Quote:
Originally Posted by Honorable_Pawn
You don't know what you're talking about. The Rays consistently have very good television ratings. I mean we were breaking ratings records in our market the last couple of seasons. Rays fans are strong and support this team with great vigor.
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Just to follow up on this, here is the annual attendance for the Rays since their inception in 1998. The club's record that season is shown in parentheses.
1998: 2,261,158 (63-99)
1999: 1,750,117 (69-93)
2000: 1,549,592 (69-92)
2001: 1,298,365 (62-100)
2002: 1,065,742 (55-106)
2003: 1,058,695 (63-99)
2004: 1,275,011 (70-91)
2005: 1,141,639 (67-95)
2006: 1,371,963 (61-101)
2007: 1,387,603 (66-96)
2008: 1,811,982 (97-65)
2009: 1,874,962 (84-78)
2010: 1,843,445 (96-66)
2011: 1,529,188 (91-71)
2012: 1,559,681 (90-72)
The Rays best season for attendance was their inaugural one; they haven't been close to matching that total ever since. Their second-best season for attendance was 2009, the club's twelfth, and that figure was only 83% of what it had recorded in its first season. Even the Rays' inaugural season was not that good compared to other expansion clubs. Here's how each of the last five other expansion teams have fared in their inaugural seasons:
Rockies, 4,483,350 (1993)
Diamondbacks, 3,600,412 (1998)
Marlins, 3,064,847 (1993)
Blue Jays, 1,701,052 (1977)
Mariners, 1,338,511 (1977)
It should be noted the Blue Jays and Mariners recorded their first seasons back in 1977, a time when major league average attendance was some 36% lower than it was in 1998.