“What that told me was that we really had our work cut out for us,” he said. An earnest man in his mid-40s, Hoof may have one of the most difficult advertising jobs in the state. He’s responsible for getting the Rays’ message out to the 2 million people who live in and around Orlando. How do you make Central Floridians pay attention to a team that plays 110 miles from downtown Orlando? How do you make them care about a team that has never won more than 70 games in a season? How do you create goodwill among fans after the previous ownership group virtually ignored them? The franchise took a bold first step last May, hosting a three-game regular-season series at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. The series against the Texas Rangers drew 26,917 fans. None of the games were sellouts, but team officials labeled the experiment a success — enough of one that the Rays will return to Disney on April 22-24 for another three-game series, this time against the Toronto Blue Jays. Such experiments must yield results: Rays executives acknowledge they need more support from this market for their franchise to be successful. The team drew only 1.39 million fans to home games last year, worst in the American League and 29th out of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams. “I think there’s enough baseball fans in Orlando to relish the opportunity and to forget about what it is to get on I-4,” said William Sutton, a sports marketing professor with UCF’s DeVos Sport Business Management Program. Rays marketers have made 40 appearances in Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties since February. They expect to make five more before the Blue Jays series. You might have seen the “street team” already — a group of energetic 20-somethings dressed in dark-blue Rays batting-practice jerseys handing out team schedules and flyers for the Disney series. They appeared recently at the 19th annual Spring Fiesta in the Park at Lake Eola. They set up pitching and batting stations and a display where they sold tickets and handed out Rays stickers, schedules and pamphlets. They even piloted the club’s small powerboat around Lake Eola. The boat, which prominently features the Rays’ new logo and new team colors, motored around the perimeter of the lake. Three street-team members threw tiny Nerf-like baseballs — again, with the Rays logo — to people walking around the lake. The team mascot, a giant fuzzy blue monster called “Raymond,” rode on the bow, waving to people. It churned its fat belly and threw the miniature baseballs into the crowd. Children and their parents gathered at the pitching and batting stations. But most of them didn’t buy tickets. Scott Mills, an account manager for country music station K92 FM, stood nearby. His station airs Rays commercials and helped organize the Spring Fiesta in the Park. “The challenge is that everybody here %26#091;in Orlando%26#093; is from someplace else,” Mills said. “How do you localize them to be your team? “I think there’s a desire for major-league ball here, but this town’s so unpredictable in what they’ll support and what they won’t support. Just look at the roller coaster for the Magic.” At that moment, a baseball fan from Clermont walked up to the display.

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