I am so tired of the City of Miami not supporting this team, it's depressing, especially being a Marlins fan since they moved here. Lets face it, the majority of the fans that did support this team in the early 90s have all moved, mostly to Central Florida, or even other areas of the state. Central Florida is a much nicer area, cleaner, and people actually speak English up there! I'm not trying to be mean, but lets face it: South Florida is full of spanish people, that supposedly love baseball, but don't support the only team they have. It's time to build this stadium the Marlins want in Orlando!

You can't do that because of the high population of Ray fans around there.

I am so tired of the City of Miami not supporting this team, it's depressing, especially being a Marlins fan since they moved here. Lets face it, the majority of the fans that did support this team in the early 90s have all moved, mostly to Central Florida, or even other areas of the state. Central Florida is a much nicer area, cleaner, and people actually speak English up there! I'm not trying to be mean, but lets face it: South Florida is full of spanish people, that supposedly love baseball, but don't support the only team they have. It's time to build this stadium the Marlins want in Orlando!

 

Vaya a singar un perro, gringito...

I'm not sure I want to know the answer, but what the hell does having a Spanish-speaking population have to do with anything? The last I checked, you don't need to speak English to buy a ticket for a ball game!

 

Plus, the fact is that the deal was held up yesterday because of a non-Spanish speaking commissioner, Marc Sarnoff, so I don't think you can conclude that the heavy Spanish-speaking population had anything to do with yesterday's events.

 

Look, we're all frustrated, but you don't need to lash out with ignorant remarks about the effect that the Spanish-speaking population has on ticket sales...

I'd have no problem with that, since I'm from Orlando.

Or how about we keep the damn team where they should be, in Miami.

You can't do that because of the high population of Ray fans around there.

 

I want to end this talk of a great bastion of support for the Rays in Orlando. There are easily double or tripple the Marlins fans up here than Rays fans. There is more interest in them lately than ever before, but it's only 4-6 months old and will only last as long as the Rays win.

 

This whole Orlando/Rays connection is based on the relative proximity to Tampa/St. Pete. However, it takes about an hour and a half to get to the Trop from Downtown Orlando; factor in rush hour traffic, it takes over 2 hours to get there. For that reason, you're not getting that much Orlando support on any given weeknight w/ 7:05 start times.

 

They moved their AA team to Montgomery, AL, and only just recently brought a TV presence to most of Central FL w/ Brighthouse Networks FINALLY getting FSN (though, the Marlins happily come along for the ride to cancel them out).

 

They held 3 game series the past two years here (Wide World of Sports @ Disney, the Braves Spring Training home), which did well. However, judging by the mix of people and lack of Rays hats and shirts, that is more an indication of the pent up demand for MLB in Orlando than support for the Rays.

 

Orlando is the 19th largest TV market in the US, and currently the largest w/o an MLB team. Tampa is only 400k more, and Miami is actually olnly 100k ahead of Orlando, believe it or not. Forbes ranked us as the 5th best city ripe for sports growth, with the population expected to grow 60% over the next 20 years. I believe there's plenty population here to support its own team, even with the Rays still in St. Pete.

 

That being said, as much as I would L-O-V-E my Fish up here, it's not possible at the moment should the should the Miami stadium fall short. We've got over a billion in tourist tx $'s earmarked for the Magic's new arena, a performing arts center and Citrus Bowl rennovations; currently, they're trying to put the axe on the Cirus Bowl and Performing Arts center because of shrinking tax revenues (See, it's a universal problem, not endemic to So.FL). So, unless a stadium were to be financed almost entirely privately, there's no way one's getting built here within the next 5 or 10 years. I believe it's in everyone's best interests for the Marlins to stay in South Florida, and I think in the end it will happen.

Why is this even a thread.... delete this nonsense!