So apparently, according to this guy, no matter where we put a new stadium nobody will show up...based on zero facts.

People are always quick to state that baseball in Tampa Bay cannot work and always bring up the example of Miami and that even if they build it, the fans still won't come. However, these situations are very different.

In the case of Miami, the fans did not want a new stadium in the first place and were deceived by the organization and the mayor. They stated the team would go broke without the stadium and the project is estimated to cost taxpayers approximately $1.2 billion for something they didn't even want in the first place. There has been a lack of attendance due to this deception from the organization and mismanaging of bad contracts that were given to players. Also, the Miami Marlins have not been too competitive or relevant in the past seasons.

There is a larger demand from the fans for the Tampa Bay Rays to build a new stadium in comparison to the Miami Marlins. The Tampa Bay Rays have a far more competitive product than the Miami Marlins. Tropicana field is not that appealing of a baseball stadium to attend with most of its fans residing in the other side of the bay. If the city of St. Petersburg allowed the Rays to build a new stadium closer to the market it associated with it would draw more attendance than it currently is in St. Petersburg.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers ranked 28th in attendance this season after posting a 2-14 record this year, ranking higher than St. Louis, Oakland, and Minnesota all teams whom had better records than the Bucs. As the Buccaneers get better so will the attendance. We have seen this in the past.

I find it interesting how Berlinicke fails to mention anything about how successful the Tampa Bay Lightning have been and how they seem to draw some of the largest attendance numbers in the NHL every year, in Tampa Bay of all places which he states cannot draw an attendance of more than 10,000.

I find this article very frustrating as it fails to support the arguments by anything other than his own opinion. Also, he compares the Rays situation to different sports other than the MLB and different cities and states, all of which have their unique characteristics and are not directly comparable to each other.

/r/tampabayrays Thread Link - tbo.com