A few links to pass along:
First: Shadow of the Stadium collected several tweets covering a recent speech Rays President Brian Auld did before the Economic Club of Tampa. There are definitely some great comments captured by Noah's site. Brian Auld covered the struggles of the fanbase, attendance, the use agreement with Tropicana Field, a possible move to Tampa, and other high-level topics. They are all insightful and highly recommended if you are interested in the business of the Tampa Bay Rays.
A little bit about the Economic Club of Tampa and why they were the forum for such a discussion:
Second: I'm glad to report my Fangraphs article exploring the relationship between 30-minute population and weekday/weekend attendance was well received. I got several compliments on the piece. But perhaps the biggest compliment came in something I found yesterday: a new blog inspired by my work.
Over at Baseball & GIS, Scott Bailey updated the 30-minute population radii around each Major League ballpark. He also plotted what he believes are 30-minute drives to each park. He admits, however, that he did not use rush hour as a variable in his calculations. Which leads me to think his blog is a good first step, but a lot of work needs to be done.
(For example, Scott has the intersection of Fowler Ave and I-275 as a 30 minute drive from Tropicana Field. That is highly unlikely on a Sunday afternoon, and absolutely impossible on weekday at 5pm.)
But I inspired someone to do research, which to me, is an awesome compliment. One of my aspirations of this website is to inspire people to do business analysis for every team in every market, whether it's demographic, economic, or marketing. There are a lot of people smarter than me on these subjects. The more issues they can shed light on, the more educated we will all be.
First: Shadow of the Stadium collected several tweets covering a recent speech Rays President Brian Auld did before the Economic Club of Tampa. There are definitely some great comments captured by Noah's site. Brian Auld covered the struggles of the fanbase, attendance, the use agreement with Tropicana Field, a possible move to Tampa, and other high-level topics. They are all insightful and highly recommended if you are interested in the business of the Tampa Bay Rays.
A little bit about the Economic Club of Tampa and why they were the forum for such a discussion:
The Economic Club of Tampa provides a dynamic forum for business, professional, elected and community leaders to identify and discuss economic, social and political issues.
Second: I'm glad to report my Fangraphs article exploring the relationship between 30-minute population and weekday/weekend attendance was well received. I got several compliments on the piece. But perhaps the biggest compliment came in something I found yesterday: a new blog inspired by my work.
Over at Baseball & GIS, Scott Bailey updated the 30-minute population radii around each Major League ballpark. He also plotted what he believes are 30-minute drives to each park. He admits, however, that he did not use rush hour as a variable in his calculations. Which leads me to think his blog is a good first step, but a lot of work needs to be done.
(For example, Scott has the intersection of Fowler Ave and I-275 as a 30 minute drive from Tropicana Field. That is highly unlikely on a Sunday afternoon, and absolutely impossible on weekday at 5pm.)
But I inspired someone to do research, which to me, is an awesome compliment. One of my aspirations of this website is to inspire people to do business analysis for every team in every market, whether it's demographic, economic, or marketing. There are a lot of people smarter than me on these subjects. The more issues they can shed light on, the more educated we will all be.