scan tool
- Oct 3, 2013
- 1,319
- 1,276
Much of what you write I agree with.
I'd be in a bad mood too if I had to look forward to a season with Charlie Coyle as my team's number one centre.
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When I lived in Madeira Beach 10 miles away the drive could be 20 minutes to an hour.
The location is terrible but the bigger problem The Trop has had since Day 1 is parking.
Locals learned when the Lightning played there that any crowd over 20,000 was a problem.
Transit is very limited
Doesn't solve the issue for fans in Sarasota/Bradenton who are leery of crossing the bridge in the late afternoon because of thunderstorms.
The owner said in 2019 St Petersburg is not viable for 81 games
The location is terrible but the bigger problem The Trop has had since Day 1 is parking.
Locals learned when the Lightning played there that any crowd over 20,000 was a problem.
Transit is very limited
Doesn't solve the issue for fans in Sarasota/Bradenton who are leery of crossing the bridge in the late afternoon because of thunderstorms.
The owner said in 2019 St Petersburg is not viable for 81 games
With stadium issues resolved for both the Athletics and the Rays MLB can get to work on expansion
I get it. When I lived up north I would drive almost 2 hours to Fenway once a year. But that was only once a year, and you're also comparing a franchise with over 120 years of history to one with only 25. The generational loyalty here is still developing, whereas my parents and grandparents were die hard Sox fans who encouraged fandom from birth. And plenty of fans down here have been discouraged from building that loyalty by being completely turned off by an owner who will sell off any and every star player and goes back and forth between slamming the market/fans and embracing them.
More importantly, it's an area where a sizeable portion of the population are transplants vs. those with deep roots in the area. To get the transplants engaged you need to show a commitment to winning, and the franchise has only recently started to do that (while still selling off most of their stars year after year). While the location of the Bucs and Lightning closer to the population center of the region certainly helps, there are other factors that have kept the Rays from latching onto new fans at the same rate.
Having lived in both New England and Florida, it's just different. Most New Englanders have deep roots in the area and so do the sports franchises, which is part of what makes it such a great professional sports market. The only franchises down here where that type of history and tradition of winning exists today are in college football. In my opinion, (admittedly a sample size of 1) to be successful, the Rays need to be located where a lot of the newcomers can easily get to a game and build a connection to the team, show a commitment to hanging onto the talent they develop so fans can become more emotionally invested, and stop blaming the fans for not showing up when ownership has shown that they aren't really that invested in the team themselves. We've also seen what happened with the Marlins, so an investment in a new ballpark isn't really going to get anyone too excited about a renewed commitment to winning and investing in keeping talent.
Hockeyholic
Registered User
Voight
#winning
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