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The original was posted on /r/baseball by /u/benlikeswhales on 2023-10-05 23:44:27.

17 years ago my family moved to Tampa and I fell in love with the Rays. The magical 2008 season cemented my fandom and even though I moved away in 2010 I have supported the Rays from afar ever since. In college I wrote my end of term paper for a “history of baseball” class on the Rays’ stadium crisis. I’ve excerpted some interesting parts here that may provide a more balanced look at attendance than most of the scorching takes on this topic over the past few days. Short version: St. Pete built the stadium as a way to attract a baseball team, they became very possessive of the team because of their original investment. From the start the original ownership alienated local fans and businesses. Since Stu Sternberg bought the team things have become more complicated but the reality is that all parties involved (the St. Pete government, the Rays ownership, and general citizens in the Tampa Bay Area are all unwilling to budge)

As Major League Baseball pushed through its pandemic shortened 2020 season many fans wondered how much not having a crowd was affecting teams. All teams except the Tampa Bay Rays, whom most around the league joked would not notice a difference. Quips about fan attendance, or rather lack thereof, have become commonplace for the Rays in their short history. These remarks are certainly not unfounded as the Rays finished with the second-lowest fan attendance in 2019, a year in which they won over 90 games and pushed the World Champion Houston Astros to 5 games in the ALDS. While some outsiders believe this demonstrates that there is not sufficient desire for baseball in the Tampa Bay Area, locals know that the attendance woes center around ‘the Trop.’ Tropicana Field (The Trop) has been the home of the Rays since their inception, and it has played an enormous role in shaping the narrative of the team and sculpting the unique history of the franchise. Fans, St. Petersburg government officials, and Tampa Bay Rays ownership constitute the three main groups impacting and being impacted by Tropicana Field. Over the course of time these groups have each developed unique objectives relating to the stadium, and it is the progressive movement towards these individual objectives and away from the commonality of Tampa Bay Baseball, as opposed to a lack of desire for baseball in the region, that has resulted in the present situation where relocation seems inevitable.

The Suncoast Dome (1980s-1998) Only six days prior to a meeting that would decide the fate of baseball in the Tampa Bay Area, St. Petersburg mayor Ed Cole received a telegram from then Commissioner of Baseball Ueberroth with a simple message: baseball will not be coming to St. Pete in the near future. In spite of this message, on July 24, 1986 the City Council voted 6-3 in favor of a motion to construct the Suncoast Dome in the hopes of luring another team there or shifting their expansion fortunes. At this point the city’s objective is in line with the objectives of fans and the objectives of the owner of whatever team would choose to come to the region. They all want baseball in the region and believe having a stadium will help accomplish this.

Officials in St. Petersburg then endured a series of devastating last-minute let downs as they tried, with no avail, to woo the White Sox, Athletics, Twins, Rangers, and Mariners to come inhabit the new Dome. The most painful of these let downs was the fiasco with the San Francisco Giants. After having their hopes dashed several times, baseball fans in the Tampa Bay region were rightfully skeptical when news broke that one of San Francisco’s primary funders would not back the team staying in the city and St. Pete officials began the process of convincing Major League Baseball to choose them:

“People here feel like they’ve taken a terrible beating. . . It’s like that game ‘whack-a-mole’… every time they get their hopes up, whack, they’re bashed down, up again, whack, they’re bashed down again.”

Nerves notwithstanding, excitement began to build in the city as it was announced that pending a vote by National League owners the Suncoast Dome would become home to the Giants. Yet, once again it was not to be as National League owners decided not to permit the move. The justification of this vote and its fairness is outside of the scope of this paper, but regardless it further cemented local views of the stadium as a failed political ploy. After waiting for eight years, through all the ups and downs of chasing a team, many residents of St. Petersburg had become thoroughly frustrated with the Dome. They took exception to its “aesthetics,” to its use of public money, and joked that it was the premiere tractor pull exhibition venue in the world. However many also expressed a strong pride in having their own stadium and in investing in the community’s future. Yet the community that was most justified in being angry with the stadium was largely silenced. The black community of the Gas Plant District were kicked off their land via government buyouts and claims of degradation in order to clear room for the stadium. They were stuck enduring the devastation of losing their homes and community with none of the promised pay offs from having a team in the stadium. Thus, entering the year 1995 the St. Petersburg community’s relationship to the Suncoast Dome was a tenuous one. Further, a new slew of City Council members replaced the elected officials who voted on the original referendum to build the stadium and these new members felt less pressure to find a baseball team outside of the desire to increase revenue for the city and do what their predecessors could not. At this point all three parties involved still wanted a team, officials felt mounting political pressure to secure one, and fans felt mounting anxiety that one will not come and with that fear came anger that officials made a costly mistake. This was especially true within the Black community that was forced into giving up more than any other group in order to construct the stadium.

Finally on March 9, 1995 St. Petersburg rejoiced as they were awarded an expansion bid by the American League to join in the 1998 season. However, in spite of this triumphant fulfillment of a plan nearly a decade old, Rays ownership struggled out of the gates to fully connect with the local community. After putting out a survey to gather community input on name choices, owner Vince Naimoli decided on one that almost 99% of fans disliked: The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. While some in the region were content with the name knowing they were getting a baseball team, others found it distasteful. The use of the word ‘Devil,’ rubbed some Christians in the region the wrong way, and the name itself being an amalgamation of Devil Fish and Manta Ray confused others.

However the most important complaints centered on the choice to call the team “Tampa Bay.” While it was intended to unite the cities of Tampa, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg which encircle the bay itself, the name frustrated residents of St. Pete who felt that after all the energy and money they had invested in the stadium and the search for a team they had been snubbed with a name that, while in theory included them, in practice would be more closely associated to the nearby city of Tampa by the broader American audience. In this way the ownership group had already begun to isolate the closest fanbase geographically to the stadium three years before a game had even been played. Nevertheless, there was still plenty of joy and excitement surrounding the team and most signs pointed to an exciting future for baseball in Tampa Bay, and with that the fulfillment of the Suncoast Dome’s ultimate purpose. As this era comes to a close the three groups are still mostly united as Tampa Bay has gotten its team, ownership feels confident that fan excitement is high and Naimoli is proud to be, in his eyes, the one to bring baseball to Tampa Bay. Furthermore fans are extremely excited for baseball. However cracks in the stability of fan relationships with the ownership are forming as Naimoli’s name choice is considered poor by many.

The Devil Rays Era (1998-2005) This early era of the franchise was characterized by fighting between the city of St. Petersburg and Rays’ ownership over the stadium. Despite quibbles over the name of the team, the inaugural season of 1998 went normally by expansion standards. Fans came to games in droves, tolerating long wait times and poor play on the field because it felt, “like a first date.” However this, “honeymoon,” with baseball was short lived. As the Devil Rays continued to wallow in the cellar of the American League East for their first few years in the league the attendance took a steep dive. At this point though the general consensus was that poor play on the field was the main cause of the attendance problem. Poor on-field performance was not the only issue though. Owner Vince Naimoli had also fallen out of favor with the local community due to a long list of contentious incidents including refusing to do business with local organizations unless they bought season tickets, telling players to not attend an event for medical patients when it was held at a venue besides the Trop, and threatening to ban an opposing team’s scout for life when they accidently used the bathroom in an executive suite. These incidents, combined with his ego, and staunch devotion to the bottom-…

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