Rays' dominance lasts for one night

In terms of local sports history, the Tampa Bay Rays can mark down Aug. 28 as the night it commanded more attention than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But it appears that dominance was good for just one night, based on attendance at games.

The Rays, who are competing for baseball's American League East title, attracted a sellout crowd of 36,973 to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg last Saturday night for one of three weekend games versus the Boston Red Sox. That may have topped attendance at the Bucs' simultaneous preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium, where 42,640 attendance was announced but appeared much lower.

The euphoria apparently didn't carry to the next day, with the Rays and Red Sox playing before a national TV audience on ESPN's “Sunday Night Baseball.” Thousands of empty blue seats were visible throughout the Trop, as noted several times by the announcers, with attendance posted at 23,438.

Why the big falloff? One reason is that Sunday night's game started at 8 p.m., an hour later than the Rays' usual first pitch, which some fans might have also considered late if they go to work early Monday morning. The game wasn't blacked out locally, so some fans likely opted to watch at home.

Making matters worse, Monday night's Rays game versus the Toronto Blue Jays attracted only 11,968 spectators to the Trop, which some players even admitted was discouraging. And this is a team seriously vying for the World Series for the second time in three years.

While Rays owner Stuart Sternberg may keep pointing at dismal attendance as the main reason to demand a new stadium, possibly across the bay, real fan support may come down to either personal scheduling or taking the easier (and cheaper) excuse to watch games on TV. Considering the Bucs will likely impose 75-mile TV blackouts for this season's games, the Rays might have to resort to doing the same next year.

On the other hand, if the Rays can win the 2010 World Series, there's plenty of room to jump late onto the bandwagon.