So long as Tampa Bay is a superior place to live and play, visiting fans will always be an issue.
Unless a weather phenomenon develops like global cooling and Florida weather gradually devolves from warm to chilly to freezing in the fall, Florida will always draw folks from rotten-weather regions of the country.
And so, since the Tampa Bay region is a desired area both to relocate and visit, it’s impossible to have a Bucs home game not filled to some degree with opposing fans.
This subject reared its ugly head when Eagles fans invaded Tampa Bay two weeks ago. Depending on your point of view, the sellout crowd was anywhere from 40-60 percent Eagles fans.
This infuriated callers to sports radio shows and Bucs fans sitting at home watching on TV.
So last week, the Sage of Tampa Bay sports, JoeBucsFan.com columnist Ira Kaufman, asked Bucs coach Todd Bowles if an army of opposing teams’ fans bothers the Bucs.
In so many words, Bowles said that’s not just a Tampa Bay thing but also a Jacksonville and Miami thing and that’s just the price of doing business where everyone wants to visit or live.
> “I think it’s like that in the state,” Bowles said. “I spent some time in Miami and a lot of people from the East and the Northwest have homes down here – snowbirds and everything else.
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> “You’re going to get a lot of transplants, so you’re going to get a lot of fans from other teams. I kind of got used to that in Miami. That doesn’t mean we don’t have our own crowd – we have a bunch of fans coming out and \[supporting\]. You see them.
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> “You can’t fault somebody for living in Florida and rooting for their home team. Obviously, you want the stands to be all red and pewter or creamsicle, but other fans don’t really bother us.
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> “We play our game, and if we win ball games, our fans will be louder than theirs.”
Bingo. Just win, baby. The Bucs have always dealt with hordes of Eagles fans and as long as the Bucs were winning, the Eagles fans not only get drowned out, but chased out before the game was over.
Ironically, Joe covered the last Bucs game in San Diego to face the Chargers in 2016. Just about the entire sideline behind the Bucs bench from the expensive seats all the way up to the Bob Uecker seats wore red or orange, mostly orange.
Joe couldn’t believe it. Bucs fans damn near took over a visiting stadium? They damn near did. And the Bucs won that game, too. It was a cool scene.
That night upon finishing his work and leaving, Joe was talking with the Chargers’ media relations director about visiting teams’ fans taking over a stadium.
The Chargers’ suit told Joe that whenever a team is located in a “destination city,” that team will always have problems with visiting fans taking over the stadium. It was the case in San Diego, it’s the case in Los Angeles (did you see the 49ers-Rams game a week ago last Thursday?). It’s (currently) the case in Las Vegas and as we all know, it is the case in all three NFL cities in Florida.
This has been an issue when the Bucs were first born 50 years ago, it’s the case now and it will forever be the case so long as Tampa Bay is a coveted vacation and residential spot.