Tampa Bay Rowdies Ready for Season Opener
“It’s a really picturesque area and it’s alive with lots of bars and restaurants. It’s a cool game-day atmosphere for people and for families,” said Rowdies President, General Manager and co-owner Andrew Nestor speaking to IMS in an interview in mid-March. “People have been really happy with the fan experience at Al Lang.”
Nestor was speaking about Progress Energy Field, or Al Lang Stadium as most of us know it, which sits in downtown St. Petersburg and just feet from the Tampa Bay waterfront.
Al Lang has been the home of the Tampa Bay Rowdies since the spring of 2011. But this year Rowdies fans will notice some improvements to the baseball field converted for soccer.
“The City has stepped up and made some improvements going into this season,” continued Nestor. “So the environment outside the stadium as you enter will be a lot better with a new fan zone and a new hospitality on-field as well.”
According to Rowdies spokesperson Jeff Kamis, the City of St. Petersburg and the St. Petersburg Baseball Commission in conjunction with the Rowdies have been busy recently working on those improvements and getting ready for this weekend’s Rowdies opener.
The baseball infield section has now been replaced with grass which will stay there throughout the NASL season.
The office building that was adjacent to the box office and main entrance was removed, which opened up better sight lines to Bayshore Drive. The new open grass space will now serve as the home of the new Rowdies Fan Zone.
Inside the stadium fans will see new signage and the baseball netting behind home plate has come down. As well, the left field berm was leveled to create a field-level beer garden.
The Rowdies will host FC Edmonton for their opener this Saturday April 14 at 7:30 p.m. Both teams opened last week’s 2012 NASL season with a loss.
In the Rowdies opener in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, the Islanders’ Jamie Cunningham was sent off after a hard foul in the 58th minute. But it was the Puerto Rico side that took control of the game, not Tampa Bay, when Nicholas Addlery scored about 10 minutes after his team’s sending off. Statistic reflected a very even game despite the man advantage for the Rowdies that happened just 13 minutes into the second half.
“Our passing should have been a lot quicker to enable us to take advantage of the extra man,” said Rowdies coach Ricky Hill. “The theme this week is that we need to focus better and execute better as a team,” said Hill. “We need to do our jobs better from one through 11 to ensure we don’t allow those type of goals again.”
Edmonton were also defeated by a ten-man team, the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, who had rookie Aly Hassan shown a straight red for a reckless challenge in the 40th minute. Despite playing up a man for 50 minutes it was the Strikers’ Andy Herron who found the back of the net in the 69th minute of play.
The Strikers dominated in nearly every statistic against the Eddies, who will be looking to make major improvements in their 2nd consecutive away game.
The two short-handed goals were the only two scored in the 4 NASL opening weekend games.
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@BQ – It was Aly Hassan with the (totally undeserved) red last week, not Blake. It pains me as a Striker Liker to admit I’m a bit envious by everything the Rowdies have done at their stadium this year to improve the fan experience. They also seem to have spent some money advertising as well. The Strikers with their shoe string budget this year that harkens back to the Miami FC days could really have used some of these same things to keep the momentum they created last year, moving forward.
I’ll correct. Long story but site crashed just after I had noticed that error and corrected it. When it came back up I thought I had lost everything but I hadn’t but forgot about that change I had made. Thanks for the correction.
@BQ – You bet. Can’t wait for Saturday night! Go Strikers!!!
brian,
how many does stadium seat? also, what are they expecting in terms of attendance for game Saturday?
The stadium holds around 7,277 or so. .. And we’re expecting boosts in attendance from last year, which averaged just over 3k.
Heading over to the Rowdies game in a bit. Hoping for a higher attendance this season, with the Rowdies name back in the picture. Anything in the 4K ballpark as average attendance would be fantastic. We will see.
COYR, Let’s put at least 2 past Edmonton tonight.
A little over 3,100 showed up last night. That’s down 1,100 from last years opener.
I would like to take this time to thank the Tampa Bay Times for not publishing a single article, in the actual paper or even just on the website, between January 10 until April 6. Compared to last year when every roster move and preseason game was in the paper. In fact, we even had a special section every Thursday about the team in the sports section.
Of course, being ignored by every other media outlet in the area I’m sure didn’t help either. Last year we even had TV interviews with players leading up to the home opener.
Unless of course Burt, Gyorio, and Millien each had 300 fans going just for them alone, in which case that would explain everything! But I doubt it…
Ouch! Nestor needs to step up his administrative “game” and get the marketing efforts out. It does not sound as though he courted the local media well enough during the off season to generate the PR needed to get what we call the “curiousity crowd” to the game.
St. Petersburg just came off a high from last week’s “funk” night jam at the park, and there simply is no reason why the Vinoy was not filled with TB fans, waiting to party before, during and after the game.
You just don’t get ignored by the media. You have to earn it by being a non-newsworthy event. Surely the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic this last Saturday evening was not an omen for the future of the Rowdies.
Of course, with the Titanic, the first class passengers had an 11 course meal of every gastronomical delight before the iceberg made it’s appearance. I wonder what was served at Bern’s last night?