Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Home Sweet... ORLANDO?

For the second year in a row the Rays have made the trip down I-4 to The Magic Kingdom for a three game home/away series in Orlando. And for the fifth straight game they have won. Tonight's game was especially exciting with Evan (MAN CRUSH) Longoria getting a two out, two R.B.I. single off the great Roy Halladay in the sixth to tie the game. Jason Hammel was good enough (again) going six full and grabbing the W. My only question is, why are the Rays so freaking good in Orlando?

It's been hard for them to do anything successful in bunches since the formation of the organization and all I want to know is, why not play more games there. Now just to let you know, I am not the biggest fan of them having "home" games on the road but I do understand what they are trying to do. For those who do not follow ratings, the Tampa and Orlando markets combine to be the number six market in the country. And that's a lot of money if every one is on board.

But the reality is, how many of these Disney based homes are going to make the two hour drive to St. Pete to catch a game. I don't know one person going from here to Orlando to see the Magic, and they're in the playoffs! So even though I support the spread of Rays mania, I don't think the experiment is going to be much of a success. But if they keep winning out there I have no problem sacrificing a couple of extra games just to pad the stats.

3 comments:

ASponge said...

The Orlando games are all part of a revenue-based plan to become Central Florida's team. Whether it actually works is still in question.

That being said, it must be a nice treat for those people in Orlando to get to see a professional team play a couple times a year.

Jay Warman said...

How many seats are in that Disney stadium?

ASponge said...

I think 18,000.