Major League Baseball Masters always prioritize weekend games. Fans and families prefer to stay late at the stadium on weekends, especially for kids who go to school early and later in the season. Therefore, booked days on Friday, Saturday or Sunday are very rare in this sport.
However, the St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays will take a break in Saturday’s series.
Cardinal Rays play in respect of Tampa Bay Buccaneers preseason vs. Buffalo Bill
Major League Baseball is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world. From Japan to the Dominican Republic to Cuba, baseball is one of the most watched sports in the world. Nevertheless, American pastime is still the second violin of football.
The NFL preseason began two weeks ago in early August. These exhibition games are similar to Major League Baseball’s spring training: they allow players to prepare for the regular season.
While pre-season NFL games are usually rarely played, they can still attract a total of fans in the range of 10 to 20,000, and some games can reach higher heights. TV ratings are also strong among football loyalists.
The weekend on August 23 is the last week of the NFL preseason, so the attendance and ratings are expected to be high.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are just one mile from the temporary location of the Tampa Bay Rays at George M. Steinbrenner Field, and his preseason is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. local time. This interferes with the Cardinal Ray game.
The Cardinals and Rays were initially sold for 7:05 pm local time, but the game has moved to 7:35 pm last Thursday, a game that was intended to avoid a preseason clash with Bucs' preseason against Bill across the street.
The Rays participated in the 2025 season at the New York Yankees' spring training site due to damage caused by Hurricane Milton. In October 2024, Hurricane Milton caused. Currently, Trop is being rebuilt, so the Yankees have leveraged their spring training facility to make their spring training facility the rays of this year. Steinbrenner Field can only have more than 11,000 fans, while the capacity of 75,000 fans at Raymond James Stadium will drop.
Although neither the Cardinal nor the Rays compete for the playoffs, MLB regular season games should take precedence over the NFL preseason. Before the latter's regular season begins, seeing baseball abdicate at the start of the football game, which shows how powerful the NFL is as a business.
The Rays also played a game with the Boston Red Sox. The two clubs are scheduled to compete at 12:10 p.m. on Sunday, September 21, but the match has been turned into nighttime events as Bucs' scheduled game against the New York Jets at 1:00 pm.
The Cardinals beat the Lights 7-4 on Thursday due to many mistakes in the Rays and multiple blows from Lars Nootbaar, Alec Burleson, Willson Contreras and Nolan Gorman. After putting Friday night’s game to the light, the Cardinal will hope to compete in the series Sunday afternoon. The first tone is scheduled at 12:10 pm local time.