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The Tampa Bay Rays' nearest audiences are defined less by baseball than by geography — the top 10 neighbors are a portrait of the Tampa Bay region itself, not a cluster of fellow sports teams or MLB franchises.
The shape is broad: no single neighbor dominates, and scores spread across a wide range from 0.98 down to 0.70. The two closest neighbors are the other major Tampa Bay franchises: the Tampa Bay Lightning at 0.98 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 0.94. Both are Sports Teams, the same subcategory as the Rays, and their scores are well above the rest of the set — but after them, the neighbor list pivots sharply away from sports. No other Sports Teams appear in the top 10.
Instead, positions three through ten are occupied by Florida-rooted consumer brands and local institutions. Publix (0.86) and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (0.86) sit just below the two sports franchises. Then come Florida politicians — Rick Scott at 0.79 and Nikki Fried at 0.78, both subcategorized as Politicians — followed by Ron DeSantis at 0.74, Publix Super Markets at 0.73, Bahama Breeze at 0.73, and NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 0.71. The subcategory mix across the full top 10 spans Sports Teams, Grocery and Superstores, Destinations, Politicians, General Grocery Stores, Restaurant, and Government — a cross-section of Florida civic and consumer life rather than a sports-media cluster.
The Rays' audience shape is fundamentally a regional identity signal: the people who follow this team also follow the full Tampa Bay and Florida ecosystem, from the Lightning and Bucs to the grocery chain and the state's political figures.
