Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg’s latest proposal for a new stadium on the current Tropicana Field site may involve some half-baked designs with weird engineering, but team execs are still spinning hard to convince the media and the public that this would be an actual improvement over the existing stadium. From a design presentation given to the Tampa Bay Times yesterday, as relayed by Times columnist John Romano:
Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has been insistent on a more intimate feel to a stadium, which means capacity will likely be in the 30,000 range, making it the smallest ballpark in the majors.
“Intimate” to most sports fans would imply “lots of seats close to the action,” but to team execs and stadium builders it’s become a term of art meaning “not many seats, so we can both save on construction costs and create artificial scarcity that will allow us to jack up ticket prices.” Whether the remaining seats are close to the field or not will largely depend on how much other stuff is crammed in as well — and the Rays designers apparently anticipate doing a lot of cramming:
But those 30,000 tickets would not necessarily be traditional row seating with armrests or entire levels of luxury suites. Instead, there will be different versions of table seating, living room-like boxes, bar seating and standing-room only sections.
Not all of the above makes sense — “living room-like boxes,” for one, are exactly what “luxury suites” are — but much of it comes down to “we plan on selling 30,000 tickets, but not actually providing 30,000 seats.” Table seating, bar seating, and standing room are all things that are commonly offered at many new stadiums where fans can see the game (or part of it) from the concessions concourse, but in addition to your assigned seat, not usually in place of it. So while allowing fans to watch the game from tables or bars may sound millennial-friendly or whatever designers are calling it these days, it actually comes down to charging people to get into the stadium and then not giving them a guaranteed place to sit. (The one time I bought a standing-room ticket, for the 2013 MLB All-Star Game in New York, I ended up having to get there super early and then guard my place ferociously, bringing all the fun of a general-admission concert to pro sports.)
How exactly this will work will depend on the final design, which the Rays have very much not released. And again, this is all still very much spin — Rays structural engineer Dylan Richard also touted outdoor terraces that could be used during games as allowing fans to “be inside and still be able to feel like you’re outdoors and experiencing baseball.” Only the terraces will be outside the enclosed stadium, meaning while you may feel like you’re experiencing baseball, you won’t actually be seeing any baseball. If Sternberg’s planned big sales pitch to fans is “Come to our new stadium, which will be in the exact same hard-to-drive-to location as our old stadium but where you can sit outside and not be bothered by having to watch the actual game,” it’s maybe becoming more clear why he’s had trouble getting them to turn out so far.
Move the Rays to San Jose
Just renovate the Trop or let them move to a better city. Tampa doesn’t want them. The Yankees are Tampas team.
No …. Yankees are NOT OUR TEAM —— maybe yours, but not OURS
I like going to Rays games when I visit the west coast for memorial weekend. Honestly, if they move, they should move to Jacksonville. The Jumbo Shrimp sellout all the time and usually have better attendance than the Marlins.
The Jumbo Shrimp averaged 4,974 in attendance in 2022, the Rays 13,927.
In that case 14K would feel real comfortable in a stadium built for 35K. Heck you could sit in a seat then sit at the bar have a sandwich & then following the 7th inning stretch go to the lounging section for the final inning.
What a day!
If fans wanted to watch a ball game with a “living room like” experience, wouldn’t they just stay home and watch the game in their own living rooms?
sssshhhhhhhh!!!!
You’ll ruin everything….
Some years back, the dolphins proposed a similar idea for a renovation. Come and sit in a family suite. Or hang out in a place that has no view of the game but is “a party” (aka the LIV nightclub)
It was all very bizarre and expensive.
I remember something about that. Gotta hand it to the owners… charging you to come in to the building but not watch the game is way up there. They still aren’t quite at the level I’d like to see… where they charge you a second fee to open the doors after the game so you can get to your car/transit and go home.
It’s a totally untapped revenue stream and frankly, I am disappointed that no-one has implemented this yet.
The Tampa Bay region does not deserve a MLB team. They can’t even support the one they have with a good record and playoffs.
Time to move the team! Charlotte, Nashville or move to the Left Coast say, Portland.
I love the Tampa Bay Rays! I want them to stay! I’m a huge baseball fan and I’m moving to Tampa soon! I would like to see the games out there! Who am I going to cheer for if the Rays are to leave?
Im not sure where they should move. Lots of teams have attendance issues. Charlotte comes up a lot, would a Charlotte local tv deal be better then Tampa?
Good question Al.
Tampa-St Pete has an MSA of about 3.2m; Charlotte-Concord is around 2.7m.
So market size is similar… would Charlotte be more interested in baseball than Tampa appears to be?
I think we all sometimes ‘drink the koolaid’ on MLB’s lack of support move threats. I know I do.
The Rays don’t really have anywhere to go (neither do the A’s) that would be significantly better than their current market. It’s also a convenient myth (that MLB loves to peddle) that most other markets are ‘way better’.
Plenty of teams have average attendances in the low 20k range. It’s true that the Rays are significantly below that, but six teams in the AL alone had average attendance below 20k last year. Only four AL teams averaged significantly over 30k per game in 2022. The Rangers shiny new warehouse/ballpark drew in less than 25k on average last year.
In the NL, four teams averaged below 20k (three of those in relatively new stadia) and only four averaged over 35k per game.
There’s quite a bit of middle ground for the Athletics and Rays to move into, in other words.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2022-misc.shtml
It’s interesting that teams bemoan low attendance figures when trying to move or extort cities for new stadiums- when the MLB economic structure is all about tv money.
There’s no bigger market then Tampa available for the Rays. Charlotte might be better for corporate money, but your local tv revenue will be similar and who knows if Charlottans will support the team once the novelty factor is gone.
If these teams were serious about moving to the best market- they’d threaten to go to northern New Jersey, the Inland Empire or Mexico City. Sue the league Al Davis style.
There is zero chance a team could relocate to Northern NJ or CT as Peter Gammons once proposed. Your a dedicated Yankee Met or Red Sox fan and would never change your locality to a team nor would your siblings. The Rays will end up in St Pete again in a flawed location.
Al, I would agree with Jeff on the “zero chance” thing, but not because of the reason stated.
Fanbases are built over the long term, not immediately. And New York Metro and the LA basin are the only two markets in the US with what economists have described as “an untapped excess” of fans with discretionary income.
The reason the Rays and A’s won’t move to NY/NJ or LA is solely down to market restrictions imposed by their fellow owners in this wondrous semi free market system we have .
Simply put, they would have to pay so much to get to NY that it would take all the extra income they would make to pay the debt service on the indemnity fee they have to pay the Mets and Yankees (and maybe even Phillies, who knows). Possibly quite a bit more than their actual increased revenue.
As for fans being dyed in the wool for life, also not true. I used to be a Cub fan (35 years) and never expected to be anything else. Less than a decade of Tom Ricketts ownership and I was done with the team and the market.
Years ago White Sox fans were canvassed on why they buy White Sox season tickets. Something like 30% of them said they didn’t really consider themselves White Sox fans, they just hated the Cubs.
If there is ever a second NHL team in the greater Toronto area, that is the kind of fanbase it will tap. They won’t convert very many Leaf fans (although there are always some who just give up after betrayal after betrayal…), but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be successful.
A third MLB team in NY/NJ (bring back the Bears!) and Los Angeles would not be an immediate success (except in the tv market, where hungry cable or streaming services would flood the new teams with money). They could probably make do with 25,000 seat facilities for the first decade or two. But over time, as kids grow up loving the new team (as only kids can do…) they will build a fanbase. And they would do it faster if they insisted on their cable or streaming service of choice allowing a game of the week to simulcast OTA.
But none of that will happen because the free market capitalist kings that own the Yankees, Mets and Leafs will simply refuse to name their price for expansion into their territory.
You know, like when Cadillac invented the V8 and then refused to let anyone else make an engine in that configuration… or when IBM invented the personal computer and then refused to let anyone else develop or sell one.
Yeah. Just like that.
Stadiums need to move more toward the spring training experience but on a larger scale. Boardwalks with open stand and sitting rails on multiple levels Non reserved seats down the baselines. Lounger pods behind home plate for the big spenders. Make concourses with clear views, concessions and skill games for kids. Enclosed sorts bars, all different that you can see the game inside and out. Rays have a home here. Let s keep it here and increase the draw to be there
Move the Rays to Orlando! Being centrally located, people from both coasts could come to the game. Orlando will put the team downtown near our other sports teams and build them a new state of the art stadium. If you’ve ever been to a Magic or Orlando City game, then you already know we have top notch facilities. Rebuilding in St. Pete is such a horrible idea. They will NEVER draw big crowds there. How did the owner become so rich? It sounds like he’s about to set a bunch of money on fire! He is going to drive the team right into the ground if he doesn’t leave St. Pete, mark my words. Oh, and get used to never attracting big stars. If I were a player I wouldn’t want to ruin my career for the Rays. Just saying…
Are people from Tampa and St. Pete really going to drive an hour and a half each way to Orlando to see a Rays game on a Tuesday night? Yes, Orlando is closer to Daytona Beach and the rest of the Atlantic coast, but relatively few people live there compared to Tampa Bay, which is why the team was put in Tampa Bay in the first place.
As for “driving the team into the ground,” the Rays have now made the playoffs four straight years, and turned a $45m profit last year according to Forbes. So empty seats or no, Sternberg seems to be doing just fine.
Right on!
Tampa Bay and Orlando are two separate markets. Stu will do just fine if his group is selected as the the developer of the Trops 83 acre redevelopment plan. And he will get a billion dollar stadium on top of it.
Stu is doing just fine now. The Rays have turned annual profits ranging from $12m to $65m over the past decade. So far as I can tell, they have not lost money in any season under his ownership despite four digit attendances at times.
And despite his net worth being over a billion, the majority of that is his stake in the Rays… so I don’t see him being the site developer (not without a partner).
The Rays, Pirates and Athletics generally turn significantly greater annual operating profits than the Yankees do.
Maybe we should be feeling sorry for the whales and not the minnows.
* typo: $12m-$68m
Do we actually know the real profits for an MLB team (except maybe the Braves)?
Interesting to see that the new strategy is to shrink seating capacity instead of expanding parking and traffic capabilities after the playoffs run showed us how poorly they planned. Why not move it to I-4 and 75 where you could fill a full size stadium with more fan base and have both?
Just move to Vegas