The Rays and the importance of the 30-minute population radius

Whenever I write something with a scope that exceeds the Tampa Bay market, I like to pitch it to more widely-read sites. So it is with great pride that I'd like to introduce my latest for baseball research site Fangraphs.com - a study on the impact of the 30-minute population radius and MLB attendance.

What team had the smallest difference between weekend and weekday attendance? Which team had the largest?

Is there a relationship between local population and the weekend/weekday increase? Would it be smaller for teams with higher local population?

As most Rays fans might expect, the Rays did not do well in my findings. As a matter of fact, they were last in everything: weekday attendance, weekend attendance, highest difference between weekend and weekday attendance, and smallest 30-minute population.

But on a positive note, the folks at Fangraphs.com liked my research so much, they promoted it from their community blog to the front page of their site.