Rays Need to Get out of Tropicana Field, Not Tampa Bay

ESPN's Steve Berthiaume wrote an article highlighting his belief that the Rays need to relocate from Tampa Bay. In his article posted to espn.com., he made a case for the region not being suitable to sustain professional baseball.

If the team can manage to escape the dungeon that it currently calls home, there will be improvement in attendance. The overall fan support for the team will also continue to grow.

While the article takes a lot of factors into account, it doesn't take into consideration other variables that could cause a decline in team attendance.

Things in Tampa aren't perfect with the Rays, but the venue is more to blame than the region.

Jamal Wilburg is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report.

You can follow him on Twitter @JWilburg

Location, Location, Location

If there was a blueprint for horrible stadium locations, it would be Tropicana Field. It's no secret Tropicana Field is the armpit of professional sports stadiums. It is outdated and lacks the amenities that modern sports fans have come to expect.

It is located at the furthest Western point of the Tampa Bay area population. It takes fans that live in certain parts of Tampa over an hour to make it to Tropicana Field in time for a weeknight home game. It cannot be surprising that after a long day of work, people don't want to drive an hour to get to a bad venue.

There have been proposals of other stadium sites that a new stadium can be built. Unfortunately, the economy and local politics have interfered with the progress of site selection for a new stadium to be built, and the Rays are stick in a lease that isn't set to expire until 2027.

Tropicana Field is the last dome in baseball that doesn't have a retractable roof. The catwalk has created some quirky rules, and it obstructs the views of some seats.

If a new stadium were constructed, attendance would grow immediately.

Growing Fan Base

Berthiaume states in his article:

"Through 36 home games, the Rays have drawn more than 20,000 fans just 16 times and only on either weekends or when the Red Sox or Yankees are in town. One three-game series against the defending AL champion Rangers averaged 13,570 fans per game. Another against the Blue Jays drew an average of 11,009 fans.

"The Rays’ average attendance of 18,485 fans per game is less than half what the Red Sox draw every time Fenway Park’s gates open and more than 25,000 fewer than the Yankees average every home game.

"When you then consider the Rays' lack of a cash cow regional sports network, such as NESN in Boston or YES in New York, you wonder how the franchise can ever hope to sustain any long-term success while in such direct competition."

I remember when seeing a Tampa Bay Rays hat or jersey around town was the exception rather than the rule. Now Rays paraphernalia can be spotted all across the Tampa Bay area, finally competing with that of other major league franchises.

The team started winning in 2008 and those players were the first crop of players that fans connected to and united to root for. This success was followed with a second AL East crown in 2010.

I am very confident that the departure of those key players, including Carl Crawford, Matt Garza, and Carlos Pena, who were fan favorites, has contributed to a decline in attendance.

Attendance is down across professional sports in the current economic climate. The Rays have been impacted further by losing key players creating an expectation that the team would not be as competitive in 2011.

As the team has remained in the playoff hunt, attendance has started to increase. In the Rays last six home games, the team has averaged over 21,000 per game.