Struggling MLB Team Outright Eliminates Upper Deck, Reduces Capacity
It seems that ever since the Tampa Bay Rays came into existence as the Devil Rays some 20 years ago, the team has struggled with attendance.
In part because of that, the Rays are making efforts to mask some of those low attendance issues by eliminating all upper-deck seating at Tropicana Field for the 2019 season.
This will reduce the capacity of Tropicana Field by more than 5,000 seats to approximately 25,000 to 26,000.
No other MLB stadium has a seating capacity below 35,000.
The Rays ranked last in the American League in attendance last season and second-to-last in all of MLB. The only stadium with a lower average attendance than Tropicana Field’s 14,258 was the other Florida ballpark, Marlins Park, which had 10,013.
But despite those numbers, the Rays’ spin on reducing the seating capacity was that it was a move to create a more “intimate” experience for fans.
“These renovations mark our continued commitment to providing a first-rate fan experience at Tropicana Field,” Rays president Matt Silverman said in a statement.
The team also announced it would be creating “more social gathering spaces with the creation of the Left Field Ledge, which will include a full-service bar, ledge tables and seated drink rails.”
“Together, in concert with the reduction in seating capacity, these investments will help create a more intimate, entertaining and appealing experience for our fans,” Silverman said.
Poor attendance at Tropicana Field isn’t just a recent thing; the Rays have struggled with home attendance since the inception of the team in 1998.
The Rays have finished dead last among AL teams in average attendance 13 times in their 21-year existence. Even the year they made it to their lone World Series (2008), they finished 12th out of 14 AL teams.
The overall attendance for the Rays has decreased in six straight seasons, and a seventh straight decline seems likely after the reduction in seating.
Just last week, Rays player Tommy Pham, who spent his first four-and-a-half seasons in St. Louis before being traded to Tampa Bay, blasted the Rays’ fan base by saying it doesn’t exist.
Tommy Pham misses #Cardinals fans
“Do I think something has to happen [with the #Rays], whether it be a new ballpark, maybe a new city? I think so.” pic.twitter.com/aO2gf0HQxF— MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (@MLBNetworkRadio) December 27, 2018
“It sucks going from playing in front of a great fan base to a team with really no fan base at all,” Pham said on Sirius XM in December. “… That’s something that I miss, because even here in the Dominican they have a strong fan base for the team I’m playing for. Their fans are very supportive. They’re loud. And the Rays? They just don’t have that.”
They likely will have even less of “that” in 2019, although the fans who do show up will surely give Pham their loudest possible response to his comments.
While some of the blame for the attendance issues has been placed on Tropicana Field’s location — the ballpark is difficult for fans on the other side of Tampa Bay to reach — the Rays won’t be leaving downtown St. Petersburg anytime soon.
The team’s lease at Tropicana Field runs through the 2027 season, and the team’s owner said a new ballpark can’t open in the area until at least 2024.
“We’ll continue to look in Tampa Bay and we’ll put our efforts to that,” owner Stuart Sternberg said at the winter meetings. “One way or another, we need to figure out a where the team is going to be in 2028, if not sooner. Ideally sooner. But absolutely by 2028.”
Even with a new ballpark, there’s no guarantee that fans will show up. As the attendance numbers for the Rays and Marlins show, MLB hasn’t really caught on in Florida.
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