The headline on Monday's paper said it all, “Where Were You?” On the opening day of the 2010 NFL football season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had their broadcast blacked out in the local markets. So what you say? It was the first time in thirteen years the Buccaneers have failed to sell out a home game. Say what you want about the economy, but take a look at a similar situation in Oakland. The Raiders, a team who has not been good since their super bowl loss to the Bucs has no problems of selling out their stadium. So why now? Why are we experiencing such a drought in loyalty to our team this year? It deserves to be defined and explored in more detail.
This trend has happened in the past sadly. It is hard to collect interest in a struggling team. Last year Tampa went ahead and fired their Super Bowl winning coach Jon Gruden and went with a young defensive coordinator by the name of Raheem Morris. With the change meant one of many things, a rebuilding phase was set in motion. Rebuilding phases are never easy to sit through, even as fans the mood was nervous optimism going into the 2009 season. They drafted a rookie quarterback in the draft and planned to rebuild the team around young Josh Freeman. Fast forward to this season. Freeman had a rough rookie season, but it was a learning process in which every QB has to go through to mature and improve. The team went 3-13 and saw less and less support with every passing day. It is hard for anyone to cheer on a losing team, but be it your local and home team the support should be there year in and year out. That was not the case in Tampa as seen in the 2010 home opener against the Cleveland Browns. Raymond James usually holds roughly 65,000 screaming fans in attendance, but sadly only 47,211 fans made it to the game. That is almost 20,000 less fans that normally fill those seats were unable to even watch their team play. The game was not shown in the Tampa area. If you drove over to St. Petersburg however, you could have watched the Buccaneers play. That does not seem right, in both regards.
The owners of the Buccaneers sought to remove the stigma that the team was bad by revamping the uniforms, the colors, the mascot, and even went as far as built a new stadium for the team. Yes, gone was the distracting cream-sickle orange that forever will be remembered as bad times around the bay. Out with the old and in with the new colors, red, and pewter. Buccaneer (or Bucko) Bruce was replaced with Captain Fear
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