The Tampa Bay Rays' Night Club?

To deal with lackadaisical attendance at home games on Friday nights, the Tampa Bay Rays are instituting a new public relations campaign that will look to turn Tropicana Field into a "baseball nightclub."

The Trop: A baseball nightclub, just subtract old people and add lasers.

I know what you're thinking: when you're at a baseball game, you already feel like you're at a nightclub. Well, here's where the Rays are one step ahead of you.  Included in the "party atmosphere" for Fridays throughout the season, the Rays' will transform the Trop into a nightclub via:

• Collectible t-shirt giveaways, with one shirt tailor-made for women that will feature the message "I Heart Longoria," as in Evan, the team's starting third baseman
• Indoor fireworks after the game
• An opportunity, after the fireworks, to walk onto the field for "an after-party with live bands and DJs"

Can any of these things possibly make fans feel like they're at any sort of night club?  Or are my notions of nightclubs too demanding?

Combine this campaign with the Rays' 2010 Summer Concert Series - which takes place after Saturday evening home games - and you have the most musical entertainment-dependent franchise in Major League Baseball.  This is good news, however, if you're a Rays fan since you will have the opportunity to see the following acts performing on the field after specified home games: Hall & Oates, Nelly, John Fogarty, ZZ Top, The GoGo's, and five other artists to be named later.

When I think 'nightclub,' I think Hall & Oates.

I kid, but the strategy seems to be working.  Last year, the Rays bolstered their Saturday night attendance average to 30,000 per game (an increase of 10k) by inviting to likes of Daughtry, Ludacris, Flo Rida, Pat Benetar, Smash Mouth, the B-52s, Big & Rich, and The Beach Boys.  This year, in addition to the Friday evening baseball nightclub and the Saturday concert series, the Rays have devised their 2010 advertising campaign around the input of local high-school drum lines.  The idea is that while the aforementioned Saturday-night concerts are geared towards older fans (the demographic that comprises a majority of Rays' attendees), these new advertisements feature a musical form the Rays believe could help them grab the interest of the until-now-uninterested-in-baseball Tampa-area teen population.

Do these kinds of programs and campaigns make sense?  Judging purely by attendance figures, for the Rays, they do (I wonder how much money is spent paying the talent for their services).  A baseball purist, however, might object to using something other than baseball to sell baseball.  The flip side to that notion, however, is that in most new stadiums - like Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, or Cowboys Stadium - there are plenty of amenities that have nothing to do with baseball, either.

New Yankee Stadium has a Hard Rock Cafe.  

Wouldn't a Don Mattingly barbecue tent have sufficed?

Speaking of those monstrous new stadiums, some suggest that the Rays' only alternative, over the long term, would be to procure a new one of their own.  In fact, there's already a coalition examining potential sites - most outside of the current St. Petersburg area.  And while the Rays have said they are not currently considering new stadium plans - a 2007 plan to build a new waterfront stadium in St. Petersburg was abandoned last December - the issue is clearly on the horizon.

FYI, the Rays' lease with the city ends in 2027 and, according to some, a new stadium would cost $500 million.  So, could a new stadium help fix attendance woes?  Or, would taxpayers be footing a very expensive risk?  Only time will tell.

At the very least the topic would make for good conversation...during an evening in the Rays' baseball nightclub.