TL;DR: The home of the Tampa Bay Rays, Tropicana Field, decides to close off the upper decks due to paltry attendance
As an expert on baseball parks,* this story interested me, or at least made me think that I could barf out some words about the topic and call it a brog post.
*someone who has been to every MLB city
To cut to the chase, the Plop (a derivative of the actual nickname “the Trop”) is kind of a shitty place. It’s an old and dated structure in a city full of old and dated people, the architecture of the place makes very little sense, the ceiling isn’t actually high enough to where it doesn’t occasionally come into play, and it’s overall a really lousy place to watch baseball.
It’s kind of ironic too, because the Tampa Bay Rays are one of those teams that I kind of lean towards favoring, because they’re a franchise that has relied on outsmarting the competition because they certainly can’t compete with the payrolls of everyone else in MLB, and has actually succeeded a lot more than they’ve failed over the last few years, yielding somewhat respectable win-loss records since the magic switch was flipped in 2008 where they decided to stop sucking, and made it all the way to the World Series.
They’re a team that I think is kind of cool in the sense that they’re never really a threat to my lukewarm Braves fandom, and I always have respect for teams that rely on smarts and analysis over just haphazardly signing free agents and hoping for instant results. And it’s a shame that they play for such a disinterested fanbase, inside of a ballpark that’s amongst the worst in the Majors.
The Plop closing off the upper deck is basically a white flag that they’re conceding on even remotely trying to try and fill seats. It’s not like they had a ton of upper deck seats to begin with, since due to the wonky and inconsistent way their stands are set up, they only really had like 5,000 cheap seats, compared to the alleged 25,000 that remain on the lower and only level of the Plop’s available seating now.
But it sucks for fans who actually like the higher seating that gives them a wider perspective of the on-field action, as well as the practically 0% chance of them getting hit by a flung bat or an errant foul ball. And despite the Plop’s claims, there’s no way the seats on the only level are going to remain competitive to an upper deck seat, no matter how much they’re going to try to push the “intimate atmosphere” narrative to try and justify the embarrassing decision. Not to mention by closing off the upper deck, the Plop is acting like the Rays themselves, in seeking ways to slash payroll, but instead of trading away expensive players, the Plop is just saying they don’t want to pay to staff an entire floor of their venue, if nobody’s going to be sitting there anyway.
By closing off their upper deck, the Rays will join teams like the Marlins and the A’s as teams that I can recollect having to do the same. The irony is that in both cases, I would’ve loved to have sat in the cheap seats of the Oakland Coliseum, or Sun Life Pro Dolphin Player Land Shark Hard Rock Stadium just to see what the view was like.
Also, by closing off the upper deck, the Plop basically becomes a minor league ballpark, since the vast majority of MiLB ballparks are one level, although I can think of a few off the top of my head that actually have more than one level, and probably average better attendance than the Major League Rays.
Ultimately, it’s all just kind of sad for the Rays, since they’re usually a pretty good team, but completely cursed to be playing in such a lame place for such lame fans, who frankly don’t really deserve to have a major league team in their home. Combined with the Marlins, they’re literally #1 and #2 in worst attendance in MLB, and frankly nobody in Atlanta has any real room to speak about poor attendance, in comparison. I feel like the Rays deserve better, but when the day is over, I’d rather the Rays be stuck in their lifeless purgatory than have to hear about more bullshit about yet another new baseball park being built, likely with public funds, and also likely full of mountains of bullshit to explain why it’s justified.
All this being said, the Plop is actually one of the few parks that I’ve actually been to more than once, having gone a second time, when I found myself in the area after spontaneously deciding to go to Clearwater in order to see Hulk Hogan’s beach shop. In spite of the garbage venue it kind of is, I still have overall positive memories about the place.
Plus, I just like calling it “the Plop.”
