Note: This post looks at attendance during home games only. Road winning streaks are not included, as they have little effect on home attendance. Some games during the initial 5-game streak may occur on the road and winning streaks may end on the road. But this post concerns itself only with the home games that occur during a winning streak.
The following chart looks at the longest winning streak during the 2007 season.
2008:
2009:
2010:
2011:
September 28, 2011 (Game 5 of the final winning streak) is better known in Rays history as Game 162 and was the final home game of the 2011 regular season.
2012:
2013:
Conclusion: Due to the high amount of below average attended games (19 of 26), we can conclude winning streaks have very little, if any, bearing on Tampa Bay Rays home game attendance. Would winning streaks have any effect if the Rays went 162-0 or even came close to the 2002 Oakland A's and won 20 in a row or the 1916 Giants and won 26 consecutive games? It is possible. But there is a small chance of that happening and that's not something the Rays can expect. The winning streaks above, however, are indicative of the current 90-96 win ball club.
Despite the dismal conclusion, it is possible to assume 7-game winning streaks may have an effect on attendance, as the only example we have shows a 54.02% increase over average for a Thursday game, a game that occurred during the day of July 11th, 2013 versus the Minnesota Twins, an opponent that only averaged 15,450 per game in 2013. While the pitcher on the mound for the Rays was Matt Moore, and his starts averaged only 17,113 in 2013, something had to be responsible for the increased turnout.
However, the following day, with an 8-game winning streak on the line, only 13,347 fans came to Tropicana Field on a Friday night, -19.64% below average.