Since 2007, the Tampa Bay Rays and Tampa Bay Buccaneers have played on the same day 8 times (1 time in 2007, 1 time in 2008, 1 time in 2010, 3 times in 2011, 1 time in 2012, and 1 time in 2014). Of these, 2 occurred while the Rays were in the playoffs and 3 occurred on the Bucs home opener.
The following chart depicts the days the Tampa Bay Rays have played on the same day as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Highlighted blue boxes = Buccaneers Home Opener
Highlighted yellow boxes = Rays playoff games
D/N = Day or Night game.
"Rays Avg Annual Attendance/Day" is the Rays average attendance on that day during that year (for example: 19,452.31 is the Friday average attendance during 2007).
"% Difference" is the percentage difference between the Rays attendance during that particular game and the Rays average attendance on that day for the year.
(Click pic to enlarge.)
(Note: Rays 2014 Avg Annual Attendance/Day is as of 9/7/2014. They have one more remaining Sunday game on 9/21 vs Chicago.)
There are not a lot of patterns here as it is a small sample size with a lot of variables, but we can observe a few things.
The Rays have played 15 playoff games overall since 2007. Only once have they played on a Sunday and only twice have they played on a Monday. The Sunday game was Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS and the Monday games were Game 3 of the 2011 ALDS and Game 3 of the 2013 ALDS. Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS and Game 3 of the 2011 ALDS coincided with Buccaneers games.
Of the 2 times the Rays played regular season games on the same day as the Bucs and matched or drew over their average attendance, both were against the Boston Red Sox (9/23/2007 and 9/11/2011). We have already shown the Red Sox impact on Rays attendance here.
Also of note, the 9/23/2007 attendance was the lesser of two Sunday games versus Boston during 2007, but the 9/11/2011 game outdrew a Rays vs Red Sox Sunday game played earlier in 2011. Adding to the complexity, the New England Patriots played during the 9/23/2007 game, but did not play on 9/11/2011.
Another interesting trend is that while the Bucs home opener attendance has gone up by 11,000 fans from 2011 to 2014, the Rays attendance during those days has gone down over 5,000 fans. However, while the Rays playoff attendance went down from 40,473 in 2008 to 33,251 in 2011, Bucs attendance on the same days went down as well by approximately 1,000 fans.
(Note: Tropicana Field's covered seats were opened for sale in 2008 but not in 2011. This explains the Rays drop in attendance.)
While the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the area's biggest draw, attendance at a Bucs or Rays game is not an "either/or" proposition for all fans. While the fans in attendance made a choice to attend one or the other, many fans stayed home and watched both games on their TVs or went to a sports bar. These fans chose to attend neither. It can probably be assumed fans who attend neither but watch both are in the majority in the Tampa Bay area.
We will publish an update to the final Sunday average on this chart following the end of the Tampa Bay Rays 2014 season.