The Tampa Bay Rays play in one of the worst stadiums in baseball. Tropicana Field is difficult to get to. The food is borderline dangerous to eat. And really, it’s just an unpleasant setting to watch a baseball game, which is a bummer because the Rays are good.
In an effort to make Rays games look less depressing, the team reduced the capacity this season to 25,025. And they still struggled to sell that out on Opening Day. The result was the saddest Game 1 crowd we’ll see this season.
The Rays averaged 14,258 fans a game last season, which ranked 29th in the league.
Principal owner Stuart Sternberg was disappointed that the team was even struggling to sell out Opening Day. After all, the Rays aren’t bad. They won 90 games last season and have hopes to contend in an already-stacked AL East.
Sternberg said via tampabay.com:
“It’s problematic, and the sellout isn’t 33 (thousand) that we have or 38 (thousand) or 42 (thousand),” he said. “Twenty-five thousand seats, given everything that we are, the way we finished last year, the team we have, 4 o’clock start, it should be a layup to use a different sport’s phrase. But it is what it is, and I always say for the people that are here, the 25,000 that are here, whether they bought their tickets a month ago or they bought them yesterday, we’re going to put on a great show and they’re going to have a great time.”
The Rays lost their opener to the Astros, 5-1.
