The Rays set a record for playoff attendance futility on Tuesday afternoon.
Tampa Bay hosted the Rangers for Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series on Tuesday, and a paltry 19,704 showed up to Tropicana Field, marking the smallest playoff baseball crowd in a non-COVID year since Game 7 of the 1919 World Series, according to The Athletic.
In that game over a century ago, the White Sox and Reds drew just 13,923 fans.
The reason for that low number, according to the Society for American Baseball Research, was a mishandling of ticket availability by the Reds.
As for why the Rays had such a hard time filling the stands on Tuesday, it’s a little less clear.
The game was played on a weekday afternoon with a 3:08 p.m. start time, but that argument likely went out the window when it was announced that 38,450 attended the Twins’ home wild-card game against the Blue Jays, which started a little over an hour later in Minnesota.
Despite an uptick in attendance, the Rays have still struggled to draw fans all season.
Tampa Bay finished 27th in the league with an average of 17,781 fans a game, and that was a 28 percent increase from the 2022 season, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal.
The Rays will host Game 2 of the series with their season on the line on Wednesday at 3 p.m., with the organization undoubtedly hoping for a larger turnout than it got on Tuesday.
The team also is hoping a potential new stadium can fix attendance woes in the near future.
St. Petersburg announced earlier on Tuesday details of the city and county’s fiscal contributions to a new stadium for the Rays, which the club and city had announced they reached a tentative agreement in September.
The Rays will pay $600 million for the new facility, while St. Petersberg and Pinellas County will pay around $300 million each for the new park that’s supposed to open in 2028, per WTSP.
“We’ll be here for all the fans and all the supporters around the Tampa Bay region for years to come, and we are really excited about it,” Rays owner Stu Sternberg said.