I remember when they went to the World Series in 2008, there was a journalist on tv who asked people on the street how they felt about the Rays success, and several of them were unaware there was even a baseball team in Tampa Bay. And it was their 11th season.
Literally the movie Major League when the old couple make an unintended joke to Jake Taylor about how they thought the Indians were gone because they hadn't done anything in decades.
As a Phillies fan I remember those first 2 games of that series in the Trop. The stadium looked like it was full of Phillies fans who made the trip from Clearwater
I was genuinely impressed he put in the time and effort to research what a shit show it is down here. Would've been completely understandable if he just shit posted and shat on the Rays inability to get fans at games without digging deep so I commend him for it. Was surprised he didn't mention they're one of the largest viewing TV markets for baseball in that part though.
@@scory22 Same. Shows me he cares about the product he presents, even if he says it’s shitposting, it pretty good stuff. You’re right, he didn’t mention the TV stuff, but I think he just wanted to bring the problems to light about our Rays here and what the hell is causing these problems to begin with. They’re always going to point to the empty seats in the stadium and part of me thinks Stu had one foot out the door anyways.
I remember attending a Rays game. The stadium was about 40% full. That game began with the announcer proclaiming that the Rays were now atop the AL East standings and their starting pitcher pitched a shut out. That is the Rays in a nutshell.
As a Tampa area native, everything in this video is spot on. Personally, the team has never felt like part of Tampa because of their location. I live near Lakeland and I wouldn't want to make that drive to St. Pete, when I could just watch it on TV.
I agree. I really hope they go back to that Ybor City plan but without the ridiculous glass-laden stadium. They have until 2027. So I guess we’ll see what happens.
I'll never understand teams that put their stadiums away from where they truly belong. I live in Virginia. And while it's a hassle to get to DC cause of how bad traffic is. I'll at least go to a few Capitals and Nationals games a year because I can have an excuse to spend the day in the city. Especially if it's a night game. But I'll never go to FedEx field because it's a hassle enough to get to DC. But since the stadium is in Maryland. I have no justification to go. Can't make it a day trip in the city cause I'm not going into the city. If they moved the team back into the city. Even though I'm not a WFT fan. I could at least justify seeing an NFL game. Especially when my team is in town!
I live in Tampa (about 8 miles north of downtown) and even if I had consistent access to a car, I wouldn't wanna make that drive on most weekdays, either. So many people from outside our area don't know the logistical issues that having the Rays play in Downtown St. Pete present.
The Rays are like a baseball team in a movie where the ownership doesn’t want them to succeed so they can move but the GM and team are so skillful they go on to continue being contenders. It honestly reminds me of the movie “Major League”, except they don’t even get fans by the end of the season lmao.
They gave him the largest contract in franchise history. That’s how much the Rays believed in this young adult to take them into the future. The contract was 11 years, 182 million. There were incentives in the deal that could’ve taken it up to 12 years, 223 million with being in the top five in MVP voting, batting titles, gold glove awards, and others things like that. Franco quite literally threw it all away.
I was born in Clearwater and grew up in St. Pete. I remember watching games as a kid, especially against the Red Sox, and just seeing a sea of opposing fans and wondering why. Once I grew up, got my drivers license and started driving, it all clicked. Also, it’s surreal seeing you talk about my home town, lmao. I figure everyone forgets the Tampa Bay Area exists, except that all three of our sports teams are top notch. Bolts games and Buccs games are sellouts, but the Rays can’t catch a break.
Football is huge and the Buccaneers have always had a solid fanbase. Vinik invested so much in Downtown Tampa and in the Lightning by bringing in Yzerman and they’ve built a consistent winner and turned transplants onto the Lightning and got locals into hockey hardcore for the first time. Rays haven’t done enough to endear themselves to the local populace plus all the transplants will typically just care about their hometown teams
@@JHockeyFan As a Vikings fan, the only thing really weird about the Bucs was how they were originally plopped into the NFC Central Division - A Florida team yet all their other division rivals were located in the far north. It's surreal how the Vikings and the Bucs lived on complete opposite ends of the country, yet played twice a year as division rivals.
@@scaryhobbit211 that was the time when the Saints and Falcons were in the NFC West, too. I don't think anyone in the NFL offices understand geography considering how the Colts are in the AFC South.
@@u4yk Well, tbf when they did the division realignment in 2002, they were trying to make the most sense geographically while upholding rivalries, and there was no other place to put the Colts
i appreciate the effort to bring this issue to light, tree. as a rays fan in clearwater, even on the same side of the bridge it takes me about 45 min to get down there during rush hour traffic on US-19 and I-275 on an average weekday game. our TV coverage is excellent, and is consistently ranked as one of the most watched telecasts in baseball on a nightly basis. at this point, fans have seemingly given up on going to games and want to avoid giving money to Stu in anyway possible. the way every official is just spitting in our face is just mind boggling.
I'm just south of you in Largo and it's about a 40-45 minute drive for me, as well, and that's assuming that there's nothing happening on 275. Downtown St. Pete is great, but the stadium is in a bad spot even so. I used to love going to games with my mom and dad when I was a kid, and as I got older, into my teens, it just became more and more of a headache to get in and out of St Pete because of all the construction, all the time. I'm talking in the 2008-2012 range, you probably remember how much construction was happening on 19 and 275, and in DTSP on/off. It was a legitimate nightmare.
As a person that lives within 10 minutes of Tropicana Field I can say from experience that there are a number of reasons we don't go to the games. You touched on it with the ways to cross over and get to a game from Tampa. It's not that much better on this side of things either. Let's not forget that once you are there you are in the worst stadium ever built by man. I have heard rumor that it once was purposed for a monster truck arena, and that baseball was never the main intention. The roof is to low, the scoreboard is blocked by people walking past it on their way to their seats, sound seems to magically leave the building, and there are loose wires and cables all over the place. Sure, the lack of seats also means that every seat in the house is technically good, and you can sit right up to the edge of the field for only $15, but that does not make it any less a terrible place to catch a game. EDIT: Just going to edit this here because many have corrected me that the stadium was built as a monster truck arena. It is a rumor I hear in the St. Pete area frequently, and I assume it started over the years between its construction and the first Rays game (1990 - 1998).
When built in 1990 it was purposed for baseball to either be granted a new franchise or lure a current team. It was not specifically built for a monster truck arena. That's a ridiculous notion.
I've lived in the Tampa Bay area for 41 of my 42 years. The stadium was indeed built primarily for baseball, but this was in the tail end of the era of the multi-purpose stadium craze. The problem was they built the stadium without a commitment from MLB that they would get a team. There were several rumors about teams wanting to move from their current locations and the stadium was built to improve the Tampa Bay area's chances of landing one of those teams. I know one of the teams was the San Francisco Giants. I think another was the Montreal Expos ironically. The problem was all these deals fell through and by the time MLB awarded Tampa Bay a franchise, the stadium was ALREADY obsolete. Tropicana Field opened in 1990. Camden Yards in Baltimore, which was the beginning of the move to baseball-only parks for MLB teams, opened in 1992. And by the Rays inaugural season in 1998, it was obsolete as many teams by then either had moved or were planning to move into baseball only parks.
Even before the Bolts got their act together, their attendance wasn't that bad due to having an easily accessible location. The Rays will never draw consistently in Downtown St. Pete due to where a lot of Tampa Bay's population growth is occurring no matter what anyone else tries to tell you.
@@donaldpaluga The product has to be better in order to draw people. Nobody's paying lots of money for a perpetual loser in South Florida. If the Marlins win consistently, people will come.
As a Rays fan I just wanted to say thank you. Everything you said in this video is exactly what our fan base have been saying for like the last 15 years. It’s not like the Rays don’t have fans we exist and we’re very passionate about them. But they need to move to Downtown Tampa…. Tampa is a great market for sports and the Rays would strive there, and like what you said in the video just take a look at the Bucs and lightning that’s proof enough to Stu and the front office that the city is a great market.
It hurts to see the Rays treated like this. Baseball needs feel good stories of small market teams sticking it to big market teams and the Rays do that so well.
The Rays shouldn't even be operating like a small-market club because their primary market is much bigger than, say, the Milwaukee and Kansas City TV markets. If the Rays played here in Tampa instead of Downtown St. Petersburg, I think they could have a bigger payroll going forward.
Tampa's only small market if you're comparing it to New York and that sort of thing. It is only like Top 50ish in size in the US, well below top 25, but it's a massive TV market that massively outstrips its population size and it's growing pretty well still. Compared to numerous other teams in major sports, it's pretty solidly midsized.
I sincerely hope the Rays can be a full-time Tampa franchise. The players don't deserve any of the BS that is beyond their control. Also congrats on 500k subs, good sir!
Being from Tampa it is pure hell trying to get to a rays game...really wish the two cities would get some kind of deal done to move them to Ybor. I love the Rays
I feel like you touched on everything that is an issue with the Rays. As a Rays fan, there’s nothing wrong about what you said. you hit the nail on the head. The sister-city plan is stupid for two reasons. One stadium will generally sit abandoned for half the season, AND they want TWO BRAND NEW stadiums? Great Analysis, really enjoyed! Congrats on 500K!
@@MM33003 They deserve a stadium that's located in TAMPA. But nope. They just announced a deal for a new stadium but they're going to remain in St. Petersburg. They're in the middle of an intense race for the American League East division title with Baltimore and they're barely getting 15,000 fans on most nights. It's sad because this is such a good team but their location is terrible. Nobody wants to drive that far to a game and pay a ridiculous price for parking. The fact that there's no public transport access makes the issue of chronically low attendance even worse. In the New York metro area, almost every stadium/arena has public transportation stops and they're heavily used on game days. Even the Brooklyn Cyclones (minor league affiliate for the NY Mets) has a major public transport hub (Coney Island Stillwell Ave) with four subway lines and a bunch of bus routes.
As a Dodger fan, I still remember that wild Game 5 ending in the World Series against the Rays. Even if the Dodgers lost it, I remember how happy a lot of those Rays players were celebrating. Most of those players thought they would never make it or their careers would fade off, but the Rays gave them genuinely great coaching. I just hope they can eventually get themselves a fanbase. GGs, Rays fans.
Rays fan here. We have a fanbase and don't let people from outside the Tampa Bay Area tell you otherwise. The Rays have had strong regional TV ratings for a good while, which many people won't tell you. We love the Rays around here, but getting to the Trop from most places around here on most weekdays is much more of a drag than a lot of people not from around here realize.
The Rays playing in St. Petersburg is baseball’s version of UCLA football playing in Pasadena. People who don’t live in LA see it as a close suburb, but you know getting there and back is a five letter word!
The Rays had a 99-63 regular season in 2023. They were just swept in their wild card series against the Rangers. They had an attendance of 19,704 in game one and 20,198 in game two. That is just brutal. If I was a Rays player, I would've been like, "We just had a 99 win season and hardly anybody shows up for the PLAYOFFS?!?!" That must've been so deflating for the Rays players to see such sparse crowds during the playoffs.
Thank you for making this. It’s not the fans. We love baseball and we love the Rays. They have very high tv viewership but no one on the Tampa side wants to cross the bridge to St. Pete. My brother lived there for 5 years and I barely saw him because that drive sucks. The city wants to keep the team. Like you said, Sturnberg is not negotiating in good faith. No matter what he says, he wants to move the team. This team can easily thrive here with a new owner. Look at the fucking Lightning. Excellent ownership. They sell out every game and it’s freakin ice hockey in Florida. It’s not just because they’ve been one of the best teams in the NHL, it’s because the arena is great and the team provides an excellent fan experience. Same with the Bucs.
I've lived in the Tampa area all my life. From my experiences, a decently-sized portion of the population in the area is actually not from Florida. There are plenty of sports fans in the area from other parts of the country that will root for local Tampa teams. That is, if the teams are good. If the teams aren't good, those fans will just root for the teams from where they're from. I've been a Buccaneers fan since I was 6 years old. A few times in my life, I was talking with someone and they'd ask me what my favorite football team is and I'd say the Bucs. Then they would make a face and say "Why?"
I'm also a lifelong Tampa Bay Area resident. Many people don't take into account how many people move here from out of state (making most of Florida not so culturally Southern as a result, but I digress) and how they bring their sports loyalties with them. I'm a lifelong Bucs fan, but I'm surprised I can even say that given how awful they were between the time I was a toddler and the time I was in high school. Some people even looked at me funny when they realized I was a Bucs fan back in those days and talked trash to me about the club.
@@axilrhon2286 It hasn't been just Northeastern clubs' fans. I remember when Bears and Packers fans would take up a huge chunk of the stadium. I attended the Bucs' 1996 home loss to the Packers (Tony Dungy's head coaching debut) and there were tons of Packers fans where I was sitting.
I live just north of Tampa in Spring Hill, FL (Hernando County). I used to go to Rays games on weekends, but weekday games were out of the question. I tried once going to a game in the middle of the week. Now, bear in mind it normally takes about an hour to get to Tampa from where I live. It took me THREE HOURS to get to Tropicana Field. And bear in mind, this was back when the Rays sucked. The problem is the games start at 7pm, so all the routes are crammed with rush hour traffic at the time I have to go through Tampa to get to St. Pete. So I'm facing rush hour traffic for TWO cities instead of just one. So people to the north (where I live) of St. Pete can have 2 options to get to St. Pete. You can either take I-275 once you get into Hillsborough County, or you can take US-19 on a straight shot to Tropicana Field's area. But the problem with US-19 is it's built up all the way into Tropicana Field's area from where I live, so it would take even longer than I-275. If you live to the south of Tampa Bay, you have ONE option. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which I think it a toll bridge. With the Lightning, I can reach most games in under 90 minutes during the week because I'm not fighting through rush hour through the entirety of two cities. I only get the north half of rush hour for Tampa and you really don't get to the worst of traffic then until you hit the southwest part of Tampa heading into St. Pete (see the problem?). You also have to remember that the population of the Tampa Bay area is REALLY spread out over the bay area rather than concentrated in Tampa. Also, they chose to get good at the wrong time. Both the Bucs and Lightning are champions and the best the Rays did was the ALCS. I honestly think the best place for a new stadium would be right by the Florida State Fairgrounds as you have I-4 and US-301 passing right through that area and I-75 passing nearby. Also, Tropicana Field is in a very high crime neighborhood. They probably chose it because the land was cheap. They also need to make the new stadium a dome and not waste time on a retractable roof. It gets RIDICULOUSLY hot during the summers here and it rains almost every afternoon/evening because of the colliding sea breezes from both the west and east coast. So it's either oppressively hot, oppressively humid, or both at the same time. Unless it's an air conditioned, I'm not going.
It's interesting that you picked the fairgrounds due to easy access but my issue with that is the area around the fairgrounds is worse than where they currently are. I don't know how the neighborhoods compare, but I know there isn't any to do in that area other than go to the fairgrounds or get some food
@@jadocs20 I've been to both. Much easier to get to the Fairgrounds. You have at least 3 different major arteries as ways in (I-4, I-75 and US-301) and you can get in multiple ways from all directions. And you don't have to fight both Tampa AND St. Pete's rush hours to get their. It puts them as close as possible to the center of the population without it being in Tampa proper. And unless something major changed in recent years, the neighborhood in St. Pete is WAY worse than near the Fairgrounds.
I'm both a baseball fan *and* a geography nerd. A big part of a team's success isn't just the talent they put on the field, or the executive team, but it's the infrastructure of the city around it. Here's an example: the San Francisco Giants. They almost relocated a few times, in part because Candlestick Park was not a great baseball park. A terrific football park? Absolutely. But not baseball. When you have temperatures of around 50 degrees F in July, that's obviously troubling. I can't confirm this, but I heard that they almost built the park further north, but to do that would have meant that they were closer to a fault line with very brittle grass and soil around it. It makes sense that the Giants wouldn't win anything until Oracle Park opened. So, it makes sense that Tampa Bay would have trouble - shaky bridges, high humidity (which means that you probably could never have a stadium without a retractable roof), not a lot of places to enhance the fan experience (e.g. souvenir shops, restaurants, etc.), a stadium that looks drab on the inside, a stadium that was already past its prime when it opened, and the rise of the other two teams in the market.
I’ve also noticed this with the Mets and the Yankees. While the Mets play in an island in a sea of asphalt where there’s little access to other businesses and amenities (except for a loud airport), the Yankees play right next to a sports village with heritage field and also a soccer pitch. Guess who’s been more successful
@@GLee-oe3op The Mets are still much different. For example, as Tree mentioned, there's no public transportation to Tropicana Field, or if it is there, it's incredibly inconvenient. Therefore, the Mets probably have a little bit of an edge. In fact, that's one of my favorite parts of Fenway. I can't drive at all (long story that's unrelated to this video), so being able to walk from Kenmore station and get to the stadium in about ten minutes - perhaps less - is incredible. Plus, the parts outside the ballpark - the shops, the concession stands, the transportation around it - make it feel much more festive. The only other one I've seen like that is Busch Stadium in St. Louis, at least from the festive side of it. Even then, we could still walk to the park from our hotel in about fifteen minutes.
The Giants threatened to go to San Jose which forced the city’s hand to make the park. Ironically that gambit is what is hurting the Athletics because they had an agreement to not go to San Jose since the Giants said they might go to San Jose. I’m still thinking Oakland would be better off in Las Vegas….or anywhere besides McAfee.
@@EricAKATheBelgianGuy Similar to Toronto, while you could drive it most of the fanbase will take the Subway or regional rail. Both Scotiabank and the Skydome are in key transit areas that are surrounded by a thriving downtown (Also Toronto's transit system effectively covers the city and suburbs making it convenient to go to games from anywhere). Look at the investment Vinick put into Amalie, a transit stop and Fort Brooke park to the south (with a few well-placed restaurants in the area) make it convenient for city and suburban people to access the game while also having the environment to foster a relatively good experience in the stadium.
Been a Ray's fan since 2010. Its so heart breaking to watch the team do this. Year after year putting some of the best talent in baseball on the field and then just throwing all of it away behind the scenes
Rays attendance was so low this season that the Blue Jays averaged more when they were in Buffalo temporarily due to the pandemic during their brief stint.
Couple of things; 1) I live in one of the outlying suburbs of Tampa and the drive to the Trop was closer to 1:40 on a weekday game, 2) Tampa has an insanely strong baseball culture, look at how many MLB greats are from here and how big the Saladino Tournament is, 3) everyone always overlooks that Stu only offered $150M for the Ybor “clamshell” stadium, after presenting everyone with a $1B rendering.
tampa bay is currently having a stretch of 80 degree days in mid december. yet they have consistently packed lightning games for a decade now. baseball has links in the region going back well over a century if they can show up for a sport that has no real link to the area they can show up for baseball. they need that stadium in downtown tampa
I love the fact I'm not the only one representing here for Tampa... BAY! I think fans of the team liked the early efforts to bring in local favorites who ended their careers here, like Fred McGriff and Wade Boggs who came home to build this team at the start after they were already legends. We also love the fact Rocco Baldelli, Dave Martinez, even our own Kevin Cash are former Rays players who are managing squads, and our player personnel guys are running the Dodgers while Joe Maddon is still as cool of a customer despite leading other teams. I think real Rays fans still love our former guys and what they did for us. It's not our fault the ownership makes TV so much of a better way to watch, and we have a killer broadcast team with a play-by-play franchise staple and his partner on radio and TV, our alums move onto better opportunities, and our studio analysts are great at what they do and they're familiar faces as well (often former Rays and even former a Marlin, as some of us love the Marlins as the sole Florida team for a few years). Give us another Vinik. Heck, we'll tolerate another Glazer family, as long as they don't ask for public money to save their behinds, but Stu? We thought Vince sucked as an owner, atleast he got us the Rays and was dedicated to trying to bring in fans, he just lacked money and was a bit of a well meaning jerk. Stu just seems like he doesn't care about Tampa, just money, and he sucks! Thanks again Tree!
Everything he said was spot on. I know the hell that is the Franklin bridge from my uncle’s POV since me and him went to the games for 7 years and traffic was hell during rush hour. Not sure how much worst it’s gotten since then since I’ve stopped going games because rona and the warnings from my uncle about going to St.Pete and fearing my car breaking down lol.
I think all the Rays need to fill the seats is a new stadium in Tampa proper, as a Giants fan I want to see the Rays succeed. The Giants have no problem filling seats because Oracle Park is in a prime location right by downtown San Francisco.
The Bucs (west) and Bolts (downtown) play in Tampa and they have no problems drawing fans when ownership doesn't alienate them. I think the Rays can thrive here in Tampa, too. I don't know who had the bright idea of building an MLB venue in Downtown St. Petersburg.
@@carmencaputo7229 The Trop started to rise longer ago than that: 1986. It was finished in 1990 with the intention of attracting another MLB franchise that considered relocating, but didn't get a club until MLB expanded to bring in the then-Devil Rays.
Was kinda hoping for you to dig into the dark ages of the Rays, with (shudders) Vince Naimoli. But this does their CURRENT team justice, probably more important. Thanks, Tree!
The problem I have with my rays and I assume other ray fans have is that we feel like ownership doesn’t care about the team and the fans. It looks like they are there to just make money and that’s all. I get that is part of it but you still have to put effort into the team. Jeff Vinik has been a prime example of that over in Tamp with the lightning.
The Yankees had won with Cashman at least. I'm more concern with development with some players, especially pitching since it's hard to tell if Severino will return to how he was before the injury and the pitching prospects for the past decades have been iffy. While not as bad as the Orioles but it's not much to brag about when anyone can outdo a team that bans their pitchers from using cut fastball claiming injury, only to be surprised that their prospects fails because they weren't allowed to use the pitch that got them drafted to begin with.
If by "underrated" you mean they were heavily favored to crush the Red Sox and barely break a sweat en route to their first World Series title...then yeah.
And it’s a shame that they have a terrible stadium in a terrible location. They have plans to build a new stadium now but the team will remain in St. Petersburg and the new stadium won’t be ready until 2028 at the earliest. They needed to move the team to TAMPA and they failed to do that.
I graduated high school on the field at Tropicana and on a non-game day the drive from that Oldsmar area took upwards of an hour. Pair the traffic, the area that now cares more about hockey, the location lacking bars/restaurants for pre-game outings ...From a local, the revolving door of players and having no face or name to grasp onto since Ben Zobrist and Evan Longoria's reign really felt like the nail on the coffin for fans.
There are actually some MINOR things Tree missed to mention in this video. Some of these things might not be a big deal, but as someone who has attended games and even worked at the stadium for 2 summers (summer job while i was in college), it just gets tiring. The parking situation is horrible, my gf and I were attending game 1 of the ALDS against Boston and it took us nearly 80 minutes just to find a parking spot, and that was just by complete luck that it only took us 80 minutes. If you think driving to St. Pete just for a game was annoying, nah that's just step 1. The stadium is cash free, meaning credit/debt card only and the amount of people that aren't even aware of this. The amount of parents I seen hand their kids like 20 USD just for a hot dog, just to be told they can't use cash so they would need to go to a gift shop just to buy a gift card often annoys fans. The freaking card machines at many of the food stands are legit outdated. It took roughly 2 minutes just for the card machine to accept my debt card for a damn water bottle, what's worse is knowing I was in a line with 10+ at the 3rd level of seats, so a less crowded area compared to the first level. Seats are honestly terrible, it's a dumb complaint but with hard plastic mixed in with concrete stairs and it just looks ugly as shit.
Hey, y'all. Rays fan in St. Pete here. Let me say right now that I am against this double city plan, I would have been happy with the team going to Ybor, and Stu is a complete TONTO. I love my team, apathetic about Tropicana Field, and despise Stu and his crackpot scheme.
Thank you for going so in depth. The bickering between ownership and st pete City Council has been going on for too long and they don't care about the fans. Much love from Tampa
Thanks for making this video. I love the Rays and hate the split city model. The attendance factor is even worse if you consider the fact that all three bridges are filled with traffic which can be brutal when you're coming from Tampa. As a kid in 2011, I watched a game and left in the 4th inning. We were stuck in traffic on Gandy for 5 hours. That's longer than my trip to and from college today
As a life-long resident of the area, and a passionate fan of the Bucs, Lightning, and Rays, everything in this video is spot on. Local fan passion for the Rays is not less than the other 2 teams, stadium location is the single biggest factor in low attendance.
The only split-city plan that actually worked long-term was when the Packers played two or three games a year in Milwaukee for 60 years. And even *that* ended with the Packers staying in Green Bay, once they finally got Lambeau up to modern NFL standards.
That's entirely different from what my Rays' dumb suits are trying to pull because Milwaukee is officially the Packers' 2nd primary market (not a secondary market like the Harrisburg/Lancaster/York, Pa. market is for the Eagles). There's a reason why the Packers have their radio and preseason TV flagship stations in the Milwaukee area instead of in the Green Bay/Appleton area.
Thank you for the fair, in-depth breakdown. As someone who’s been in St Pete for the past four years it’s frustrating to see people who simply claim that people don’t care.
As an Expos fan who badly wants baseball back in my town, I totally agree with your take. This plan is super dumb, and I don't want to be Tampa's San Jose. Furthermore, I don't want to rob Tampa of their team.
Keep on producing these "Must See" documentaries. We already know about the business side of sports. However, you go deeper and discover the shadier sides of ownership, which we value most. Excellent work.
This is crazy. I literally did a presentation my junior year of college on nearly this exact topic. It was about designing and creating a new stadium for the Rays
I’ve been a fan of the rays since I’ve started getting into baseball they’ve been my 2nd favorite teams for a decade now. If I lived in Tampa I wouldn’t even care for them. I just want to see their fans support them I end up visiting Tampa and I’ve seen the support of the lighting and Bucs recently. My family moved down to Florida about a year ago and went to a game to watch them play the white Sox and they thought watching the Sox at home was a joke. So yea you can imagine their experience at Tropicana. It sucks because I love watching the rays on TV
I moved to Orlando this year. Baseball is my favorite aport to attend in person. Decided I was going to take a girlfriens to a game and told her, and the more I thought about making the drive to St. Pete with all the FL traffic just to sit in that monstrocity that is Tropicana Field. I couldnt do it.
@@marcus813 Man I love St pete. I honestly would like a field there, but regardless of where they build it, it NEEDS to be an open air park. If they want a retractable dome, fine.
@@nick8339 A pure open-air MLB venue won't work here in Florida. Just ask the Marlins about that. Most of the regular season takes place in the summer, which is Florida's wet season. When we're not being soaked, we're being baked by Florida heat, which comes with obscenely high humidity. I don't think very many people are gonna sit outside in such conditions.
@@marcus813 Honestly, its proof how rabid the sports fanbases are here in Florida that they sit through that, College football stadiums are filled consistently
@@davidvandervoort4945 Most of the college football season is played in the fall, so there aren't a lot of games played in that kind of heat. Attending afternoon games outdoors during the fall is a whole different situation.
Only thing usually selling massive tickets at St. Petersburg is the Indycar season opener. Not only is it the season opener, but it's also at a scenic location right by the marina.
As a Tampa resident and baseball fan, you hit it right on the head. To be fair I'm a Yankee fan transplant, but everything you said about the team feeling distant and all the problems with commuting to St. Pete are completely true. I live around 10 minutes north of downtown and it STILL takes me around 45 minutes to get the the Trop on a game day. Moving to DTTPA would be an ENORMOUS step in increasing the Rays' popularity.
Rays fan here. Thank you for bringing this to light. I drove to Tropicana Field for ALDS game one from USF and it took me 1 hour and 3 minutes. That’s how terrible the traffic is in this fast growing region. As a tampa native and rays fan myself, I promise you the fanbase exists. Just not in St. fucking Petersburg. If the Rays can get a deal done to actually move to TAMPA, where they belong, there is no doubt in my mind that the rays would thrive here. Just like the lightning and just like the buccaneers.
This is a weird plan to split with Montréal. I really think the best option is go choose one City or the other. What I know for sure is that they'd be a big success if they were to move full time to Montréal as the new Expos (like they had before the '94 Strike).
Honestly I think they're doing it just for leverage against st petersburg, they have no real intent on playing in montreal. Everyone knows olympic stadium is a hole just as bad as the trop, and with its own infrastructure issues in getting to the stadium for games. The arguments were the same in montreal when the expos were dying, low attendance, low interest. Montrealers and quebecers will not show up to spite you, which they did after the league fucked them over in 94 when they were one of the best if not best team in baseball when the player lockout happened.
They would be a big success in Montreal only with a new stadium because Olympic is a really bad stadium for baseball. We need a stadium closer to downtown and with at least a retractable roof so we can enjoy the game during summer days. One can dream 😌
@@Smolinski21 You're talking about canada dude no need for a retractable roof in summer lol there are a lot of stadiums further south where its warmer that don't have roofs
Thanks for covering this so thoroughly and not going for the copout answer. As a lifelong Rays fan and Tampa native, I saw this video and thought, "Oh boy, here's another person who doesn't understand the nuances of the issue is just taking an opportunity to dunk on Tampa Bay." But you explained it pretty accurately. You can walk around most anywhere in Tampa, throw a rock, and you'll probably hit a baseball fan. Tampa Bay loves baseball, and loves sports, that was never the issue!
As a rays fan for about the past 10 years I can certainly say this: 1. No matter how good the rays are, the past 8 years or so have sat around 5-10k per game. Only exceptions seems to be division rival games on the weekends. But then again it’s usually half and half for the team fans. 2. Pretty much the only way to get to Tropicana field from anywhere but St. Pete is by bridge. Tree absolutely nailed it there. Takes forever to get there. In 2021 I went to Dunedin when they played the jays there to watch them rather than go to St. Pete. 3. Rays ownership and management is very cheap and snake like. Wish we had better ownership. The Montreal idea makes no sense and makes me want to jump off a cliff. 4. Other things to note from a rays fan who frequently goes to games, there’s never any player jerseys for sale for the rays. Also when you go there, the streets around the trop aren’t lined with promo photos of their players. The Bucs and lightning do. The stores inside are full of generic gear and the Authentics store is full of outdated overpriced stuff from guys we got rid of Ages ago. We don’t promote our own players at all minus social media. TLDR: 1. Our attendance has sucked for about a decade 2. Getting there sucks and is filled with bridges and congested roads 3. Rays ownership sucks 4. We don’t promote our own players ffs
It's interesting to hear from Tampa natives about this. I know what a mausoleum the Trop is. But I had no idea what kind of trek it was to get there. Tampa needs a stadium in a more accessible area.
I’m a lifelong rays fan, born in raised in St. Pete. I would much rather move the team to Tampa than to have the Bay Area lose the team all together. Great video!
Rays need to move to Tampa itself and also they have to plan this right. Plus MLB needs to expand to 32 teams and Montréal should get one of those two slots.
@@odinmartinez1668 I am guessing that Houston will not approve any team near them, my guess would be two “foreign” teams, Montreal and San Juan PR Yes I know Puerto Rico isn’t technically foreign but outside the 50 states is more what I mean there
The Astrodome initially was supposed to have a glass roof, but all that glass made catching fly balls impossible from the glare. Why can't Tampa learn from Houston's mistake and move onto something else?
As a Tampa Bay resident another common issue I commonly hear is the lack of investment fans have with the players because management gets rid of the majority of players when they are due a hefty payday. The fans loved Longo they loved Price etc. Tbh I just wonder why they actually payed Wander Franco and how they are gonna fuck him up.
Tree, you nailed it in this video. I'm a lifelong Hillsborough County resident and I didn't detect any lies. One thing that wasn't covered here is the Rays' TV ratings, which have been solid for quite a while. If the Rays didn't have a fanbase, their TV ratings would reflect that. Being based in Downtown St. Pete is holding this club back. Only about 700K or so live within a 30-minute drive of the place, which is less than half the number of people who live within the same kind of drive from Pittsburgh's PNC Park, the MLB venue with the next-fewest people within a 30-min. drive of it. Also, as you mentioned, Tampa Bay's public transit doesn't lend itself to helping people here on Tampa's side of the Bay get to and from St. Pete. Tampa Bay's growth happening north (Wesley Chapel, Land 'O Lakes) and east (Brandon, Wimauma, Riverview) of Tampa doesn't help St. Pete's cause to remain the Rays' home.
I did a complete feasibility study on the Rays moving elsewhere in Tampa about 2 years ago as part of my final required class for my major so I really enjoyed this video and thinking back to that project. The 2 most notable places that fit were Ybor City and the state fairgrounds. The problem with Ybor City was after we identified the potential property, the traffic situation was horrific. The fairgrounds location made more sense but is not realistic. This all to say that the solution is a very messy one but there's one issue that really concerned me. Regardless of where the stadium is, the fans didn't sell out playoff games. Location is not ideal but other teams have sold out playoff games with minimal attendance in the regular season. The Marlins in 97 and 03 and the Islanders in Brooklyn (different capacity I'm aware) are 2 noteworthy examples. If the fans don't show up to playoff games regardless of location, will they show up in Ybor City or at a different Tampa location? Theoretically yes, but I don't know if you can gamble 20 years on a hypothetical like this when there are other markets for baseball aside from Montreal. It sucks for the players the most as they are a damn good team and don't get the support they deserve
As for Tropicana Field: To say that the White Sox and the Giants dodged a major bullet when they threatened to move there in the late 80s would be an understatement.
@@michaelhartman683 For some reason, the MLB was obsessed with putting a team, any team, in Florida during the 80s and early 90s; before the Marlins were created. It was even a plot of a movie (Major League)!
Dear UT: thanks for mentioning Land O Lakes! I live there. We’re a very small community and rarely get a mention on get IDed on a map. Let me tell you, I live on the SOUTH side of LOL, and to make it to a 7:10 game, I need to leave my house around 5-5:30. Those bridges you mention get clogged EVERY SINGLE DAY and they are the ONLY means to get to the Trop. While the DISTANCE is shorter to get to the Trop, I can drive from LOL to DISNEY in about the same amount of time.
I’m a Tampa sports fan, and the Rays are my favorite baseball team. The Rays have had amazing ratings on TV for the past couple of years, but no one in Tampa wants to go to a dilapidated stadium that’s not even part of their own city. The simple solution is to build a new stadium in a prime location in Tampa, that’s what most Rays fans want. Everyone in Tampa hates Stu Sternberg. He’s one of the worst owners in professional sports and the Rays’ success is in spite of him being owner. Trust me that his team would lose their entire fanbase if they go through with this sister-city plan, as it’s a huge slap in the face to all the loyal Rays fans. I for one would no longer support this team if they go along with it. Like, Montreal? Really?
Even prior to knowing about this channel I've known the woes of St Petersberg. During the pandemic I was working on doing contract work with a food delivery service with drones and their tutorial took place here. Seeing the red congestion, the lanky bridges, and all the other issues it comes with I always sorta gawked at how barren it was. At least with the Keys, it's a straight shot with no need to add extra bridges, but here it's much more substantial. Maybe doing something like a series of ferries would help ease the bleeding a smidge, but the Mayport ferry is a hassle to secure funding, so for multiple routine boats it would be a nightmare.
As a guy from Odessa, Thanks for taking our side instead of just saying we don’t care about the team. We got crazy attendance for the lightning and we aren’t really even that big into it
Great video. I was born and raised in Tampa Bay and you did a good job on researching some of the more minute details (like the Courtney Campbell). I appreciated the land o lakes shout out too I lived there for a long time. Only thing is that during traffic it really takes about 2 hrs to get to Tropicana from lando
![30 ชั่วโมงคนเดียว บนรถไฟชั้น 3 โซเวียต [Around The World Ep. 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MlE9boAVqDA/mqdefault.jpg)
I remember when they went to the World Series in 2008, there was a journalist on tv who asked people on the street how they felt about the Rays success, and several of them were unaware there was even a baseball team in Tampa Bay. And it was their 11th season.
Their first decade was so awful it basically killed their viability as a franchise
That 2008 team came out of nowhere. I have fond memories of that World Series for obvious reasons.
Literally the movie Major League when the old couple make an unintended joke to Jake Taylor about how they thought the Indians were gone because they hadn't done anything in decades.
As a Phillies fan I remember those first 2 games of that series in the Trop. The stadium looked like it was full of Phillies fans who made the trip from Clearwater
@@philly_sports1558 Hell yeah brother I was 8 when the phillies won it all still remember it if only they could win again
When your average attendance per game is comparable to the Orioles, you know something is wrong. They deserve more recognition for how good they are.
Blame Stu Sternberg. The worst owner in baseball
@@jasonparker4465
The Strauss family and Nutting would disagree
Sternberg isn’t the problem in Tampa-the whole situation is cursed beyond redemption
Just like the chargers I fell for the players they are just doing their jobs properly and yet they have to deal with this bs.
They could win a world series and have multiple 100 win seasons and their attendance will still be absolute dog shit
@@warlordofbritannia He is a major part of the problem. As is the St Pete city counsel.
The inclusion of the maps and traffic shows how much your channel has evolved. Love your content and congrats on 500K subs.
I was genuinely impressed he put in the time and effort to research what a shit show it is down here. Would've been completely understandable if he just shit posted and shat on the Rays inability to get fans at games without digging deep so I commend him for it. Was surprised he didn't mention they're one of the largest viewing TV markets for baseball in that part though.
@@scory22 If it's one thing about Tree, he doesn't half ass anything he goes all the way with it
@@scory22 Same. Shows me he cares about the product he presents, even if he says it’s shitposting, it pretty good stuff. You’re right, he didn’t mention the TV stuff, but I think he just wanted to bring the problems to light about our Rays here and what the hell is causing these problems to begin with. They’re always going to point to the empty seats in the stadium and part of me thinks Stu had one foot out the door anyways.
@@scory22 TBF, it was implied that TV viewership is far higher due to problems getting to the game itself brings.
You could almost call it...
...Pretty Good.
I remember attending a Rays game. The stadium was about 40% full. That game began with the announcer proclaiming that the Rays were now atop the AL East standings and their starting pitcher pitched a shut out. That is the Rays in a nutshell.
As a Tampa area native, everything in this video is spot on. Personally, the team has never felt like part of Tampa because of their location. I live near Lakeland and I wouldn't want to make that drive to St. Pete, when I could just watch it on TV.
I agree. I really hope they go back to that Ybor City plan but without the ridiculous glass-laden stadium. They have until 2027. So I guess we’ll see what happens.
I'll never understand teams that put their stadiums away from where they truly belong. I live in Virginia. And while it's a hassle to get to DC cause of how bad traffic is. I'll at least go to a few Capitals and Nationals games a year because I can have an excuse to spend the day in the city. Especially if it's a night game. But I'll never go to FedEx field because it's a hassle enough to get to DC. But since the stadium is in Maryland. I have no justification to go. Can't make it a day trip in the city cause I'm not going into the city. If they moved the team back into the city. Even though I'm not a WFT fan. I could at least justify seeing an NFL game. Especially when my team is in town!
I live in Tampa (about 8 miles north of downtown) and even if I had consistent access to a car, I wouldn't wanna make that drive on most weekdays, either. So many people from outside our area don't know the logistical issues that having the Rays play in Downtown St. Pete present.
@@mobius1965 that, i think looks epic, i would hope there is ventilation though. god forbid a yordon breaks a pane though.
Yep, I'm in New Tampa and the drive is just not convenient whatsoever
The Rays are like a baseball team in a movie where the ownership doesn’t want them to succeed so they can move but the GM and team are so skillful they go on to continue being contenders.
It honestly reminds me of the movie “Major League”, except they don’t even get fans by the end of the season lmao.
Perfect analogy
They're like the Moneyball A's but better.
That's literally it. The Rays are the real-life team from Major League.
Their owner is one of the richest in the game but always cries poor.
MLB never cared for the Rays
"Players like Wander Franco are about to revolutionize the game"
Ohhhhh maan that aged like milk
WANDER FRANCO GOIN 2 JAIL
bro really said that contract will be worth every penny
They gave him the largest contract in franchise history. That’s how much the Rays believed in this young adult to take them into the future. The contract was 11 years, 182 million. There were incentives in the deal that could’ve taken it up to 12 years, 223 million with being in the top five in MVP voting, batting titles, gold glove awards, and others things like that. Franco quite literally threw it all away.
@@kobyschechter8163I’d feel a little bad if it were drug use or something like that but being a pedo removes every drop of sympathy
I was born in Clearwater and grew up in St. Pete. I remember watching games as a kid, especially against the Red Sox, and just seeing a sea of opposing fans and wondering why. Once I grew up, got my drivers license and started driving, it all clicked.
Also, it’s surreal seeing you talk about my home town, lmao. I figure everyone forgets the Tampa Bay Area exists, except that all three of our sports teams are top notch. Bolts games and Buccs games are sellouts, but the Rays can’t catch a break.
Football is huge and the Buccaneers have always had a solid fanbase. Vinik invested so much in Downtown Tampa and in the Lightning by bringing in Yzerman and they’ve built a consistent winner and turned transplants onto the Lightning and got locals into hockey hardcore for the first time. Rays haven’t done enough to endear themselves to the local populace plus all the transplants will typically just care about their hometown teams
@@JHockeyFan As a Vikings fan, the only thing really weird about the Bucs was how they were originally plopped into the NFC Central Division - A Florida team yet all their other division rivals were located in the far north.
It's surreal how the Vikings and the Bucs lived on complete opposite ends of the country, yet played twice a year as division rivals.
@@scaryhobbit211 that was the time when the Saints and Falcons were in the NFC West, too. I don't think anyone in the NFL offices understand geography considering how the Colts are in the AFC South.
Yeah it feels weird when he talked about Citrus Park cause I live there and I work at the mall.
@@u4yk Well, tbf when they did the division realignment in 2002, they were trying to make the most sense geographically while upholding rivalries, and there was no other place to put the Colts
i appreciate the effort to bring this issue to light, tree. as a rays fan in clearwater, even on the same side of the bridge it takes me about 45 min to get down there during rush hour traffic on US-19 and I-275 on an average weekday game. our TV coverage is excellent, and is consistently ranked as one of the most watched telecasts in baseball on a nightly basis. at this point, fans have seemingly given up on going to games and want to avoid giving money to Stu in anyway possible. the way every official is just spitting in our face is just mind boggling.
I'm just south of you in Largo and it's about a 40-45 minute drive for me, as well, and that's assuming that there's nothing happening on 275. Downtown St. Pete is great, but the stadium is in a bad spot even so. I used to love going to games with my mom and dad when I was a kid, and as I got older, into my teens, it just became more and more of a headache to get in and out of St Pete because of all the construction, all the time. I'm talking in the 2008-2012 range, you probably remember how much construction was happening on 19 and 275, and in DTSP on/off. It was a legitimate nightmare.
0:42 I still can’t believe Franco fumbled that hard
As a person that lives within 10 minutes of Tropicana Field I can say from experience that there are a number of reasons we don't go to the games. You touched on it with the ways to cross over and get to a game from Tampa. It's not that much better on this side of things either.
Let's not forget that once you are there you are in the worst stadium ever built by man. I have heard rumor that it once was purposed for a monster truck arena, and that baseball was never the main intention. The roof is to low, the scoreboard is blocked by people walking past it on their way to their seats, sound seems to magically leave the building, and there are loose wires and cables all over the place. Sure, the lack of seats also means that every seat in the house is technically good, and you can sit right up to the edge of the field for only $15, but that does not make it any less a terrible place to catch a game.
EDIT: Just going to edit this here because many have corrected me that the stadium was built as a monster truck arena. It is a rumor I hear in the St. Pete area frequently, and I assume it started over the years between its construction and the first Rays game (1990 - 1998).
When built in 1990 it was purposed for baseball to either be granted a new franchise or lure a current team. It was not specifically built for a monster truck arena. That's a ridiculous notion.
i'm sorry you have to experience that traffic lol, as someone who comes down from north of tampa the streets are unnecessarily confusing
I've lived in the Tampa Bay area for 41 of my 42 years. The stadium was indeed built primarily for baseball, but this was in the tail end of the era of the multi-purpose stadium craze. The problem was they built the stadium without a commitment from MLB that they would get a team. There were several rumors about teams wanting to move from their current locations and the stadium was built to improve the Tampa Bay area's chances of landing one of those teams. I know one of the teams was the San Francisco Giants. I think another was the Montreal Expos ironically. The problem was all these deals fell through and by the time MLB awarded Tampa Bay a franchise, the stadium was ALREADY obsolete. Tropicana Field opened in 1990. Camden Yards in Baltimore, which was the beginning of the move to baseball-only parks for MLB teams, opened in 1992. And by the Rays inaugural season in 1998, it was obsolete as many teams by then either had moved or were planning to move into baseball only parks.
Actually the stadium was built to potentially lure in the San Francisco Giants before AT&T Park was built.
Also a native, it was built specifically for baseball.
It’s good to see more mainstream TH-cam and twitter accounts finally getting the word out there about the rays. MOVE THE RAYS TO TAMPA
As a Rays fan, if they built a new stadium in Tampa the attendance would go up. Winning teams draw in Tampa, just look at the Lightning.
Don't forget the Bucs in NFL
Even before the Bolts got their act together, their attendance wasn't that bad due to having an easily accessible location. The Rays will never draw consistently in Downtown St. Pete due to where a lot of Tampa Bay's population growth is occurring no matter what anyone else tries to tell you.
Ask Jeter how a new building in Miami is selling out
@@donaldpaluga The product has to be better in order to draw people. Nobody's paying lots of money for a perpetual loser in South Florida. If the Marlins win consistently, people will come.
Then let the owners build it. Or enjoy higher taxes. Your choice.
As a Rays fan I just wanted to say thank you. Everything you said in this video is exactly what our fan base have been saying for like the last 15 years. It’s not like the Rays don’t have fans we exist and we’re very passionate about them. But they need to move to Downtown Tampa…. Tampa is a great market for sports and the Rays would strive there, and like what you said in the video just take a look at the Bucs and lightning that’s proof enough to Stu and the front office that the city is a great market.
Thank you for acknowledging the geography problem with The Rays. They do have fans but those bridges are no joke come game day. #raysup
“Players like Wander Franco are going to revolutionize the game”
lol about that
It hurts to see the Rays treated like this. Baseball needs feel good stories of small market teams sticking it to big market teams and the Rays do that so well.
The Rays shouldn't even be operating like a small-market club because their primary market is much bigger than, say, the Milwaukee and Kansas City TV markets. If the Rays played here in Tampa instead of Downtown St. Petersburg, I think they could have a bigger payroll going forward.
Tampa's only small market if you're comparing it to New York and that sort of thing. It is only like Top 50ish in size in the US, well below top 25, but it's a massive TV market that massively outstrips its population size and it's growing pretty well still. Compared to numerous other teams in major sports, it's pretty solidly midsized.
Always love when a Tree vid comes out of nowhere
Here’s a Tree vid that I would like to see: 2001 Browns Jaguars the day post Sept. 11 perspective came to a screeching halt.
I sincerely hope the Rays can be a full-time Tampa franchise. The players don't deserve any of the BS that is beyond their control.
Also congrats on 500k subs, good sir!
No. They need to move to Tampa. They've always played across the Bay in St. Petersburg. which has hampered them more than anything else.
ESPECIALLY Wander Franco
the kid's uncle played for this team and he want nothing more than to be a Ray for the rest of his life
They should just move to Orlando and be done with this zoning bullshit.
Thank You Tree, This is an OUTSTANDING video explaining the sad situation in Tampa Bay....
“players like Wander Franco are about to revolutionize the game”
As a Tampa area native, great to see you did your research and nailed it with this video. Very well done!
Being from Tampa it is pure hell trying to get to a rays game...really wish the two cities would get some kind of deal done to move them to Ybor. I love the Rays
I feel like you touched on everything that is an issue with the Rays.
As a Rays fan, there’s nothing wrong about what you said. you hit the nail on the head.
The sister-city plan is stupid for two reasons. One stadium will generally sit abandoned for half the season, AND they want TWO BRAND NEW stadiums?
Great Analysis, really enjoyed! Congrats on 500K!
Plus the cities are over a thousand miles apart whereas Kansas City and Omaha were within driving distance.
But it's okay because they're going to be "boutique" stadiums that don't have as much cost as a regular stadium.
Like that matters.
@@UrinatingTree "Hey, It works on the field, maybe it'll work for the field?" - Stu Sternberg, Probably....
Didn’t the Bullets split games between Baltimore and DC at one point?
@@someguy23475
I don't know if they did, but if they did then it wouldn't be that big of a deal. DC and Baltimore are the same market.
I'm an Orioles fan that actively roots for the Rays to do well. They deserve a better stadium!
I’ve been on the tropicana field for events unrelated to baseball, and yeah the stadium is very outdated
The Rays deserve a better fan base
They deserve a lot of better things. A better owner, a better fanbase, a better stadium.
Tropicana Field is one absolute eyesore that needs to see the wrecking ball.
@@MM33003 They deserve a stadium that's located in TAMPA. But nope. They just announced a deal for a new stadium but they're going to remain in St. Petersburg. They're in the middle of an intense race for the American League East division title with Baltimore and they're barely getting 15,000 fans on most nights. It's sad because this is such a good team but their location is terrible. Nobody wants to drive that far to a game and pay a ridiculous price for parking. The fact that there's no public transport access makes the issue of chronically low attendance even worse. In the New York metro area, almost every stadium/arena has public transportation stops and they're heavily used on game days. Even the Brooklyn Cyclones (minor league affiliate for the NY Mets) has a major public transport hub (Coney Island Stillwell Ave) with four subway lines and a bunch of bus routes.
As a Dodger fan, I still remember that wild Game 5 ending in the World Series against the Rays. Even if the Dodgers lost it, I remember how happy a lot of those Rays players were celebrating. Most of those players thought they would never make it or their careers would fade off, but the Rays gave them genuinely great coaching. I just hope they can eventually get themselves a fanbase. GGs, Rays fans.
Rays fan here. We have a fanbase and don't let people from outside the Tampa Bay Area tell you otherwise. The Rays have had strong regional TV ratings for a good while, which many people won't tell you. We love the Rays around here, but getting to the Trop from most places around here on most weekdays is much more of a drag than a lot of people not from around here realize.
game 4 you mean? as a Dodger fan pain is not something you forget. I remember all the pain i have experienced being a dodger fan.
The Rays playing in St. Petersburg is baseball’s version of UCLA football playing in Pasadena. People who don’t live in LA see it as a close suburb, but you know getting there and back is a five letter word!
@@justice4all371 😂😂😂😂😂
The Rays had a 99-63 regular season in 2023. They were just swept in their wild card series against the Rangers. They had an attendance of 19,704 in game one and 20,198 in game two. That is just brutal. If I was a Rays player, I would've been like, "We just had a 99 win season and hardly anybody shows up for the PLAYOFFS?!?!" That must've been so deflating for the Rays players to see such sparse crowds during the playoffs.
Thank you for making this. It’s not the fans. We love baseball and we love the Rays. They have very high tv viewership but no one on the Tampa side wants to cross the bridge to St. Pete. My brother lived there for 5 years and I barely saw him because that drive sucks. The city wants to keep the team. Like you said, Sturnberg is not negotiating in good faith. No matter what he says, he wants to move the team. This team can easily thrive here with a new owner. Look at the fucking Lightning. Excellent ownership. They sell out every game and it’s freakin ice hockey in Florida. It’s not just because they’ve been one of the best teams in the NHL, it’s because the arena is great and the team provides an excellent fan experience. Same with the Bucs.
As a Rays fan, my body is ready. Say a prayer for me boys. 🙏🏻
God help you, and the six other Rays fans lol
I've lived in the Tampa area all my life. From my experiences, a decently-sized portion of the population in the area is actually not from Florida. There are plenty of sports fans in the area from other parts of the country that will root for local Tampa teams. That is, if the teams are good. If the teams aren't good, those fans will just root for the teams from where they're from.
I've been a Buccaneers fan since I was 6 years old. A few times in my life, I was talking with someone and they'd ask me what my favorite football team is and I'd say the Bucs. Then they would make a face and say "Why?"
I'm also a lifelong Tampa Bay Area resident. Many people don't take into account how many people move here from out of state (making most of Florida not so culturally Southern as a result, but I digress) and how they bring their sports loyalties with them. I'm a lifelong Bucs fan, but I'm surprised I can even say that given how awful they were between the time I was a toddler and the time I was in high school. Some people even looked at me funny when they realized I was a Bucs fan back in those days and talked trash to me about the club.
@@marcus813 I always hate it when the Bucs are hosting a team from the north-east. Fans of that team always seem to fill like half the stadium.
@@axilrhon2286 It hasn't been just Northeastern clubs' fans. I remember when Bears and Packers fans would take up a huge chunk of the stadium. I attended the Bucs' 1996 home loss to the Packers (Tony Dungy's head coaching debut) and there were tons of Packers fans where I was sitting.
@@marcus813 More emphasis on the north part than the east part lol
I live just north of Tampa in Spring Hill, FL (Hernando County). I used to go to Rays games on weekends, but weekday games were out of the question. I tried once going to a game in the middle of the week. Now, bear in mind it normally takes about an hour to get to Tampa from where I live. It took me THREE HOURS to get to Tropicana Field. And bear in mind, this was back when the Rays sucked. The problem is the games start at 7pm, so all the routes are crammed with rush hour traffic at the time I have to go through Tampa to get to St. Pete. So I'm facing rush hour traffic for TWO cities instead of just one. So people to the north (where I live) of St. Pete can have 2 options to get to St. Pete. You can either take I-275 once you get into Hillsborough County, or you can take US-19 on a straight shot to Tropicana Field's area. But the problem with US-19 is it's built up all the way into Tropicana Field's area from where I live, so it would take even longer than I-275. If you live to the south of Tampa Bay, you have ONE option. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which I think it a toll bridge.
With the Lightning, I can reach most games in under 90 minutes during the week because I'm not fighting through rush hour through the entirety of two cities. I only get the north half of rush hour for Tampa and you really don't get to the worst of traffic then until you hit the southwest part of Tampa heading into St. Pete (see the problem?). You also have to remember that the population of the Tampa Bay area is REALLY spread out over the bay area rather than concentrated in Tampa.
Also, they chose to get good at the wrong time. Both the Bucs and Lightning are champions and the best the Rays did was the ALCS.
I honestly think the best place for a new stadium would be right by the Florida State Fairgrounds as you have I-4 and US-301 passing right through that area and I-75 passing nearby. Also, Tropicana Field is in a very high crime neighborhood. They probably chose it because the land was cheap. They also need to make the new stadium a dome and not waste time on a retractable roof. It gets RIDICULOUSLY hot during the summers here and it rains almost every afternoon/evening because of the colliding sea breezes from both the west and east coast. So it's either oppressively hot, oppressively humid, or both at the same time. Unless it's an air conditioned, I'm not going.
It's interesting that you picked the fairgrounds due to easy access but my issue with that is the area around the fairgrounds is worse than where they currently are. I don't know how the neighborhoods compare, but I know there isn't any to do in that area other than go to the fairgrounds or get some food
@@jadocs20 I've been to both. Much easier to get to the Fairgrounds. You have at least 3 different major arteries as ways in (I-4, I-75 and US-301) and you can get in multiple ways from all directions. And you don't have to fight both Tampa AND St. Pete's rush hours to get their. It puts them as close as possible to the center of the population without it being in Tampa proper. And unless something major changed in recent years, the neighborhood in St. Pete is WAY worse than near the Fairgrounds.
I'm both a baseball fan *and* a geography nerd. A big part of a team's success isn't just the talent they put on the field, or the executive team, but it's the infrastructure of the city around it. Here's an example: the San Francisco Giants. They almost relocated a few times, in part because Candlestick Park was not a great baseball park. A terrific football park? Absolutely. But not baseball. When you have temperatures of around 50 degrees F in July, that's obviously troubling. I can't confirm this, but I heard that they almost built the park further north, but to do that would have meant that they were closer to a fault line with very brittle grass and soil around it. It makes sense that the Giants wouldn't win anything until Oracle Park opened.
So, it makes sense that Tampa Bay would have trouble - shaky bridges, high humidity (which means that you probably could never have a stadium without a retractable roof), not a lot of places to enhance the fan experience (e.g. souvenir shops, restaurants, etc.), a stadium that looks drab on the inside, a stadium that was already past its prime when it opened, and the rise of the other two teams in the market.
I’ve also noticed this with the Mets and the Yankees. While the Mets play in an island in a sea of asphalt where there’s little access to other businesses and amenities (except for a loud airport), the Yankees play right next to a sports village with heritage field and also a soccer pitch. Guess who’s been more successful
@@GLee-oe3op The Mets are still much different. For example, as Tree mentioned, there's no public transportation to Tropicana Field, or if it is there, it's incredibly inconvenient. Therefore, the Mets probably have a little bit of an edge.
In fact, that's one of my favorite parts of Fenway. I can't drive at all (long story that's unrelated to this video), so being able to walk from Kenmore station and get to the stadium in about ten minutes - perhaps less - is incredible. Plus, the parts outside the ballpark - the shops, the concession stands, the transportation around it - make it feel much more festive. The only other one I've seen like that is Busch Stadium in St. Louis, at least from the festive side of it. Even then, we could still walk to the park from our hotel in about fifteen minutes.
I hate to see any team have this much trouble, but I was never a Rays fan.
The Giants threatened to go to San Jose which forced the city’s hand to make the park. Ironically that gambit is what is hurting the Athletics because they had an agreement to not go to San Jose since the Giants said they might go to San Jose. I’m still thinking Oakland would be better off in Las Vegas….or anywhere besides McAfee.
@@EricAKATheBelgianGuy Similar to Toronto, while you could drive it most of the fanbase will take the Subway or regional rail. Both Scotiabank and the Skydome are in key transit areas that are surrounded by a thriving downtown (Also Toronto's transit system effectively covers the city and suburbs making it convenient to go to games from anywhere). Look at the investment Vinick put into Amalie, a transit stop and Fort Brooke park to the south (with a few well-placed restaurants in the area) make it convenient for city and suburban people to access the game while also having the environment to foster a relatively good experience in the stadium.
I’m bias bc I grew up right next to the Trop. I love that stadium, the AC instead of baking in the heat was very nice
Been a Ray's fan since 2010. Its so heart breaking to watch the team do this. Year after year putting some of the best talent in baseball on the field and then just throwing all of it away behind the scenes
Im a Dodger fan and i didn't know the Rays were like this until that 2020 World Series. I learned more about the Rays then.
"Players like Wander Franco are about to revolutionize the game"
Yeaaaaah, about that
Rays attendance was so low this season that the Blue Jays averaged more when they were in Buffalo temporarily due to the pandemic during their brief stint.
DAMNMMMNNNN
More than the Oakland A's as well, which is another team I want to get to.
@@UrinatingTree sweet! Can’t wait my dude.
@@UrinatingTree -- I see the A's following the Raiders to Vegas unless they can get a stadium by Jack London Square.
Any updates on that?
Couple of things; 1) I live in one of the outlying suburbs of Tampa and the drive to the Trop was closer to 1:40 on a weekday game, 2) Tampa has an insanely strong baseball culture, look at how many MLB greats are from here and how big the Saladino Tournament is, 3) everyone always overlooks that Stu only offered $150M for the Ybor “clamshell” stadium, after presenting everyone with a $1B rendering.
tampa bay is currently having a stretch of 80 degree days in mid december.
yet they have consistently packed lightning games for a decade now.
baseball has links in the region going back well over a century
if they can show up for a sport that has no real link to the area they can show up for baseball. they need that stadium in downtown tampa
I think the Fairgrounds and Westshore could work, too. They sure need to get out of Downtown St. Pete ASAP.
I love the fact I'm not the only one representing here for Tampa... BAY!
I think fans of the team liked the early efforts to bring in local favorites who ended their careers here, like Fred McGriff and Wade Boggs who came home to build this team at the start after they were already legends.
We also love the fact Rocco Baldelli, Dave Martinez, even our own Kevin Cash are former Rays players who are managing squads, and our player personnel guys are running the Dodgers while Joe Maddon is still as cool of a customer despite leading other teams.
I think real Rays fans still love our former guys and what they did for us.
It's not our fault the ownership makes TV so much of a better way to watch, and we have a killer broadcast team with a play-by-play franchise staple and his partner on radio and TV, our alums move onto better opportunities, and our studio analysts are great at what they do and they're familiar faces as well (often former Rays and even former a Marlin, as some of us love the Marlins as the sole Florida team for a few years).
Give us another Vinik.
Heck, we'll tolerate another Glazer family, as long as they don't ask for public money to save their behinds, but Stu?
We thought Vince sucked as an owner, atleast he got us the Rays and was dedicated to trying to bring in fans, he just lacked money and was a bit of a well meaning jerk.
Stu just seems like he doesn't care about Tampa, just money, and he sucks!
Thanks again Tree!
I live 20 minutes from the stadium and I can't agree with you more you hit the nail on the head with this one
Everything he said was spot on. I know the hell that is the Franklin bridge from my uncle’s POV since me and him went to the games for 7 years and traffic was hell during rush hour. Not sure how much worst it’s gotten since then since I’ve stopped going games because rona and the warnings from my uncle about going to St.Pete and fearing my car breaking down lol.
I think all the Rays need to fill the seats is a new stadium in Tampa proper, as a Giants fan I want to see the Rays succeed. The Giants have no problem filling seats because Oracle Park is in a prime location right by downtown San Francisco.
The Bucs (west) and Bolts (downtown) play in Tampa and they have no problems drawing fans when ownership doesn't alienate them. I think the Rays can thrive here in Tampa, too. I don't know who had the bright idea of building an MLB venue in Downtown St. Petersburg.
@@marcus813 Tropicana Field was built three years before the Rays even played their first season.
@@carmencaputo7229 The Trop started to rise longer ago than that: 1986. It was finished in 1990 with the intention of attracting another MLB franchise that considered relocating, but didn't get a club until MLB expanded to bring in the then-Devil Rays.
The irony is in an alternate universe, the Giants ARE the ones playing in that dump.
How'd the lightning pack the place when they played there for three seasons??
Was kinda hoping for you to dig into the dark ages of the Rays, with (shudders) Vince Naimoli. But this does their CURRENT team justice, probably more important. Thanks, Tree!
The problem I have with my rays and I assume other ray fans have is that we feel like ownership doesn’t care about the team and the fans. It looks like they are there to just make money and that’s all. I get that is part of it but you still have to put effort into the team. Jeff Vinik has been a prime example of that over in Tamp with the lightning.
@@Rolling_Coasters this is true
As a Yankees fan I would KILL for their front office and player personnel
I was over the moon when the Sox got Chaim Bloom
Anyways, I hope you guys give Cashman a lifetime contract 😉
Agreed.
Erik Neander is literally creating Money Ball 2.0 right in front of us.
The Yankees had won with Cashman at least. I'm more concern with development with some players, especially pitching since it's hard to tell if Severino will return to how he was before the injury and the pitching prospects for the past decades have been iffy. While not as bad as the Orioles but it's not much to brag about when anyone can outdo a team that bans their pitchers from using cut fastball claiming injury, only to be surprised that their prospects fails because they weren't allowed to use the pitch that got them drafted to begin with.
@@iamhungey12345
They won with Gene Michael’s players when they won with Cashman; I only give him half-credit, at most
The Rays are by far the most underrated team in the MLB.
If by "underrated" you mean they were heavily favored to crush the Red Sox and barely break a sweat en route to their first World Series title...then yeah.
And it’s a shame that they have a terrible stadium in a terrible location. They have plans to build a new stadium now but the team will remain in St. Petersburg and the new stadium won’t be ready until 2028 at the earliest. They needed to move the team to TAMPA and they failed to do that.
I graduated high school on the field at Tropicana and on a non-game day the drive from that Oldsmar area took upwards of an hour. Pair the traffic, the area that now cares more about hockey, the location lacking bars/restaurants for pre-game outings ...From a local, the revolving door of players and having no face or name to grasp onto since Ben Zobrist and Evan Longoria's reign really felt like the nail on the coffin for fans.
Love the vaporwave music with this video, it matches well. A soulless music for a soulless management team.
There are actually some MINOR things Tree missed to mention in this video. Some of these things might not be a big deal, but as someone who has attended games and even worked at the stadium for 2 summers (summer job while i was in college), it just gets tiring.
The parking situation is horrible, my gf and I were attending game 1 of the ALDS against Boston and it took us nearly 80 minutes just to find a parking spot, and that was just by complete luck that it only took us 80 minutes. If you think driving to St. Pete just for a game was annoying, nah that's just step 1.
The stadium is cash free, meaning credit/debt card only and the amount of people that aren't even aware of this. The amount of parents I seen hand their kids like 20 USD just for a hot dog, just to be told they can't use cash so they would need to go to a gift shop just to buy a gift card often annoys fans.
The freaking card machines at many of the food stands are legit outdated. It took roughly 2 minutes just for the card machine to accept my debt card for a damn water bottle, what's worse is knowing I was in a line with 10+ at the 3rd level of seats, so a less crowded area compared to the first level.
Seats are honestly terrible, it's a dumb complaint but with hard plastic mixed in with concrete stairs and it just looks ugly as shit.
This is going to be a hard watch. Been my favorite team since the 08 World Series run and growing up in St Pete. Now all I can do is get angry.
Hey, y'all. Rays fan in St. Pete here.
Let me say right now that I am against this double city plan, I would have been happy with the team going to Ybor, and Stu is a complete TONTO.
I love my team, apathetic about Tropicana Field, and despise Stu and his crackpot scheme.
Rays fan in Tampa here. I couldn't agree more. I'm sick of Stu and Brian Auld. It seems as if they're trying to alienate us.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand now they’re building in St. Pete. Pure hell.
Thank you Tree, I’m glad you understand the fans can’t help it
soooo... uhhhh... About that wander franco comment
Thank you for going so in depth. The bickering between ownership and st pete City Council has been going on for too long and they don't care about the fans. Much love from Tampa
As a Rays fan who has sat in bridge traffic to and from Rays games, you’re 100% right. Fantastic takes.
I'm Shocked As a Phillies Fan That U Guys Don't Have a New Stadium Yet!
@@vinceniederman cheap owner that’s why
Thanks for making this video. I love the Rays and hate the split city model. The attendance factor is even worse if you consider the fact that all three bridges are filled with traffic which can be brutal when you're coming from Tampa. As a kid in 2011, I watched a game and left in the 4th inning. We were stuck in traffic on Gandy for 5 hours. That's longer than my trip to and from college today
As a life-long resident of the area, and a passionate fan of the Bucs, Lightning, and Rays, everything in this video is spot on. Local fan passion for the Rays is not less than the other 2 teams, stadium location is the single biggest factor in low attendance.
The only split-city plan that actually worked long-term was when the Packers played two or three games a year in Milwaukee for 60 years.
And even *that* ended with the Packers staying in Green Bay, once they finally got Lambeau up to modern NFL standards.
and that actually made sense... much of their fanbase lives in the milwaukee area and will drive up to green bay
Also Milwaukee isn't 3 hour flight from Green Bay
That's entirely different from what my Rays' dumb suits are trying to pull because Milwaukee is officially the Packers' 2nd primary market (not a secondary market like the Harrisburg/Lancaster/York, Pa. market is for the Eagles). There's a reason why the Packers have their radio and preseason TV flagship stations in the Milwaukee area instead of in the Green Bay/Appleton area.
@Fries 1992, I believe
@Fries 1994
Thank you for the fair, in-depth breakdown. As someone who’s been in St Pete for the past four years it’s frustrating to see people who simply claim that people don’t care.
Your knowledge of the bridges is impressive
My heart goes out to the team and the fan base. They deserve so much better.
As an Expos fan who badly wants baseball back in my town, I totally agree with your take. This plan is super dumb, and I don't want to be Tampa's San Jose. Furthermore, I don't want to rob Tampa of their team.
Take them, please!
Keep on producing these "Must See" documentaries. We already know about the business side of sports. However, you go deeper and discover the shadier sides of ownership, which we value most. Excellent work.
This is crazy. I literally did a presentation my junior year of college on nearly this exact topic. It was about designing and creating a new stadium for the Rays
URINATING TREE has truly BRANCHED out! Congratulations 🎈 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🎈on your 500 Subscribers!!!!
Your videos have greatly improved Tree! Excellent work!
I’ve been a fan of the rays since I’ve started getting into baseball they’ve been my 2nd favorite teams for a decade now. If I lived in Tampa I wouldn’t even care for them. I just want to see their fans support them I end up visiting Tampa and I’ve seen the support of the lighting and Bucs recently. My family moved down to Florida about a year ago and went to a game to watch them play the white Sox and they thought watching the Sox at home was a joke. So yea you can imagine their experience at Tropicana. It sucks because I love watching the rays on TV
I moved to Orlando this year. Baseball is my favorite aport to attend in person. Decided I was going to take a girlfriens to a game and told her, and the more I thought about making the drive to St. Pete with all the FL traffic just to sit in that monstrocity that is Tropicana Field. I couldnt do it.
That drive to St. Pete isn't even convenient from here in Tampa, so I feel you on that.
@@marcus813 Man I love St pete. I honestly would like a field there, but regardless of where they build it, it NEEDS to be an open air park. If they want a retractable dome, fine.
@@nick8339 A pure open-air MLB venue won't work here in Florida. Just ask the Marlins about that. Most of the regular season takes place in the summer, which is Florida's wet season. When we're not being soaked, we're being baked by Florida heat, which comes with obscenely high humidity. I don't think very many people are gonna sit outside in such conditions.
@@marcus813 Honestly, its proof how rabid the sports fanbases are here in Florida that they sit through that, College football stadiums are filled consistently
@@davidvandervoort4945 Most of the college football season is played in the fall, so there aren't a lot of games played in that kind of heat. Attending afternoon games outdoors during the fall is a whole different situation.
Only thing usually selling massive tickets at St. Petersburg is the Indycar season opener. Not only is it the season opener, but it's also at a scenic location right by the marina.
As a Tampa resident and baseball fan, you hit it right on the head. To be fair I'm a Yankee fan transplant, but everything you said about the team feeling distant and all the problems with commuting to St. Pete are completely true. I live around 10 minutes north of downtown and it STILL takes me around 45 minutes to get the the Trop on a game day. Moving to DTTPA would be an ENORMOUS step in increasing the Rays' popularity.
Rays fan here.
Thank you for bringing this to light. I drove to Tropicana Field for ALDS game one from USF and it took me 1 hour and 3 minutes. That’s how terrible the traffic is in this fast growing region. As a tampa native and rays fan myself, I promise you the fanbase exists. Just not in St. fucking Petersburg. If the Rays can get a deal done to actually move to TAMPA, where they belong, there is no doubt in my mind that the rays would thrive here. Just like the lightning and just like the buccaneers.
AWW! I was expecting The Greatest Game. 😭
Still... I love these videos. I look forward to this Rays sh*tpost. 😁
This is a weird plan to split with Montréal. I really think the best option is go choose one City or the other. What I know for sure is that they'd be a big success if they were to move full time to Montréal as the new Expos (like they had before the '94 Strike).
Honestly I think they're doing it just for leverage against st petersburg, they have no real intent on playing in montreal. Everyone knows olympic stadium is a hole just as bad as the trop, and with its own infrastructure issues in getting to the stadium for games. The arguments were the same in montreal when the expos were dying, low attendance, low interest. Montrealers and quebecers will not show up to spite you, which they did after the league fucked them over in 94 when they were one of the best if not best team in baseball when the player lockout happened.
They would be a big success in Montreal only with a new stadium because Olympic is a really bad stadium for baseball. We need a stadium closer to downtown and with at least a retractable roof so we can enjoy the game during summer days. One can dream 😌
@@Smolinski21 You're talking about canada dude no need for a retractable roof in summer lol there are a lot of stadiums further south where its warmer that don't have roofs
@@sneersh9107 Montreal summers are relatively short but very hot and humid.
@@lurkingknight At least the Trop didn't have parts of its roof collapse like the Big O did.
I didn’t wanna relive snell getting pulled then leaving Tampa 😭
Thanks for covering this so thoroughly and not going for the copout answer. As a lifelong Rays fan and Tampa native, I saw this video and thought, "Oh boy, here's another person who doesn't understand the nuances of the issue is just taking an opportunity to dunk on Tampa Bay." But you explained it pretty accurately. You can walk around most anywhere in Tampa, throw a rock, and you'll probably hit a baseball fan. Tampa Bay loves baseball, and loves sports, that was never the issue!
As a rays fan for about the past 10 years I can certainly say this:
1. No matter how good the rays are, the past 8 years or so have sat around 5-10k per game. Only exceptions seems to be division rival games on the weekends. But then again it’s usually half and half for the team fans.
2. Pretty much the only way to get to Tropicana field from anywhere but St. Pete is by bridge. Tree absolutely nailed it there. Takes forever to get there. In 2021 I went to Dunedin when they played the jays there to watch them rather than go to St. Pete.
3. Rays ownership and management is very cheap and snake like. Wish we had better ownership. The Montreal idea makes no sense and makes me want to jump off a cliff.
4. Other things to note from a rays fan who frequently goes to games, there’s never any player jerseys for sale for the rays. Also when you go there, the streets around the trop aren’t lined with promo photos of their players. The Bucs and lightning do. The stores inside are full of generic gear and the Authentics store is full of outdated overpriced stuff from guys we got rid of Ages ago. We don’t promote our own players at all minus social media.
TLDR:
1. Our attendance has sucked for about a decade
2. Getting there sucks and is filled with bridges and congested roads
3. Rays ownership sucks
4. We don’t promote our own players ffs
Very good journalism here. Worthy of so much more coverage. Keep up the great work Tree.
It's interesting to hear from Tampa natives about this. I know what a mausoleum the Trop is. But I had no idea what kind of trek it was to get there. Tampa needs a stadium in a more accessible area.
I’m a lifelong rays fan, born in raised in St. Pete. I would much rather move the team to Tampa than to have the Bay Area lose the team all together. Great video!
Rays need to move to Tampa itself and also they have to plan this right. Plus MLB needs to expand to 32 teams and Montréal should get one of those two slots.
The other belongs to Nashville - there hasn’t been a major league team in that region since Louisville folded in 1900
@Fries Nashville or Vegas
Honesty, I hope San Antonio or Austin gets an MLB team. The rivalry between Houston would be great since they're both close to Houston.
@@odinmartinez1668 I am guessing that Houston will not approve any team near them, my guess would be two “foreign” teams, Montreal and San Juan PR
Yes I know Puerto Rico isn’t technically foreign but outside the 50 states is more what I mean there
@@shermanngjazz well we can forget Vegas if the A's go there. I like Nashville though.
Thank you from a Central Florida baseball fan. Couldn’t have explained the situation any better than that.
Thank you for raising awareness Tree, #MoveTheRaysToTampa
Love the background music, Tree. It’s giving me 80s Vibes, which fits Sternberg’s half-baked corporate scheme really well.
A glass dome stadium in a state that looked at Winter, said “Nope”, and moved on…
That wouldn’t have gone wrong at all.
And that's not even taking into account the fact that Florida is a hurricane hotbed...yeah, a giant glass dome was definitely not going to work.
"The team was good until the roof incinerated them magnifying glass style".
The Astrodome initially was supposed to have a glass roof, but all that glass made catching fly balls impossible from the glare. Why can't Tampa learn from Houston's mistake and move onto something else?
@@u4yk You’re asking about a franchise that thinks the two city plan with Montreal is a good idea
@@obijuanquenobi1911 you're right. That was me asking for way too much.
You do your homework, well spoken. Well done man. No surprise your channel thrives!
As a Tampa Bay resident another common issue I commonly hear is the lack of investment fans have with the players because management gets rid of the majority of players when they are due a hefty payday. The fans loved Longo they loved Price etc. Tbh I just wonder why they actually payed Wander Franco and how they are gonna fuck him up.
Tree, you nailed it in this video. I'm a lifelong Hillsborough County resident and I didn't detect any lies. One thing that wasn't covered here is the Rays' TV ratings, which have been solid for quite a while. If the Rays didn't have a fanbase, their TV ratings would reflect that. Being based in Downtown St. Pete is holding this club back. Only about 700K or so live within a 30-minute drive of the place, which is less than half the number of people who live within the same kind of drive from Pittsburgh's PNC Park, the MLB venue with the next-fewest people within a 30-min. drive of it. Also, as you mentioned, Tampa Bay's public transit doesn't lend itself to helping people here on Tampa's side of the Bay get to and from St. Pete. Tampa Bay's growth happening north (Wesley Chapel, Land 'O Lakes) and east (Brandon, Wimauma, Riverview) of Tampa doesn't help St. Pete's cause to remain the Rays' home.
Aaaand Wander Franco chose to imitate Felipe Vasquez...
I did a complete feasibility study on the Rays moving elsewhere in Tampa about 2 years ago as part of my final required class for my major so I really enjoyed this video and thinking back to that project. The 2 most notable places that fit were Ybor City and the state fairgrounds. The problem with Ybor City was after we identified the potential property, the traffic situation was horrific. The fairgrounds location made more sense but is not realistic. This all to say that the solution is a very messy one but there's one issue that really concerned me.
Regardless of where the stadium is, the fans didn't sell out playoff games. Location is not ideal but other teams have sold out playoff games with minimal attendance in the regular season. The Marlins in 97 and 03 and the Islanders in Brooklyn (different capacity I'm aware) are 2 noteworthy examples. If the fans don't show up to playoff games regardless of location, will they show up in Ybor City or at a different Tampa location? Theoretically yes, but I don't know if you can gamble 20 years on a hypothetical like this when there are other markets for baseball aside from Montreal.
It sucks for the players the most as they are a damn good team and don't get the support they deserve
As for Tropicana Field: To say that the White Sox and the Giants dodged a major bullet when they threatened to move there in the late 80s would be an understatement.
Throw the Texas Rangers in there, too.
@@michaelhartman683 For some reason, the MLB was obsessed with putting a team, any team, in Florida during the 80s and early 90s; before the Marlins were created.
It was even a plot of a movie (Major League)!
As someone who has lived in Tampa my entire life and has been to Tropicana Field everything you said is so correct.
This is gonna be a tough one as a rays fan
As a fellow Rays fan, I feel you. However, Tree nailed it.
Dear UT: thanks for mentioning Land O Lakes! I live there. We’re a very small community and rarely get a mention on get IDed on a map. Let me tell you, I live on the SOUTH side of LOL, and to make it to a 7:10 game, I need to leave my house around 5-5:30. Those bridges you mention get clogged EVERY SINGLE DAY and they are the ONLY means to get to the Trop. While the DISTANCE is shorter to get to the Trop, I can drive from LOL to DISNEY in about the same amount of time.
I’m a Tampa sports fan, and the Rays are my favorite baseball team. The Rays have had amazing ratings on TV for the past couple of years, but no one in Tampa wants to go to a dilapidated stadium that’s not even part of their own city. The simple solution is to build a new stadium in a prime location in Tampa, that’s what most Rays fans want.
Everyone in Tampa hates Stu Sternberg. He’s one of the worst owners in professional sports and the Rays’ success is in spite of him being owner. Trust me that his team would lose their entire fanbase if they go through with this sister-city plan, as it’s a huge slap in the face to all the loyal Rays fans. I for one would no longer support this team if they go along with it. Like, Montreal? Really?
Even prior to knowing about this channel I've known the woes of St Petersberg. During the pandemic I was working on doing contract work with a food delivery service with drones and their tutorial took place here. Seeing the red congestion, the lanky bridges, and all the other issues it comes with I always sorta gawked at how barren it was. At least with the Keys, it's a straight shot with no need to add extra bridges, but here it's much more substantial. Maybe doing something like a series of ferries would help ease the bleeding a smidge, but the Mayport ferry is a hassle to secure funding, so for multiple routine boats it would be a nightmare.
So refreshing seeing someone call the bullshit exactly what it is. Thank you tree for this as a rays fan.
As a guy from Odessa, Thanks for taking our side instead of just saying we don’t care about the team. We got crazy attendance for the lightning and we aren’t really even that big into it
Well if the Wander thing winds up bad for him, I wonder if Tampa ever gives out mega deals again, cuz if it winds up true, the deal aged like milk!
Great video. I was born and raised in Tampa Bay and you did a good job on researching some of the more minute details (like the Courtney Campbell). I appreciated the land o lakes shout out too I lived there for a long time. Only thing is that during traffic it really takes about 2 hrs to get to Tropicana from lando