Rays Rumors

The Rays have new owners and the major order of business is to build a new stadium. It was reported last month that the club had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the board of trustees at Hillsborough College as the club pursues the college’s Dale Mabry campus. Some more details on the potential next steps were discussed this week, as covered in columns at the Tampa Bay Times by Marc Topkin, Nicolas Villamil, and Nina Moske, Villamil, Lucy Marques, and Topkin. The club also released renderings of the proposed site today, per Topkin.

The club plans a mixed-use development of 113 acres, including a stadium but also other real estate elements, with comparisons to The Battery in Atlanta. The sticker price is apparently about $2.3 billion, with the club willing to cover about half, while asking for public funding to cover the other half. The club would be on the hook for overruns, repairs and maintenance. That sticker price is just for the ballpark. The team is reportedly willing to invest $8 to $10 billion in the mixed-use area around the ballpark. Florida governor Ron DeSantis said recently that the land would be conveyed to the college to negotiate its use.

With the request for funding, there’s an implied threat of relocation if it doesn’t get done. “You know Orlando wants this,” DeSantis said this week. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was less direct but also seemed to stress the urgency of the situation. “It’s time to call the question here,” Manfred said. “There are alternatives in Florida,” he added. “We’re at a point in the history of the club that something needs to get done.”

This is often the situation when a team is looking for public money for stadium funding. Sometimes, the threat is real, as fans of the Athletics know. The A’s were unable to get a funding agreement to build a new stadium in Oakland and decided to move to Las Vegas. The threat can also be idle. Royals owner John Sherman recently floated the idea of the club leaving town. He lated admitted that he was advised to imply that threat in an attempt to influence a ballot measure.

The Rays’ stadium pursuit has been an ongoing saga for years. Previous owner Stu Sternberg pursued options within Tampa in Hillsborough County, as well as in St. Petersburg in Pinellas County, the latter being the current home of the Rays’ longtime home of Tropicana Field.

Not too long ago, Sternberg had an agreement in place with St. Pete’s and Pinellas to fund a plan which would involve the building of a new stadium on the site where The Trop currently sits. The Rays were set to pay for about half of that project with public funding covering the other half. That’s the same framework being considered now, though the sticker price of the previous deal was $1.3 billion, barely half of the current proposal.

Hurricane damage to The Trop late in 2024 led to disagreements about how to move forward, ultimately quashing the deal. The relationship between Sternberg and local government officials was generally seen as untenable, which led him to sell to a group led by Patrick Zalupski.

The new ownership group is working on tight timelines. The Rays didn’t play at The Trop in 2025 due to the aforementioned hurricane damage, playing in a minor league park instead. The Trop is expected to be ready to use again in time for Opening Day 2026 but the club’s lease only runs through 2028. Getting a new stadium financed and built in the next three years is going to be a challenge, especially when government officials seem to be hesitant to get on board.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor has frequently spoken out against the possibility of city funds being used for a stadium. Hillsborough County commissioners voted unanimously this week to pursue stadium negotiations with the club but many commissioners expressed concerns about using tax money to fund a stadium.

“We promised everyone on the public record that the CIT (Community Investment Tax) numbers would be ineligible,” commissioner Joshua Wostal said about funding professional sports stadiums. “We have not even began to collect that tax, and here is a suggestion that we already deceive the taxpayers that we made a promise to no less than two years ago.” If the CIT is a sticking point, that could be crucial.

“This agreement does not happen without the CIT,” said commissioner Ken Hagan, a proponent of doing a deal with the Rays. “It just doesn’t.” The Rays have also proposed that funding come from a tourist tax on short-term rentals and hotel stays, revenue from a property tax assessed to the area around the stadium, a fee on hotel bills near the stadium and bonds for infrastructure issued through a community development district.

The developments in Central Florida are obviously significant for the Rays but also the rest of the league. Manfred has long stated that he would like to get the ball rolling on expanding from 30 to 32 teams before his contract is up in January of 2029. He has also said that expansion won’t be viable until the A’s and Rays have their future homes figured out. The A’s are building a new stadium in Vegas with a planned opening at the start of the 2028 season.

The aforementioned memorandum of understanding gives Hillsborough College an exclusive negotiating window with the Rays for 180 days. It’s unclear what happens if no deal is in place after that time has elapsed.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images