Rays attendance at Tropicana Field fell nearly 8% last season, to 14,259 per gamegetty images
Rays CF Tommy Pham on Thursday said that he "thinks the team needs a new stadium or a new city," according to Mike Sherman of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. Pham, who was traded from the Cardinals to the Rays this season, said, "It sucks going from playing in front of a great fan base to a team with really no fan base at all. St. Louis, they're one of the few teams to where day in and day out they have 40,000 fans at every game, and that's something that I miss. ... The Rays, they just don't have that." Sherman notes Pham's comments come "just weeks after the Rays aborted" their plans for a new ballpark in Ybor City. Pham: "Do I think something has to happen, whether it be a new ballpark or maybe a new city? I think so. If you have a team that's going to be winning 90-plus games, competing in that division, and you don't have any fan support, then that's a huge problem" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 12/28). ESPN.com noted the Rays' attendance fell 7.9% last season to an "average of 14,259 fans." The Rays "drew better" than only the Marlins, and the '18 season was just the second time since '12 that the Rays "have not been bottom of the league in average fans per game" (ESPN.com, 12/27).
BLAME GAME: In Tampa, Christopher Spata wrote someone "always has to play the villain," and in '18, that included "pretty much everyone involved" with the Rays' Ybor City negotiations. There was a "giant swell of excitement the day those dreamy renderings of a glass-roofed" ballpark hit the internet. However, five months later, the plan "was dead." Some "blame Rays ownership for being unwilling to cough up a larger share" of the $900M price tag. Others blame MLB itself for "being lukewarm on efforts" to get a new ballpark built to "keep the Rays from someday moving to Portland or Las Vegas." Some "blame the politicians in Hillsborough County for a potentially flimsy financing proposal that relied on private money rather than daring to suggest using taxpayer money." There is "plenty of anger to spread around" (TAMPABAY.com, 12/27).
