20k Giveaway: The Moment of Truth

From L to R: Genius, Genius, Genius

Wednesday, September 29.

To some it is just the final regular season home game of 2010 for the Tampa Bay Rays. But for many, it is judgment day. That is because while permitting the nice community-friendly gesture of passing out 20,000 free tickets to tonight’s game, what the Rays are really doing is challenging every Rays blogger, economist and Price/Longoria basher in the world.

You see the major backlash that came out of Monday night’s aforementioned comments is that the economy is the reason for the lack of attendance at Tropicana Field. Nobody locally stepped out and said, “Yep, we just don’t really care to support the Rays.”

Price’s Twitter page was reportedly trashed with messages that went along the lines of “I’m a single father who got laid-off and saw his wife die on the same day. My 17 kids have lived off of oatmeal and Spam since the spring of 2008. HOW DARE YOU?!?”

This led to sad, apologetic Price who claimed that yesterday was the most nervous he has ever been in his baseball career. Yes, more than that time he closed out Game 7 of the ALCS as a September call-up.

“That was a nightmare,” Price told reporters after the game. “I knew if I didn’t throw well, I was going to be done with the fans.”

So instead of technically apologizing to the fans, Stu Sternberg and friends have thrown out a bit of a task disguised as a nice humanitarian act. You say this market has one of the highest unemployment rates in baseball? You say you’d like to make it out to games but can’t afford it? You say you’re saving up for playoff tickets? Well here’s 20,000 free passes [to good seats], let’s see what you can do.

Make no mistake about it. If tonight’s game is not a sellout, it will be Exhibit A of why this team needs out of town when the time comes. People want to cite TV ratings and talk about this giant fan base that is being priced out. Tonight is your chance to prove it.

The Tampa Bay area is not New York or Los Angeles or Chicago. It never will be. There aren’t fancy businessmen in suits attending games after a long day on Wall Street. There’s real estate people scrapping up $10 for a Party Deck seat after another day of losing profits. There’s construction workers watching nothing being built, again.

It’s a community that thrives on three industries that are nearly non-existent right now.

But starting at 4:45 P.M. (when the giveaway starts), none of that matters. The Rays have to attract 16,000 paying customers at some of the league’s lowest prices in order to attain a sellout.

If they don’t, it will prove once and for all that it’s not just money holding the fans back. It’s a lack of interest.

Let the games begin.

-Bryan