Thank you.
This was fun.
With the conclusion of the Rays home schedule, the 2014 baseball season in Tampa Bay is over. The lights are off, the ticket booths are closed, and the grass is beginning to grow a bit longer than it has for the last six months - except in the dome, of course.
And so ends the first season of this blog.
Since March 31st, the Rays Opening Day, I tracked attendance for 361 games over 175 days. That's a hair more than 2 games a day. Even on the handful of days when there were no home games, I still posted an attendance report.
It was a lot of work. But rewarding.
This is my first solo daily blog. For those who have read my work before, I have freelanced on several other sites, but I've never written every day. It takes a lot of discipline and is a lot harder than it looks. This blog made me appreciate all the daily blogs I've read for years.
Speaking of, I definitely want to say thanks to the writers who helped promote my work on this site during the season: Rays Index, Shadow of the Stadium, DRaysBay, and Blue Bird Banter brought people to my little niche site without me sending links their way. That was very appreciated. We overlapped on some topics, but what I found most interesting was when we took the same bit of news and each found different angles to write about. Hopefully readers found that as informative as I did.
As well, I would like to thank all those who are following me on twitter, Facebook, and who have subscribed on YouTube. Thank you also for the retweets, favorites, and any other means of sharing my work. Even if you disagreed with my analysis.
This is the relaxing part of the season for me. With the Rays finishing the season on the road, I don't need to worry about average attendances, attendance per day, or what else was happening in Tampa Bay that might draw Rays fans. I can just watch the final games with a beer in my hand and my computer off.
That doesn't mean the writing is going to stop, however. Far, far from it.
Like most baseball bloggers, I am going to keep track of what's happening during the offseason. But whereas other bloggers talk about player movement, I will be analyzing any bit of business, marketing, economics, demographics, or attendance data that affects Tampa Bay baseball.
There is also still a lot of looking back to do. I need to explore the trends and patterns of attendance/economics/demographics from 2014 as well as getting back to analyzing past seasons for the Tampa Bay Minor League teams. Plus, I want to do some MLB overall attendance pattern research for Fangraphs or any other national site that will allow me to freelance. I also eventually want to get into the demographics, average incomes, and fanbase estimates of every zip code in the Tampa Bay area. And of course, an analysis of the Rays upcoming 2015 schedule and an attendance prediction.
That might not all get done before Opening Day 2015, by the way.
I like to think I added something interesting to the conversation this baseball season. Whether you visited for the Minor League attendance and marketing or most likely, for posts on the Rays attendance, demographics, attendance, and marketing, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who read.
It was a fun season.
But the best is yet to come.