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Rays looking at Moving, Orlando a possibility

drjnieto

By drjnieto
in Orlando

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drjnieto Unincorporated Area

drjnieto

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Petition to move Rays to Orlando:

http://www.petitiononline.com/Rays4ORL/petition.html

Tampa Bay Rays need to find new home, so why not move them here?

David Whitley {sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}} SPORTS COMMENTARY http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orl-...,7829839.column

Sign the petition and lets get a Baseball team, where the old arena is at or even near I drive. :)

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JRS1 Town

JRS1

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interesting update. I don't know. The Rays have been around now for 15 or so years. They've got enough of an age to the organization that it would be palatable to support them. THat's over 50 home games per year; great for the hotel industry.

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drjnieto Unincorporated Area

drjnieto

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The St. Pete's and Tampa area don't support the team. The only time they draw crowds is when there are concerts or they face the Sox or Yanks. In Orlando many of us New Englanders would go to the

games even if they are not playing our beloved Sox. The Rays have a great young team with noone really watching THEM! Move to Orlando!!!!!

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OCF Whistle-Stop

OCF

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Not that we aren't guilty of it from time to time but the mindset in Tampa Bay is all wrong for the Rays. When I asked my buddy who grew up there he said he just couldn't justify spending that much money on a stadium downtown for a losing team. When I reminded him the Rays are on fire this year he said he still couldn't see it happening. My economic impact argument didn't have much influence on him either. Overall I think it's just a question of fan loyalty, the residents just never grew close to the Rays. I'm sure if the same thing happened with the Bucs the entire Tampa Bay area would be in an UPROAR.

"Problem with the rays is...they don't play football"

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drjnieto Unincorporated Area

drjnieto

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Orlando is not the 10th largest media market, not even close.

Anyways, I would like for them to pick Orlando but I seriously doubt it. Florida has proven to not be ideal. Rays and Marlins have the worse attendance, why would Orlando be any different with a smaller metro and similiar demographics. Atleast the Marlins are getting their stadium now so we'll see how that ends up going. But I would bet if the rays do leave it will be to another town outside of Florida that has a better chance.

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mgsports Whistle-Stop

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They can play at Cracker Jack Stadium and should because all they need to do is move the Fence back some and put a Retrackable Roof and it would be already for Rays. Then tehy could switch Spting Training homes with the Braves. They already play some Home Games here.

MLS and NFL Team at UCF Knights new home or Citrus Bowl and NHL Team at Amway Arena when the Magic move. A WNBA can come back to.

Bud Selig said on Tuesday because somebody asked no teams are relocating at the moment and siad Miami and Tampa Bay are getting new Stadium.

Tampa Bay isn't even in line for a NBA team because the NBA isn't even going to expand even back to seattle or even KC.

The NHL is going to expand to 2 more teams but we haven't heard Orlando on the list only KC and Las Vegas and maybe Houston and so on.

Some of those Cities you mentioned only have Minor League Baseball Stadiums at the moment so I guess Putero Rico or Monterrey,Mexico will be on the MLB future List and so would I think Hawaii.

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bic Burg

bic

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Compared to the other 3 major sports in the U.S., baseball requires the largest media market in order to fill seats in 35,000+ seat stadiums 81 times a year. If you look at all of the MLB teams, only a few are situated in relatively small markets (i.e. Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Kansas City), where if you look at the NBA, there are several smaller metropolitan areas with teams (i.e. Orlando, Charlotte, New Orleans, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Portland, Sacramento, Memphis). Of those smaller NBA cities, only Milwaukee supports a major league baseball team in addition to basketball.

At around the time of the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays' inception, Orlando's metropolitan population was only about 1.5 million while Tampa's was about 2.2 million. That might have been a major reason in deciding to place the new franchise in St. Pete rather than in Orlando.

I could be wrong but I believe the weekly nature of NFL games that have come to be a sort of pilgrimage by fans require the smallest media markets of the Big 4 sports. If you take a look at the smaller markets supporting NFL teams, you'll see 11 cities-- Buffalo, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Nashville, Kansas City, Green Bay, Charlotte, New Orleans, and Tampa--almost triple the number of small-market MLB teams. But like I said, with games occuring only once a week and mostly on the weekends, it is much easier to fill a stadium with fans that can drive longer distances to attend home games. This makes an NFL team's sphere of influence larger than that of baseball, basketball, or hockey. That is the main reason why it would be so hard for Orlando to attract an NFL team. With the Bucs right down the road, the Jaguars 2 hours north, and the Dolphins 3 hours away in the other direction, we are constrained by our geography. The league would not want to award our city with a team only to draw from the fanbases of the other teams in Florida, leaving them with empty seats while at the same time not being able to fill our own stadium. The only way Orlando could see an NFL team in the short term would be either the contraction of Bucs or Jaguars or for one of those two teams to move to O-Town. Well, either that or Orlando somehow gains an additional 2 million or so people.

The performance of the MLB teams in Florida has been pretty abysmal so it's hard to see the league rushing into expanding in Orlando. Personally, I think as long as the Rays call Tampa Bay their home, we won't see another baseball team in Central Florida but if for some reason the Rays were to move, Orlando would certainly be looked at as a potential new home for a franchise struggling elsewhere. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

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spenser1058 Gigalopolis

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Compared to the other 3 major sports in the U.S., baseball requires the largest media market in order to fill seats in 35,000+ seat stadiums 81 times a year. If you look at all of the MLB teams, only a few are situated in relatively small markets (i.e. Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Kansas City), where if you look at the NBA, there are several smaller metropolitan areas with teams (i.e. Orlando, Charlotte, New Orleans, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Portland, Sacramento, Memphis). Of those smaller NBA cities, only Milwaukee supports a major league baseball team in addition to basketball.

At around the time of the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays' inception, Orlando's metropolitan population was only about 1.5 million while Tampa's was about 2.2 million. That might have been a major reason in deciding to place the new franchise in St. Pete rather than in Orlando.

I could be wrong but I believe the weekly nature of NFL games that have come to be a sort of pilgrimage by fans require the smallest media markets of the Big 4 sports. If you take a look at the smaller markets supporting NFL teams, you'll see 11 cities-- Buffalo, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Nashville, Kansas City, Green Bay, Charlotte, New Orleans, and Tampa--almost triple the number of small-market MLB teams. But like I said, with games occuring only once a week and mostly on the weekends, it is much easier to fill a stadium with fans that can drive longer distances to attend home games. This makes an NFL team's sphere of influence larger than that of baseball, basketball, or hockey. That is the main reason why it would be so hard for Orlando to attract an NFL team. With the Bucs right down the road, the Jaguars 2 hours north, and the Dolphins 3 hours away in the other direction, we are constrained by our geography. The league would not want to award our city with a team only to draw from the fanbases of the other teams in Florida, leaving them with empty seats while at the same time not being able to fill our own stadium. The only way Orlando could see an NFL team in the short term would be either the contraction of Bucs or Jaguars or for one of those two teams to move to O-Town. Well, either that or Orlando somehow gains an additional 2 million or so people.

The performance of the MLB teams in Florida has been pretty abysmal so it's hard to see the league rushing into expanding in Orlando. Personally, I think as long as the Rays call Tampa Bay their home, we won't see another baseball team in Central Florida but if for some reason the Rays were to move, Orlando would certainly be looked at as a potential new home for a franchise struggling elsewhere. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

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drjnieto Unincorporated Area

drjnieto

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I believe that the NFL's 32 teams pretty much split up the revenue pie (or at least broadcast revenues and such, I'm going by memory here so someone fully versed on this can feel free to correct me) somewhat equally so that an NFL franchise can pretty much be anywhere (hence, a team in Jacksonville and none in LA). Baseball, conversely, does not divvy the pie in such an equitable fashion - as a result the Kansas Cities of the world will always be at a disadvantage to the Yankees, and so the local market is more important.

The history of Orlando's attempt at baseball posted elsewhere was essentially as I recall it. An important side note of how the decision played out was that the "grumpy old men" then running St. Pete built the Trop and swore up and down MLB promised them a team if they built it (this is somewhat suspect as by the time the Trop was built, baseball was already favoring the idea of intimate, Camden Yards-style parks for future expansion. But, lawsuits were threatened all over the place and I think George Steinbrenner, who is a muckety-muck in the Tampa Bay power structure, got involved. Of course, you can see who won. It's easy to see MLB was probably right about the stadium and also the location - if you consider everyone living within a radius of St. Pete, the entire western side of the radius is fish. Also notable is that the proposed new stadium for the Rays is of the Camden Yards variety and is much closer to downtown. Luckily, St. Pete has boomed in the meantime and the "grumpy old men" were tossed out (St. Pete finally has a "strong mayor" form of government, not unlike Orlando's - the results have been much stronger governance). Whether any of this means the Rays will come or go, I can't begin to say, but I suspect that Mayor Rick Baker and company will at the end of the day do what's required to keep the team, just as our mayors did with the Magic after failing on the first attempt to build a new arena.

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lauderdale75 Unincorporated Area

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Orlando had a very strong bid for expansion in 1990 and in 1994.

In 1991 Rich Devos was heading up a group to get a baseball team to Orlando (with Pat Williams efforts too), effectively named the "Orlando SunRays." Along with St. Pete, Miami, Denver, Buffalo, and Washington, DC for the finalists. Orlando actually sold thousands of season tickets, hired Bob Boone to be their manager, and considered three ballpark sports. East Orlando by the airport, I-Drive, and Downtown on OBT by the Citrus Bowl. With Miami available, MLB decided to look there.

In 1994 Norton Herrick, a local businessman headed up the expansion hopes of Orlando. We were pitted this time against St. Petersburg, Buffalo, Mexico City, Monterrey, Mex.; Nashville, Phoenix, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C. He had the stadium designs and funding set. Again the stadium was tentatively call Orange Blossom field and was set to be built adjacent to the Citrus Bowl.

There was also talk of the Houston Astros moving here in the late 80s, in fact the Astros ran a fesability study for Disney to convince them to buy the team.

Hope this helps.

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