Rays are baseball geniuses. Can those brainiacs attract more fans?

ST. PETERSBURG — There just wasn’t enough time, or so the argument went for those trying to defend the indefensible.

Between the end of the regular season on Sunday evening and Game 1 of the Rays-Rangers Wild Card Series at Tropicana Field on Tuesday afternoon, fans had 44 hours to figure out a way to skip work, arrange child care, navigate the kind of traffic that apparently does not exist anywhere else in the world and be in their seats for the first pitch.

Turns out, only 19,704 pulled it off.

That historically low attendance for a postseason game generated headlines, GIFs, criticism and ridicule around the baseball world. And it led to the very legitimate question of whether a new $1.3 billion ballpark on the same plot of land would fare any better.

So, this time, let’s set the community alarm clock early. The new stadium is scheduled to open in 54 months.

The Rays need to start enticing fans early.

Let’s start today.

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This is not an exercise in finger-pointing. It is not criticism of fans who have bills, responsibilities and entertainment tastes of their own. Nor is it a criticism of the Rays, who have accomplished more on the field than most franchises in the past 15 years and, understandably, assumed that would lead to bigger crowds.

Instead, this is the recognition of a problem. Back-to-back box offices of 19,704 and 20,198 on Tuesday and Wednesday were easily the lowest (non-COVID) since baseball went to divisional play with extra layers of the postseason in 1969. The next-smallest crowd of 24,265 in Oakland in 1973 is more than 20% better.

That’s not merely a small-market blip, it is an outlier that cannot be ignored.

And that’s why it is important that the Rays take advantage of what is expected to be the final four seasons at Tropicana Field to grow a fanbase has that lagged far behind teams with similar records of success. The Rays need to be as aggressive and creative in marketing and ticket sales as they have been in creating a winning team with a smaller payroll than most.

In short, they need to look at what the Lightning did a generation ago.

Tampa Bay’s hockey team was not always the crowd-pleasing success story you see today. There was a time when the Lightning were in the bottom half of NHL attendance for several seasons in a row. They were changing coaches, players and owners, it seemed, every few seasons.

Eventually, they changed the future by making themselves irresistible.

It began during Bill Davidson’s reign as owner when the Lightning quietly started giving thousands of tickets away to boost attendance. This was important in several ways. It immediately gave the arena a better vibe with more bodies. It enticed new fans to follow the team, and got people accustomed to going to games. It even generated more revenue through parking and concessions. Mostly, it made Lightning hockey games seem like the place to be in Tampa Bay.

By the time Jeff Vinik bought the franchise in 2010, many of the building blocks were in place.

He took it a step farther by wooing season ticket holders with free jerseys imbedded with a micro chip that gave them a 25% discount on concession items and 35% on retail items. It cost him $1 million, but earned him a ton of loyalty.

And then, of course, he started the $50,000 community hero program which has been an absolute boon for local charities, but is also one of the shrewdest marketing campaigns ever. The Lightning looked like terrific community partners, and it helped them develop relationships with the type of business titans who sit on the board of directors for non-profit organizations, not to mention the entire campaign is a tax writeoff.

The Rays don’t need to follow that exact blueprint, but they should absolutely adopt a similar philosophy.

Tampa Bay is a flawed market for professional sports — not enough corporations, not enough high-paying jobs, no mass transit, too many people with allegiances elsewhere — and it requires a specialized approach to build a fan base.

For too many years, the Rays have counted on the onfield product to solve all of their attendance woes. By now, we know that’s not the case.

Now, to be fair, the Rays have been incorporating more aggressive ideas in recent seasons. They have ticket giveaways for school board employees, armed service personnel and other groups. They offered a popular standing-room-only monthly pass. There are also discounts and perks for season ticket holders, and lots of charity initiatives.

But their plans have never seemed to resonate with the community.

That’s why they need to spend the next four years trying new ideas and going above and beyond to appeal to fans and make their investment in the new stadium worthwhile.

Open the upper deck so there are plenty of cheap tickets available for every game. And while other teams have followed their lead with cashless stadiums, the Rays need to understand their marketplace better. Tropicana Field is surrounded by retirees who prefer to pay at a ticket window instead of through an app. The old “customer is always right” approach.

In-game promotions too often feel like forced sponsorships. Make the between-innings contests more entertaining without worrying about selling ads. The Lightning have so much fun with player contests on the video scoreboard, it’s practically worth the price of admission.

Cut parking prices. Stop being so fanatical about catching fans moving from the cheap seats. Make the scoreboard more interactive with younger fans through social media posts.

Will any of these ideas help the team’s bottom line? No, it will probably cost money in the short term.

But the idea is to make the ballpark the most fun place to be in Tampa Bay.

So can it work? The Rays and local leaders are pondering a $1.3 billion bet that it will.

And the team needs to do everything it can in the next four years to hedge that bet.

John Romano can be reached at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.

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