Last week, Pinellas County and the Atlanta Braves sent shockwaves through the business of baseball in Tampa Bay. By filing a proposal for land in the Toytown area, the Braves expressed their desire to move their Spring Training location from…
Category: Spring Training
Spring Training in Toytown is a bad idea
According to the Tampa Bay Times and Tampa Tribune, former MLB player Gary Sheffield is among a group of investors who put in a proposal to Pinellas County to build a Spring Training and baseball complex in Toytown. Via the…
Dunedin mayor lobbies for Jays to stay
I missed this before the weekend, but it’s not really old news, just a few days late. According to the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Dunedin Mayor Julie Ward Bujalski traveled to Toronto to meet with Blue Jays front office personnel…
Al Lang Stadium: Before and After
Over the last year, historical Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg was changed from a baseball stadium to a soccer pitch. Here is what Al Lang Stadium looked like when it was solely used for baseball: San Francisco Chronicle writer…
Comparing Rays attendance to Yankees Spring Training attendance
I often warn people that it is foolhardy to compare games between markets. There are too many differences to compare attendance. For example, looking at New York and Tampa Bay, there is market size, tradition, mass transit, and many, many…
Tampa Bay Area Spring Training Attendance 2015
Last week, the Florida Sports Foundation published attendance figures for the 2015 Grapefruit League season. According to the report, total Spring Training attendance across Florida increased 8.1%, eclipsing 1.5 million for the 13th time in 16 years. But how did…
ESPN’s Sidd Finch Video shows 1985 Al Lang Stadium
On April 1, 1985, Sports Illustrated published one of the best April Fool’s hoaxes of all-time, “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch”. Written by George Plimpton, the article detailed the arrival of a mysterious ballplayer from the mountains of Tibet…
Interviewed by the Extra Point Sports Show
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of talking with Tom Chang of SportsTalkFlorida on his podcast, the Extra Point Sports Show. Tom and I talked about several topics in the 15 minutes he had me on, including: The…
Spring Training Economics and Other Questions
There was an absolutely great post by Shadow of the Stadium on Sunday. (Sorry so late, been having computer problems.) In his post, “The Murky Economics of Spring Training … and How Florida Can Do It Better“, Noah Pransky details…
Talking about Spring Training impact on CentroTampa.com
Spring Training has begun in Tampa Bay. I don’t write much about Spring Training, as much of the attendance and economic impact is driven by out-of-state and out-of-area tourists and tourist data is tough to find. For now, I would…