Haven’t had enough Rays stadium talk this week after Bud Selig’s semi-annual disappointmentfest? Good! Noah Pransky’s has compiled several articles related to Selig’s comments.
Think Progress points out that Selig used the same arguments to get the Marlins a new stadium before that experiment turned…um…ugly.
The Field of Schemes blog adds that “Selig calls team in pennant race and making money ‘economically not tolerable’ ” and new stadiums are not always fixes for attendance problems:
There’s inevitably a temporary bump in attendance from a new stadium, since people turn out just to gawk, but history has shown that that can last anywhere from a few weeks (the Marlins) to maybe eight years or so (the Cleveland Indians) before attendance returns to background levels.
Interesting column in the Lakeland Ledger, listing the top 10 reasons the Rays are struggling at the gate. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them, but Dick Scanlon nails a few of the big ones: lack of transit and lack of tradition.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan continues to “flirt” with the idea of a Tampa stadium, but according to the Tampa Bay Times, he said “Hillsborough County isn’t going to build it and taxpayer won’t be asked to pay for it. In all likelihood, it may take several sources of money to pay for a stadium, and that could include private interests beyond the team, he said.”
Oh, and the city of Detroit is bankrupt. Yet the idea of paying $200 million for a new Red Wings arena seems to be on the table still.
Happy reading and happy weekend!
