I’m pretty sure the Red Sox 2014 will be more like their 2012, so maybe the Rays will make for a better rivalry with the Yankees this year. 
As for Fenway being the number one tourist destination in Boston, well that’s not surprising, what else is there?
People in Tampa like baseball just fine, but as you yourself said, it’s a horrible stadium in a horrible location. Put a nice park somewhere logical and they’d do fine.
I’m of this way/that way about territoriality. On one hand it’s just indisputably the case that the most logical place to put the next MLB team is in New York City, Boston, or the LA area. Similarly, the best place to put the next NHL team is in Toronto (and the one after that, too) and the best place to put the next NBA team is in Chicago.
On the other hand, in terms of nationwide interest, TV audience, merchandising and the like, having a league that’s heavily located in pockets along the coasts and Great Lakes doesn’t make a lot of sense. In terms of attendance you could strongly argue that the NY/BOS area should have enough teams to be its own division but it becomes increasingly difficult to get the interest of the rest of the continent, just as you could argue half the teams in the NHL should be in Canada but you’re not going to get much US money from people following the Hamilton OxyContins or the Markham Tract Homes, and eventually the league would become even more of a niche product than it already is. A national presence has a considerable marketing value.
The Yankees have a ton of question marks this year. They gave up more runs then they allowed last year, and the only reason they got to 85 wins was because they had a great closer. I’m guessing that without Mo, Girardi won’t appear to be as “smart” as he used to be. They started the off-season as basically a .500 team, lost their two best performers in Rivera and Cano, then lost their #3 starter in Pettitte. Tanaka, in time, may be better than Andy-in-his-swansong, but not out the gate – too much transition required for a breaking ball pitcher to get used to a different sized ball. Their entire infield is questionable, even at 1st base. And who knows what’s going to happen with CC, Nova and Kuroda. I like the big upgrade at catcher and Beltran should hold together for at least a year. The over/under on Ellsbury in 2014? 110 games.
Sox have question marks as well, but that’s only because they have to see what they have in all their prospects, and I’m really looking forward to that.
True, unlike Gotham City, we don’t have a Scores!
Maybe, maybe not. But MLB never should have awarded a franchise with a crappy ballpark on the wrong side of the bay and the ownership has no right to complain about big market/small market because they knew going in that the park stunk. I know there might have been some issue to avoid a suit, since I think the park was built based on some assurance that either the White Sox or SF Giants would move there.
Due diligence should be given before selling off a franchise. And owners of a new franchise should come up with a long term plan as to how they’re going to develop the market. If they stick to that plan and after 15-25 years the market still stinks then they should be able to move anywhere in North America… (and Cuba counts.) Get rid of revenue sharing. My brother and I both have a 10 game ticket plan for the Sox and we pay close to $1,000 each. I hate the fact that I’m subsidizing the price of TropDome ballpark beer for Dick Vitale.
I also get your point about nationwide coverage, but, in the case of baseball, if a market sucks after 20 years of a good plan with deep pockets, then it just sucks.
It reminds me of Jack Kent Cooke who brought expansion hockey to Los Angeles in 1967 because his research indicated that 600,000 former Canadians lived in So. California, but attendance was lousy – “Now I know why all those folks left Canada – they hated hockey!”
You aren’t seriously suggesting Cuba would allow an MLB team to relocate there, are you? It’s a Communist dictatorship. Mexico or Puerto Rico or the Dominican, sure. I doubt any of those are presently good ideas, but I suppose if you have the right plan…
You’re still gonna pay a thousand bucks a head no matter what side of the bridge the Rays’ stadium is on, you know. They’re charging you that much money because they can, not because they have to give some of it to Tampa Bay. You personally aren’t out a single penny due to revenue sharing, because that isn’t how price setting works. The only chance you have for a price reduction is if another team were to move to Boston or New England, which actually affects supply, and therefore will likely push prices down a little (actually, it’s more likely it would just keep prices from rising too fast - the Red Sox are not going to cheapen the product - but in the long run you’ll save something.) But territoriality is a different issue from revenue sharing.
I mean, I totally agree with you on territoriality, as you would expect, because I am a hockey fan in the Toronto area and it is flatly insane to have only one pro hockey team in Toronto. The market could - easily - support three teams to 100% attendance, and I suspect four teams could happen. But it has one, and so seeing a game is beyond the means of most people; tickets are ludicrously expensive. But that has nothing to do with revenue sharing being given to the Florida Panthers. If the Panthers moved to the Toronto area THAT would change things.
But then, on the other hand, one of the best markets in the NHL is San Jose, go figure.
Let’s be honest, you aren’t going to get it right every time when it comes to expansion. Montreal did not work out but Toronto did, due to things that couldn’t possibly have been known at the time the franchises were granted.
I’m only half kidding about Cuba. Normalization of relations with the US is inevitable, and most of the large corporations have contingency plans to try and move back to Havana (55 years after getting thrown out.) I don’t think there’d be many Cubans who could afford luxury boxes just yet!
Sure, teams charge what they can, and if they have a monopoly on the market they can charge whatever it takes. It would be like if there was only one Starbucks in the city of Cambridge, where Dunkin’ Donuts was not allowed to open a shop. A cup of coffee would go for $30. And there would be lines, out the door, of morons waiting to pay it.
Just over 40 years ago the Bobby Orr phenomenon drove Boston into a hockey frenzy. The Bruins had sold out even when they were horrid, but at ticket prices that were in the $1 - $5 range. Prices went up 300 percent almost overnight. The WHA came along and put a franchise (the Whalers, now the Carolina 'Canes) in Boston (in a really crappy college arena) and they sold out at the highest prices in the league). The Bruins then relocated their AHL team to Boston and had them play in the Garden, and they sold out at absurd prices for minor league hockey. Boston is about 25% the size of Toronto.
But hockey is different then baseball in that a) many Americans in the sun-belt never played the game and b) while it’s THE best sport to watch in person, it’s one of the worst to watch on tv. Widescreen tv’s do make televised hockey a better experience, and maybe technological advancements will make telecasts much better, but it still drives me nuts when they only show a third of the rink on a breakout.
Except for the trophy and parade. 
The new ownership group was working on a new ballpark in the Fort Point Channel / South Boston waterfront area, but that fell apart due to all the local pols demanding a palm-greasing for their approval (the same reason the Patriots are in Foxboro, and spitefully took the name “Boston” off the team when they left). The recent renovations to Fenway they’ve done are a long way toward a full replacement, and there’s more that can be done.
It’s still a great place to see a game, if you have a 1918-size ass and you like a great view of the right fielder.
I don’t mind the small seats… it helps limit the infestation of big asses from NYC. But I wish they’d done something to those seats down the 1st base line into RF. I can’t stand to sit in those seats with my head turned 90 degrees towards the plate. Some off-season why don’t they angle the goddamned seats over there?! I’ve actually turned down free tickets from those sections. 3rd base-side seats are much better… so what if you can’t see what happens in the LF corner.
Just to make sure we aren’t dealing in insane comparisons here, the CITY OF BOSTON has about a quarter of the number of people of the CITY OF TORONTO. But that’s solely because the City of Toronto’s boundaries are drawn larger. Toronto is physically five times larger, including areas and people that in Boston would be considered, technically, a different municipality. You can live a mile from Boston City Hall and not be in “the City of Boston,” which in Toronto is impossible. Toronto became in 1997 what you’d have if tomorrow Boston suddenly included everything inside the beltway plus Quincy, Lynn and Salem.
In terms of being a human-geographic entity - the only thing that matters, really, when discussing the viability of a sports franchise - Toronto and Boston are basically the same size, sitting around five million people depending on whose definition you apply.
“Greater” Toronto is still much larger than “Greater” Boston, by a million or two.
And while that is what determines the TV market, I’m not sure if it determines attendance. 30 years ago, I worked in Boston and lived in Boston. I’d go to 25+ Sox games a year, not to mention 15 Bruins games and a few Celtics games. It was easy. Now, 25 miles from Boston, it’s an ordeal to go to a night game. I understand part of it is I’m an old fart, but if the Sox built a new park 5 miles from my house I’m sure I’d see more games.
Uh… we aren’t talking about 5-10 years ago when Gonzalez and Crawford were acquired and traded. Gonzalez came in December 2010 and Crawford was acquired in the same month. They were traded in August 2012! I mean, I know its a fun narrative to say the Red Sox decided to become a minor league talent developing sort of squad… but its not necessarily true.
FWIW, the Yankees have tended to develop nice prospects in the 2000s as well… they have just traded them away for good young players [as opposed to old hired hands which is the narrative] (ie, Montero, Austin Jackson, etc). However, they have scouted, drafted, and developed the players - I believe both Montero and Austin Jackson, for two, were in AAA when dealt and they would have come up with the big club if Pineda and Granderson, respectively, weren’t dangled in front of them. And let’s not forget that Cano came up through the Yankees’ organization and Brett Gardner has as well.
And IIRC, the Yankees have won the most games of any MLB ball club since 2008 (I remember reading it because the Rays have been #2 in that time frame). So I think what they have been doing is successful (which I consider to be unfortunate - I would rather they just flop around like they did in the 1980s), they’ve just had bad luck in the playoffs.
Please don’t be jealous, but I’m moving to an apartment less than a mile away from Wrigley Field at the end of April. I wish I had the $$$ to afford one of the high floors with a view of the ballpark. Too bad the baseball probably won’t be good this year.
I was in Tampa, Florida last year and I was surprised how close my hotel was to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stadium as well as the NY Yankees spring training. I saw the Rays dome while driving to the Dali museum across the water. It seemed like such a horrible place for a stadium, an art museum, fine, but a baseball stadium in a place where it seems there is no transportation except for a fairly long drive from what seems to be the more urban Tampa.
Well perhaps the Yankees aren’t shutting down, but it sure as hell looks like the Steinbrenners are cashing in - perhaps the bottom line isn’t as rosy as you think.
If they can avoid the injury problems of 2013, the Yankees should be a stronger contender for a playoff spot and in a dogfight with several other teams for the A.L. East title (I don’t see all the pieces coming together for the Red Sox in '14 as they miraculously did last year).
Interesting that after all the protestations from ownership that they wanted to cut spending to avoid the luxury tax, the Yankees went out and spent a ton on pricey free agents. Did they lull any competitors to sleep with that line?
The Yankees’ yammering fans will probably be at least partially mollified with the results of their upcoming season. Of course, what do I know about what’ll happen with that division (the only prediction I got right last year was that the Blue Jays weren’t going to win it despite their free agent signings.
Sports Illustrated’s take on the outlook for the 2014 Yankees:
“the loosening of their purse strings should allow them to address all of their needs. If New York can shore up its bullpen, it should be back in the thick of the AL East race.”
*for a trip down memory lane, here’s the conclusion from Sports Illustrated’s “Winter Report Card” on the Blue Jays prior to last season:
“Preliminary grade: A. No team has remade its fortunes in more impressive fashion this winter than the Jays, who are poised to seize the day in the AL East given the relatively lackluster winter work of the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays.”
There are two "perhaps"es in this sentence and objectively they are both daft.
You sure about that chief? The first one was “perhaps the Yankees aren’t shutting down.” Does that mean you think they are shutting down? You should have more faith in your fascist leaders.
I don’t see them crashing and burning any time soon either - but I do know I see a lot of empty seats on TV. Attendance was down over 3,000 a game last year, for a total drop of 263,000 - and that was with a payroll increase of almost $50 million over 2012. Oh, their TV ratings were also down 31.2% Best fans in the league right there. There is no doubt in my mind that the team decided to bust past the $189 million limit because they feared what the attendance and TV numbers would look like if they didn’t spend.
And I can’t wait until A Rod comes back in 2015 and hits Home Run #6, and the sons of George get to fork over $6 million to the great clean hope.
It means it’s stupid to suggest it’s possible.
Perhaps it’s just a case of a Yankee fan basking in the glow of past glories.
Not to mention the Yankees busted their butts to “paper” the house last year… especially in the ridiculously over-priced seats down front.
Boy, won’t that be a festive occasion! What a great marketing event for the Bronx Bombers! I wonder if Willie Mays will show up or if he’ll have to rotate his tires that week.
Sorry, but going to go ahead and be jealous.
It’s probably a year too early, but the Cubs should be very competitive soon. Although the Cardinals look stacked for the next few years.