Fans can speculate what Stuart Sternberg and company are going to do next during the Under Construction rebuilding of the franchise in order to win fans back and show they really give a damn about the team and the fanbase. I’m going to make a suggestion here and hope to high hell someone with the team is reading…
The Devil Rays need to seek out moving the Cable TV broadcasts off Fox Sports Net Florida .
Fox Sports Net Florida has the Rays broadcasts thanks to the genius (sic) of former managing general partner Vince Naimoli, who signed a deal with Sportschannel of Florida in February 1996 (which was owned at the time by Wayne Hizuinga – who also owned the Marlins – and wasn’t even broadcast on Tampa Bay cable systems) and then extended the deal until 2012 in hopes of financing player payroll. Sportschannel became a Fox Sports Net affiliate based out of Miami and the programming puts South Florida well ahead of Tampa Bay interests.
Meanwhile, Fox Sports Net also owns Sun Sports TV (formerly Sunshine Network) since 1995. Sun Sports has always seemed more statewide orientated than Sportschannel/FSN Florida and it would be a great service to fans to move the team to a station that didn’t already host broadcasts for a rival baseball teams.
Knowing FSN owns both stations, negotiating to move isn’t out of the question and needs to be fully explored.
