Will a New Stadium Solve Rays’ Attendance Woes?
In my previous post on Tampa Bay’s attendance woes, I established that the Rays attendance has not responded to the team’s on field success as well as we would expect. Most teams see large attendance bumps when they win a lot of games and reach the postseason, but this has not been true for the Rays. Potential explanations for the attendance discrepancy vary widely. Many point to the stadium’s poor location and the newness of the franchise, others blame Florida’s snowbird population for keeping their [old] hometown allegiances, some cite the economy and low median income in the area, while others claim Tampa Bay is just not a baseball town. All of these and more could be factors, but we can simplify the attendance problem by lumping all potential explanations into one of two categories: (1) the location/ambiance of Tropicana Field and (2) the size of the fan base.
If the biggest problem is the stadium, it is fixable. Getting a stadium built is certainly not an easy or cheap process, but most teams — even the Marlins — manage to get it done through some combination of public and private financing. If the problem is the lack of fans though, the team could be facing years of low attendance, low television ratings, and as a result, low payrolls even if they get a new stadium.
How can we know if a new stadium would solve the Rays’ attendance problem? Ideally (warning: entering social scientist mode), we’d randomly assign half the Rays’ home games to a new, centrally located stadium, while playing the other half at Tropicana Field. We could compare attendance across the two venues and be able to make accurate causal inference. A controlled experiment such as this would allow us to parse out the “true” effect of Tropicana Field on the Rays’ attendance. Unfortunately, my proposed experiment would likely cost in excess of $500 million dollars and is entirely unfeasible.
Given that we cannot get experimental data, we are left to do the best we can with observational data. Luckily, we have some data sources that can help us assess the size of the Rays’ fan base independent of Tropicana Field. Though the games are not randomly assigned, we do have two sets of games each year that both involve the Rays and are not played at Tropicana Field: spring training games and regular season road games. Unfortunately, the relationship between on-field performance and road attendance is weak and inconsistent from season to season, so I’ll focus here on spring training attendance.
Using Grapefruit League attendance data from 2000-2011, I find a relatively strong relationship between wins the previous season and spring training attendance. The correlation between lagged wins and spring training attendance is 0.56, whereas it is 0.55 between regular season attendance and lagged wins. For Tampa Bay, the data are mixed. As the table below reveals, spring training attendance has increased since the Rays began their winning ways, but this increased attendance corresponds with a move of the spring training site from Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg, FL to Port Charlotte, FL in 2009. Ironically, moving the spring training site out of the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg metropolitan area is associated with increased spring training attendance.
| Season | Avg. Spring Attendance | Wins in Previous Season |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 4093 | 69 |
| 2001 | 4277 | 69 |
| 2002 | 3629 | 62 |
| 2003 | 3422 | 55 |
| 2004 | 4880 | 63 |
| 2005 | 4676 | 70 |
| 2006 | 4717 | 67 |
| 2007 | 4940 | 61 |
| 2008 | 4996 | 66 |
| 2009 | 6513 | 97 |
| 2010 | 6531 | 84 |
| 2011 | 6391 | 96 |
To more fully explore the relationship between on-field success and spring training attendance, I regressed averaged spring training attendance on the previous year’s spring attendance, wins the previous regular season, an indicator variable for whether a team made the previous postseason, and market size (average of 2000 and 2010 populations). All of these factors are positively associated with spring training attendance. As for the Rays, they fit the model of spring training attendance much better than the regular season attendance model. In the regular season model the Rays always underperform expectations, sometimes drastically (i.e. more than 6800 fans a game in 2011). In the spring training model the Rays data is more mixed. Spring attendance was slightly higher than expected in 2010 (147 more per game) and slightly lower than expected in 2011 (523 fewer per game).
Would a new stadium solve the Rays attendance problem? Unfortunately for the Rays, the data do not provide clear answers. The combination of winning on the field and a new spring training home are associated with an increase in spring training attendance, but, to realize this gain, the site was moved from St. Petersburg to Port Charlotte. In fact, there is a distinct possibility that spring training is part of the problem. Why pay full price for a regular season game in April when you can see the team up close for less money in March? It is possible that a new stadium would allow the Rays to have a higher payroll and less margin for error in player acquisitions, but it is far from certain that there are enough fans in the area to sustain an MLB franchise.
I am political science professor at the University of North Carolina. I grew up watching the Braves on TBS and acquired Red Sox fandom during the 1986 World Series. My other hobbies include cooking, good red wine, curing meats, and obsessing over Alabama football---Roll Tide! Follow me on Twitter @ProfJRoberts.
Did you look at the comments on your last article? There are a number of clear issues with the fanbase that wouldn’t be helped by a nicer stadium.
1) the metro area is very spread-out without a centralized downtown, making for a long commute to any stadium
2) Tropicana Field is in a particularly terrible location
3) the population largely consists of transplants from other cities who have other team loyalties and who aren’t very rooted to the area
4) there’s a lot of other stuff to do in the area during the summer months
Your 1) and 2) get lumped into Jason’s (1), your 3) can be lumped into Jason’s (2).
As to your 4), all areas have lots of other stuff to do in summer months. You think we northerners don’t just love to use the warm weather for all sorts of things we’re unable to do 6 months a year? Like staying outside?
Seriously, as someone who spent 25 years in Southern California and now resides in the Seattle area it is far, far more enjoyable to spend the summer months outside here then it was there.
Nice study, I hope the city of Tampa is doing similiar studies. Wouldn’t a study of TV ratings effectively remove the stadium variable? Have the Rays seen the expected up tick in TV ratings as they have won more games? It seems like a comparision between their TV ratings and their attendance should tell us the effect the ballpark is having. My assumption would be that a strong and consistent relationship exists between the ratings and attendance.
Thanks Bill. Here is a nice piece on TV ratings. http://www.raysindex.com/2011/10/maury-brown-rays-fans-dont-deserve-team.html
Part of the TV ratings thing is explained by the fact that people in the Panhandle can watch Rays games, as can (I’m assuming) people in Key West. But I think every team ahead of them also has a massive TV area (I think the Reds have the top rating and they have like a 6 state radius) so I’m not sure if that counts against the Rays.
I thought it wasn’t so much whether or not the team wants a new stadium, but the fact that they’re contracted to play in St. Pete for another ~15 years? At least, I think that’s what Jonah taught me.
Just not a baseball town. The only thing keeping them afloat is the fact that if the team leaves then Fangraphs and ESPN writers will have nothing to talk about.
Here is my suggestion: fans want to see someone with a high BA, or a hight iso. These things are both overvalued, but (one could argue) TB offers good evidence these things sell, not just wins.
Wait, are you saying that part of the problem is the lack of BA and pure power hitters on the team? Because Carlos Pena and his >.300 ISO seasons didn’t really fix their attendance problem.
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding your point.
You have to have it all. Wins and someone with pop. Plus, it’s about what you can expect from a player than what they actually produce. However, by his third year, I would have expected Pena to bring in the fans… so, good point.
Spend a little time in the SkyDome and The Trop will start looking/feeling like a hallowed field. Nobody has it perfect.
Not even a comparison, the Dome is FAR superior to the Trop. World class high def screen, pretty solid all around structure and the beauty of downtown Toronto surrounding the Dome.
Not an ideal spot for baseball sure, but a pretty high-quality and unique facility.
When it is packed (Opening day) the environment is actually pretty electric.
it was packed fr Roberto alomar day as well.
Been to both, and both are bad but I like the Rogers Centre better.
Also when the dome is open, the CN Tower right door makes for an excellent background.
Been to a few stadiums, and while the SkyDome (or whatever) is super, super dated and out of fashion, it’s not actually a bad place for baseball. Good sightlines, great location, kind of homey inside. Just sort of physically doofy-looking, is all. Maybe in a few years it’ll be retro.
The fact that the Golden Horseshoe has 8.1 million people is just a little bit of an advantage over Tampa/St. Pete.
Interesting piece.
But ” Why pay full price for a regular season game in April when you can see the team up close for less money in March?” is really BS…
I don’t think anyone who is remotely interested in baseball would compare a meaningless spring training game to a regular season game…
well i love baseball, and i absolutely use the cheaper price and ability to sit right up close to action as the reason i go to spring training every year. i go to about 4-6 games depending on how long im spending in florida and try to see as many different teams as possible. its a lot of fun, much cheaper than the regular season games, you can see tons of teams in the same area, and you get to be right on top of the dugout for the price of bleachers. it is a fantastic vacation for any true baseball fan.
Has anyone put into perspective that the Tampa bay buccaneers are having similar issues? They are getting blacked out almost every week since beginning of last season even though they have a fairly good team. They have a newer stadium, and it’s in the right spot in Tampa and they are having trouble. I think Tampa’s economy is what is driving this mess and it will not get better any time soon!
Every time I watch a Blue Jays game on television I think, ‘wow, I would love to take a trip up there one day and catch a game’. That stadium looks awesome.
About the Rays, I live in Florida and showed up to only one game this yr, live 3 hrs away, and found the stadium pleasant to watch a game. I found parking easily, right next to the stadium. Getting out was the hard part.
when your description of how good a stadium is starts and ends with parking . . .
As someone who lives in Winter Haven, FL, I can tell you the reason that I don’t go very often…it’s not the ticket prices, the concession prices, the crappy stadium…it’s that the stadium is a pain in the butt to get to for me. It’s only 70 miles but, it’s a 3 1/2 to 4 hour round trip.
I live in Bartow and I totally agree. In 2008 I went to about 40 games including the playoffs but (while it was fun) I was exhausted from all of the driving back and forth to the stadium. This year, I went to all of 2 games. I just don’t have the time or money to travel to the Trop when I can just watch the games on TV.
Is the idea of playing “home” games at a site other than the Trop really unrealistic? Didn’t they play a few games in Orlando back in 2007 or 2008? Also, look back to the early 1970s when the White Sox played some “home” games in Milwaukee before the Pilots moved. Close to 1/3 of the Sox total season attendance came from the Milwaukee games. I know we’re talking about two separate franchises with two distinctly different issues, but why can’t it be done?
Not happening
First off, any time a team moves into a new stadium, the attendance is up. It’s the “new stadium buzz”. So that will already help. If it’s in an accessable area and the team is good, attendance will go up. Rays are starting to establish themselves as a sort of “king of the underdog” type of franchise.
Financing a stadium actually isn’t all that expensive for teams. The pirates got something like 110% of their actual stadium cost paid for by the city of Pittsburgh because the owner talked them into adding “infastructure” costs or something like that. Plus there is a HUGE difference between a ridiculous 1 billion dollar Yankee stadium and a modest but scenic 400 million dollar stadium. I’m pretty sure PNC was only like 350 and it’s typically in the top 3 of most beautiful stadiums.
The Rays just need a scenic, intimate little 35,000 seater that can maybe exand up to 40,000 during playoff games.
Wow PNC was actually only 216 million according to wikipedia (I know lulz @ wiki).
Florida in summer needs an enclosed facility. The summer weather is way too humid and uncomfortable for fans to have a pleasant experience. That said, the Trop isn’t all that bad. Sure it’s a pull from Bartow and Lakeland and Winterhaven, but it is fairly central to population centers up and down the west coast of Florida and Tampa. The area has very deep baseball roots, and anyone who says the Bay Area isn’t a baseball community just doesn’t know its history and traditions. The list of players from here, past and present, is very impressive.
All that said, a franchise move to across The Bay to Tampa would likely jump-start renewed — and sustainable — interest in the club.The economy in the area is horrid. Even The Rays’ TV viewship has declined. But this is still a very strong baseball community, and we think starting over, with an intimate baseball facility in the Tampa downton area, would be a huge success. It would have to be a covered facility.
Maybe they need to try more advertising and lower ticket prices.
I’d start with advertising.
The first year of the Devil Rays the team sold tons of season tickets and had pretty darn good attendance. There are plenty of people in the Tampa Bay area who love baseball and will support the team. After the first year, the D-Rays lost a ton of season ticket holders. My family was one of them. The fact that the team stunk wasn’t part of the decision, we expected that. We didn’t renew our seats because the then owner decided that our seats would go from $15 to $30, and with 4 seats that 100% increase was just way more than we could afford. Namoli and the team were pretty crappy about it too. They reported that they had barely increased ticket prices, and hid the true increases by changing tons of seats from one category to another (lower box seats became lower infield box seats). Namoli was also horrible to the business community and everyone else around and essentially made most of the area dislike the team by association.
The new ownership group has done a complete 180 with the franchise and there is now a huge buzz about the Rays. The bad feelings generated by Namoli are mostly gone, and there are plenty of people who would love to go to Rays games. A similar thing happened after Glazer bought the Bucs, and when they started winning the Bucs went from playing in front of an empty stadium to having a waiting list for season tickets. The new stadium probably helped, but not nearly as much as Dungy, Brooks, Sapp, and Alstott. The difference between then and now is that when the Bucs turned around we had a pretty darn good economy. Unfortunately, the economy right now is terrible and as a result the Rays haven’t been as lucky. Almost every business in this area has been forced to make cutbacks, in many cases including layoffs. Buying Rays season tickets is just not feasible in this environment. When the economy turns around, the team will start seeing more people at games, new stadium or not. Until then, there isn’t much the Rays or anyone else can do.