Prepare to abandon Florida
It’s time for baseball to accept the truth about Miami and St. Petersburg
Large, enthusiastic crowds flocked to the first round of Major League Baseball’s 2023 playoffs earlier this month.
More than 40,000 fans jammed the ballparks in Milwaukee and Philadelphia on October 3 and again the next night. Minnesota fell short of 40,000 both times, but only because Target Field is smaller than the homes of the Brewers and Phillies. The Twins still averaged more than 38,000 per game.
The fourth host club for the first round, the Tampa Bay Rays, also attracted nearly 40,000 fans. But that figure comes with a prominent asterisk. Why? Because the Rays’ attendance was a sum, not an average. The first game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg drew 19,700, the second game 20,200. Grand total: 39,900.
That means the average turnout in St. Pete (19,950) was 52 percent smaller than the average for the first-round games in the other three cities (41,740).
This disparity defies logic, especially given that the Rays entered the playoffs with the best regular-season record (99-63) of any first-round contestant. Their fans should have greeted the playoffs with unbridled excitement.
They unleashed a collective yawn instead.
The attendance for the first game between the Rays and the Texas Rangers — 19,704, to be precise — was the lowest for any MLB playoff game (in a non-Covid season) in 104 years. The next day’s 20,198 wasn’t much of an improvement.
ABC’s Sean McDonough noted during the second game that a few Rays supporters were restive. “Some boos coming down from the group — I’m not sure we can call it a crowd,” he joked.
And yet….
MLB is steadfastly determined — for some unknown reason — to anchor its franchise in Tampa Bay for the long run. The Rays recently announced plans to build a new $1.2 billion stadium adjacent to the current Tropicana Field.
Go figure.
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Apathy has long been the watchword in Tampa Bay. The Rays consistently excel on the field — they’ve qualified for the playoffs in each of the past five seasons and in nine of the past 16 — yet they perennially finish at the tailend of MLB’s attendance derby.
The typical big-league club drew more than 2.3 million fans to its home games this year. Yet the Rays haven’t topped 1.9 million since their inaugural season of 1998, when they reached 2,506,293. Their total for 2023 was just 1,440,301, a miserable figure that ranked 27th among the 30 MLB teams.
Two of the three clubs that fared even worse in ticket sales this year had a convenient excuse. Kansas City and Oakland respectively suffered 106 and 112 losses, giving their fans little to cheer about. Their corresponding attendance totals were 1.31 million and 832,000.
But the other club below Tampa Bay in the box-office standings had two important characteristics in common with the Rays — a 2023 playoff berth and a Florida address.
The Miami Marlins drew only 1,162,800, even though they qualified for a National League wild card with an 84-78 record. Twenty-two of their home games were attended by fewer than 10,000 fans, while only five games at LoanDepot Park attracted more than 25,000.
The depth of baseball’s Florida problem is dramatized by the fan support index (FSI), a statistic I developed to track the relationship between a team’s attendance and its victory total.
An FSI of precisely 100.0 indicates support that is commensurate with a team’s quality on the field. A higher number exceeds expectations, while a two-digit index is a sign of lethargy.
The Marlins have climbed above 100 points only once in the 21st century (not counting the Covid-affected years of 2020 and 2021). They reached 104.4 on the FSI scale in 2012, indicating that their attendance total of 2,219,444 was 4.4 percent above expectations.
It just so happens that 2012 was the year that Miami’s new ballpark opened for business, inspiring an upswing of almost 700,000 in the Marlins’ annual attendance. Familiar patterns reasserted themselves the following season, with the box-office traffic dropping by 633,000 in 2013 and the FSI plummeting back to 84.0.
The Rays have fared even worse. Their FSI hasn’t exceeded 71.5 in any year since 2000, and their annual home attendance hasn’t climbed above 1,875,000 at any point over the same period.
And here’s the bottom line — the clinching fact that proves that MLB and Florida simply aren’t made for each other: Only two clubs have drawn fewer than 25 million fans to their home games since 2005 (again not counting 2020-2021). And those unfortunate clubs — you guessed it — are the Marlins (24.51 million) and the Rays (24.22 million).
At the opposite end of the scale are six teams that exceeded 50 million in home attendance between 2005 and 2023 — led by the Dodgers at 62.82 million — and another 11 that finished between 40 million and 50 million. The average MLB club drew 41.49 million over the span.
So why are Tampa Bay and Miami so far below the norm?
It can’t be because their teams lose. Both clubs made the playoffs this year.
It can’t be because of traffic congestion, a factor frequently (if lamely) cited in St. Petersburg. Ballparks in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto are filled on a regular basis, despite some of the worst traffic in North America.
It can’t be because the weather is so nice that people would rather hit the beaches or local parks than attend ballgames. The weather is even nicer in San Diego, yet the Padres drew 3.27 million in 2023 for a club that missed the postseason.
Perhaps the simplest explanation is also the best. Perhaps Floridians — most of them, anyway — are simply uninterested in baseball.
That’s unfortunate for the Marlins, who appear to be tied into their current lease until some point between 2047 and 2052 (depending on bond maturity). But the Rays still have time to reconsider their commitment to a market and a state that are sadly apathetic.
They would be wise to do some quick thinking before it’s too late.