Attendance still under microscope for winning Rays

People hereabouts really like to watch the Rays on television. We know this because the ratings are spectacular. People love to listen on radio, wear their T-shirts, talk about them around the water cooler and send me helpful suggestions by e-mail for Joe Maddon.

They like everything about this young, vibrant, exciting team that has rushed to the best record in baseball as the end of April nears.

None of that is likely to help them much at the box office tonight, though, when Oakland comes to Tropicana Field. The Rays have built a legitimate championship contender but they rank just 17th in attendance among the 30 big-league teams.

The crowd of 23,250 Sunday to watch David Price's four-hit shutout win over Toronto was better than only four of the 15 games played that day around the majors. This was after just 22,056 showed up Friday night for a special promotions night to welcome the Rays back from a record-setting road trip, where they won nine of 10 games.

Even the old reliable ploy of throwing in a free concert didn't work. Saturday's gathering of 23,870 for the Rays-Jays and postgame John Fogerty concert was about two-thirds capacity for the Trop. The Rays normally pack the house for their Saturday concert series.

To be fair, the Rays raised ticket prices for weekend games to capitalize on the large appetite for the concert series. They also started a complicated five-tier pricing system this season, and I've heard complaints about that.

With Oakland and Kansas City here for the next six games - two teams that fans here routinely manage to ignore - I'm wondering how long it takes for Tampa Bay to take another national beating over the Rays' chronic attendance woes. I'm guessing the fine folks at "Baseball Tonight" are a day or two away at most from a John Kruk jag about what's wrong with Tampa Bay as a baseball market.

Crowds usually get better when schools get out for the summer, but that's not for five or six weeks.

I feel the need to repeat the obligatory disclaimer that no one is under any obligation to spend any of their hard-earned money to watch this team. No one owes the Rays a thing, particularly when unemployment is at 13 percent in the Tampa Bay area.

Even though the Rays are a relative bargain when compared to the cost of attending, say, a Buccaneers game, it might still be out of reach for many families who would otherwise like to go.

We've written a lot in The Tampa Tribune and on TBO.com about the lack of corporate season tickets for the Rays, and that's huge. The Rays actually do reasonably well with walk-up crowds, but they fall far behind in the corporate area.

Most big-league clubs sell two-thirds of their season tickets to corporations - which turn around and give them to clients or employees - and one-third to individuals. The formula with the Rays is the opposite. Just one-third of their season tickets were purchased by corporations.

But can we criticize companies for not buying Rays tickets while they're laying off employees?

There are no easy answers. While we search for them, the Rays continue to fashion one of the best stories in baseball in front of thousands of empty seats. There already have been a lot of stories in the national media around the theme that Tampa Bay is a lousy market. There'll be more.

Rays owner Stu Sternberg doesn't talk about it much, though, other than to say the Trop isn't viable for the long term.

Guess what? It isn't.

That's a debate for another column. It will take at least seven years, probably longer, before a new stadium could be ready. Even if you believe a new yard solves their problem, it still leaves more than 600 games at the Trop before the Rays can even think about playing in a new home.

Even though the Rays have become one of baseball's top organizations and have people excited, attendance has continued to be a long-term problem. I'd say it's puzzling, but maybe it isn't.

Maybe it's really just consistent.