Why The Playoff Contending Rays Can't Fill Their Stadium
The Lead
Audible
3.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2019
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
The Tampa Bay Rays are currently competing for a Wild Card spot as the baseball season enters its final days. But despite a successful season on the field the team is struggling to get fans into the stands. Attendance has been so dismal that team ownership is considering splitting home games between Florida and Montreal and even moving the team altogether. The Athletic’s Jayson Stark joins us to talk about the dynamics between the city, the franchise and a fan base that just doesn’t show up, even as the team is winning.
You can read Jayson Stark’s article on the future of the Tampa Bay Ray’s here: https://theathletic.com/990608/2019/05/23/stark-is-there-hope-for-the-rays-in-tampa-bay/?source=theleadpodcast
And hear Jayson Stark talking with Dan Rubenstein on "Sports Wars":
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1000451154602/id1478448344?i=1000451154602
Go here to listen to Jayson Stark’s baseball podcast, “Starkville”:
https://theathletic.com/podcast/25-starkville/?source=theleadpodcast
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So, Kavita, there are five days left in the baseball season. |
| 0:10.2 | Yeah, man. |
| 0:11.2 | I guess summer really is over. |
| 0:12.8 | Sad. |
| 0:13.8 | I know. |
| 0:14.8 | So, breakdown for us, where things stand in the American League playoff race? |
| 0:18.2 | So the Astros and the Yankees have already clinched their divisions. |
| 0:21.5 | The twins barring something catastrophic will probably clinch theirs. |
| 0:26.7 | And there are currently three teams fighting for two wild card spots. |
| 0:30.6 | The A's, the raise, and the Indians. |
| 0:32.8 | And so what's the race between those three teams looking like? |
| 0:35.9 | So Oakland currently has the top spot while Tampa Bay has a half-game lead over Cleveland. |
| 0:42.0 | Got it. |
| 0:43.0 | And so our story today is about Tampa Bay because there's something unusual going on with |
| 0:47.6 | the team and its fans. |
| 0:49.4 | And it's actually been happening for quite a while now. |
| 0:53.2 | Despite the fact that this is a playoff caliber team, fans are barely showing up. |
| 0:58.5 | The raise have the worst attendance in the American League and the second worst attendance in |
| 1:03.1 | all of baseball. |
| 1:04.1 | Right. |
| 1:05.1 | Like, on Monday night when the raise beat the Red Sox at home, there were only 8,700 people |
| 1:10.5 | in the stands in the middle of a wild card race. |
... |
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