as for the Lightning not faring better the last 10 years — the last 10 years have seen the Bolts fall to the lowest levels of NHL kind (1997-2002). The repeated fifty loss seasons contribute to that low win percentage and really can’t be excused though… But there first five seasons…?

One more thing about the Rays being a profitable team – remember they are also seeing monies from Revenue Sharing. The Naimoli years were mostly like this — Vince regrouped personal losses instead of re-investing into the team. Every level of the Rays organization was done on a bottom-dollar, skinflint basis and I heard from players families about bounced checks and other financial problems with services and employees not getting paid on time.

I think the Rowdies have a very good if not the best winning percentage of the professional teams in the St. Pete/Tampa Area.

1. Draft picks show immediate impact, as opposed to being a crapshoot like in major league baseball.

While top NFL picks occasionally fizzle out, there’s nothing at all like the Hamilton and Brazelton disasters that happened to the rays. Furthermore, the NFL schedules its worst teams to play each other in out-of-conference play, whereas MLB has the same in-league schedule from year to year. The NFL salary cap also ensures a more equitable distribution of talent, as opposed to MLB where the richest teams lock up the best players.

Or how about the ~10 years the Devil Rays have been around (starting in 1998)… Bucs are .534 (77-67) with 5 playoff appearances and a Super Bowl trophy. While the Bolts don’t fare much better in the regular season at .373 (275 wins in 738 games*) but they do have 4 playoff appearances and a Stanley Cup to show for those efforts.

While I am aware that the intent of this post was satire, I wanted to point out that the Rays are one of the most pathetic excuses for a “professional” sports team to ever walk this Earth. I could go on… and probably will over at my blog over the weekend.

*Not sure I got that right..