Flippin Friday

Ladies and gentlemen today we have reason to rejoice. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are not going to be blacked out this weekend. Although we haven’t reached sellout status yet we did sell 85% of our non-premium seats. I don’t know about you but I, for one, am very happy. My happiness however has little to do with being able to watch the Bucs on TV.

I've been a fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for as long as I can remember. I live in the Orlando area and have for about 10 years. Being a Bucs fan has been tough for the last 3+ years as almost every home game during that span has been blacked out.

Of course this bothered me however my greater worry was what this meant overall for our team. Although we haven’t been directly connected with it I have heard rumors that if the attendance woes were to continue, the Buccaneers could potentially be moved to L.A.

This isn’t the first time that the Buccaneers were rumored to be on their way out of the Bay area though. After the death of former Buccaneers owner Hugh Culverhouse his son decided to sell the team. There were several interested parties including George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees and Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles. Angelos openly declared that he wanted to move the team to Baltimore. (At the time there was no team in that city)

On a side note, I posted this little piece of trivia as a question on the Bucs Nation facebook page earlier this week. Much to my surprise within minutes our inbox was flooded with replies however the one who was quickest on the trigger was Mr. Peter Balderas!!! He was just a hair faster than Ms. Kristal Winfrey who answered just moments later.

Knowing all this combined with the Buccaneers struggles with attendance, the earning power of L.A., and a complete lack of faith in the Glazer family I became convinced that eventually we were going to lose our beloved Bucs. However when the Buccaneers hired Greg Schiano to come in and be the new head coach I started to gain a little faith back that perhaps we could turn it all around and keep our team.

6 weeks into the first season with Schiano at the helm I am starting to believe more and more. Sunday is just further proof that perhaps the rest of Tampa is starting to agree with me. Now what we need is for the Pewter Pirates to come out and play strong against our division rival the New Orleans Saints. If there was ever a time to get fired up now is that time! How about it Bucs Nation? Who dat? We freakin DAT!