Yankees President Rips Florida Teams For Their Terrible Attendance

New York Yankees president Randy Levin made his frustrations known about the way teams that don't draw major crowds are taking advantage of the league's revenue-sharing model.

And he didn't hesitate to call other teams out.

Levine was a speaker at Sportico’s Invest in Sports conference. There he took a moment to tear into the Tampa Bay Rays and the Miami Marlins for their lackluster attendance figures.

“A lot more focus has to be on individual teams to do better and not just rely on revenue sharing,” Levine said, according to the Associated Press. “You can’t have two Florida teams averaging 15,000 fans. You can’t have it.

"You don’t go into an NFL stadium or an NBA arena and see that."

Yankees President Called Out Smaller Teams' Dependencey On Bigger Teams

He has a point. Heck, you don't even see NHL arenas with attendance that low in Tampa. The Rays caught some serious flack earlier this month when the first game of their Wild Card series against the Rangers drew a smaller crowd than the Lightning drew that same evening.

To make matters worse, the Lightning were playing a neutral-site preseason game two hours away in Orlando.

Tough look, for sure, and it's not new for the Rays and Marlins. According to Pro Baseball Reference, they were 27th and 29th respectively in attendance this year, despite both making the postseason.

That's something the Yankees didn't do this season.

"I think that there’s been a dependency issue that’s got to get better," Levine said "The commissioner has done an incredible job, but now it’s on individual teams. Instead of complaining and whining, ‘We need more money,’ you got to take some responsibility.”

You can understand why bigger teams are getting frustrated about this. There may soon be a reckoning for some of the teams that aren't packing them in these days.

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