Eric Kilby via Flickr / Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)



Bay area fans are well aware of the low attendance at Tampa Bay Rays baseball games, but a seat configuration and new renovations at Tropicana Field could make the home crowd look and feel a lot more robust when the 2019 season begins.

A press release said that the team would add a premium seating section in the lower level of the Trop and also stop seating fans in the ballpark’s upper level. The move eliminates more than 10,000 seats and reduces Tropicana Field’s capacity to somewhere between 25,000-26,000. The previous capacity was 31,042.

“These renovations mark our continued commitment to providing a first-rate fan experience at Tropicana Field,” Rays President Matt Silverman said in the release. “Together, in concert with the reduction in seating capacity, these investments will help create a more intimate, entertaining and appealing experience for our fans.”

That’s a good move for a team that averaged just 14,258 fans per game last season (good enough for second to last in attendance across Major League Baseball, according to ESPN). The news comes just weeks after the Rays discontinued a search for a ballpark in Tampa and also in the wake of more than $50 million worth of renovations that Tropicana Field has undergone since 2005.

Look below for a list of new amenities and changes outlined in today’s release.