In an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Tampa mayor Jane Castor made clear that she hopes to see the Rays remain in the Tampa area. While she added the caveat that the Tampa region would “continue to grow without a doubt” regardless of the team’s future, reports Charlie Frago, Castor also made the case for the city to hold on to a team that’s been plagued by ballpark issues, low attendance, and limited revenue since its inception as an expansion franchise ahead of the 1998 season.
Tampa is “a large urban city growing each and every day,” she told the paper, “so we should be adding assets to our community rather than them being taken away by other municipalities or countries.” Financier and principal owner Stuart Sternberg floated the idea of moving the team to Montreal — which hasn’t had a major league team since losing the Expos to Washington following the 2004 season — as early as 2014, and in 2019 Major League Baseball gave the club permission to explore the possibility of playing half its home games in Montreal as soon as 2024.
Though a number of new stadium projects have been proposed throughout the years — most notably at the current site of Al Lang Stadium on the St. Petersburg waterfront and in the northeast Tampa neighborhood of Ybor City — none has garnered the necessary political support. An October report by Frago and C.T. Bowen in the Tampa Bay Times suggested the club had revived its attempts to build a new ballpark in Ybor City, though such a project wouldn’t necessarily rule out the club’s split-city plans; a January 8th open letter, signed by several dozen Tampa businesspeople and published in the Tampa Bay Times, expressed support for both a new stadium in Ybor City (which it calls “an economic development platform”) and the ’sister city’ concept.
Though Castor refers to the letter as “a step in the right direction,” she declined to commit any public money to the project, stating that as much as she hopes to keep the team in the Tampa area, “the community’s appetite to pay for a stadium has left the train station.” Though she continued to rule out using any of the city’s general fund money, she did suggest her office would explore alternate funding methods. According to Frago, the proposed stadium would cost approximately $700MM, of which the Rays have promised to pay $350MM.
Tropicana Field, which the franchise has called home for the entirety of its existence, was initially built in an attempt to lure the White Sox from Chicago should the team fail to secure a suitable replacement for the increasingly dilapidated Comiskey Park or to secure one of two 1993 expansion franchises (which were eventually awarded to Denver and Miami); a team of Tampa investors nearly moved the San Francisco Giants to the area in 1992, announcing their purchase of the franchise before National League owners blocked the move under pressure from then-Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga. It opened in 1990 as the Florida Suncoast Dome, briefly serving as the home arena for the Tampa Bay Storm of the Arena Football League and the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning.
Since opening for baseball use in 1998, it has consistently placed near the bottom of ballpark rankings, facing criticism for its aesthetic deficiencies, a lackluster fan experience, and its infamous catwalks, which are regularly hit by batted balls and have necessitated the introduction (and frequent revision) of specialized ground rules for the field. Despite substantial recent on-field success, the Rays have consistently performed poorly in fan attendance, drawing only 14,734 fans per game in 2019 (the last pre-pandemic season), beating out only the Marlins. This may in part stem from the unusual geography of the area, which requires most of its population to cross the region’s titular bay to reach the stadium. The Rays’ lease on Tropicana Field runs through the 2027 season.
Because Stanley Cups, a Super Bowl championship and a couple of World Series appearances weren’t enough to cement Tampa as a sports town.?
Build them a new stadium. They more than deserve it.
I agree. It’s a terrible location and a terrible park. It’s really hard to believe anyone who owned the Giants thought moving the team from San Francisco to Tropicana Field was a good idea. The Rays are so good the city of Tampa should be doing everything they can to keep them. It looks like there isn’t enough support, though. That team deserves a better home than that. I bet Vegas would pay for an entire brand new top of the line stadium. If the A’s manage to get a new place in the Oakland area I bet the Rays end up in Vegas. I can guarantee one of the A’s or Rays will move to Vegas eventually. Whichever team doesn’t will get a new park somewhere. I think it’s pretty obvious MLB has determined the next city to receive a major league team is Las Vegas.
The owners are never going to approve a move into a city that could bring expansion. That’s millions fo dollars each owner would just be giving up
That’s not true at all. MLB has already given Oakland permission to try a move to Vegas and Tampa permission to talk to Montreal. You have it backwards. The owners look after each other. They won’t allow expansion until the A’s and Rays have new stadiums and will let them move to expansion areas. Have you not been keeping up with Rob Manfred’s comments about this? He works for the owners.
And when a team moves to an expansion-prospect city, that simply makes the team’s old city an expansion prospect. Has happened that way many times. So it doesn’t reduce the potential for expansion money, probably increases the potential.
No team is gonna get approved to move out of a market because of poor attendance and another team jump right back in it lol. What are you even saying
They gave them permissions knowing the owners would never approve of it so baseball looks like the good guy right now and then when the owners reject it they look like the bad guys. The owners aren’t gonna allow 2 expansion locations to go away for free that makes 0 sense
The list for expansion cities is long enough. Whether or not the expansion teams start in Vegas or one of a dozen other cities, the owners will still get paid.
Vancouver, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Jose, San Antonio, Omaha, New Orleans, Nashville, Memphis, Indianapolis, Richmond, Charlotte, Montreal, Baltimore, and Mexico City would all love to have a Major League team.
Slipping in Baltimore was a nice touch
Omaha? Peyton Manning’s audibles must have really worked.
It’s mostly true that the owners look out for each other. But the A’s would have moved to San Jose years ago if not for the Giants being jerks about it.
IIRC, it’s particularly ironic since the A’s allowed the Giants to claim the San Jose area about 30 years ago to prevent the Giants from moving to TB.
Yes, please educate KC about the reality of baseball. Sounds like he do not have a clue.
That’s because the Giants want all of Northern California for themselves.
Let teams pay for their own stadiums.
Gbs:
Agree. We the taxpayers give baseball a monopoly. The owners than exploit small market cities by pitting them against one another to get taxpayer funded stadiums.
We should make a condition of the monopoly that no taxpayer money is used. I am fine with government providing low-interest loans for stadiums only if they are secured with equity in the team, which requires approval of the majority of the owners.
They can float municipal bonds yielding 3% to finance the stadium. Taxpayers don’t need to be involved. But baseball team owners are businessmen and a good businessman looks to use other people’s money before dipping into their own.
“Taxpayers don’t need to be involved.”
They don’t need to be, but they sure are.
“Foreign oligarchs use guns to confiscate citizens’ wages. American oligarchs rely on government to give theft the aura of legitimacy, and Manhattan’s richest man is no exception. As an investigation by Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky documents, Bloomberg used various public agencies to extract between $1 billion and $4 billion from taxpayers and then spent the cash on a new stadium for the Yankees, the wealthiest corporation in sports.
‘The move followed a Bloomberg-backed 2005 initiative giving infamous investment bank Goldman Sachs $1.6 billion in taxpayer-financed bonds to construct its new headquarters — and amazingly, this encore rip-off is more spectacular. Mimicking tax cheats’ deliberately complex transactions, the city owns the stadium, leases it to an agency, which then leases it to a corporate subsidiary, which then leases it to the Yankees. At the end of the Ponzi scheme, the team is permitted to use the taxes it already owes to pay off the mortgage on its new chateau.
‘New Yorkers might be celebrating if these giveaways delivered verifiable returns to taxpayers. But Brodsky’s report notes that “there is little in new job creation, private investment, or new economic activity” from the expenditure. Taxpayers don’t even get affordable seats. According to Newsday, they get a stadium charging the highest ticket prices in baseball — $2,500 for “premium” views (since reduced to “just” $1,250) and $410 for a family of four in the cheap seats.
‘Like Wall Street firms insisting that trillion-dollar bailouts are a small price for economic stability, Bloomberg justified everything first by saying taxpayers “put next to nothing” into the stadium. (In fairness, a media-mogul mayor who is the planet’s 17th wealthiest man may genuinely believe a few billion is “next to nothing” — but, for comparison, it’s more than all the devastating cuts to police, firefighting, school and infrastructure budgets that he proposed in his budget.)’
– From “The house that taxpayers built” by David Sirota, May 23, 2009
Mr. Person: excellent narrative. Yeah, it was classic bureaucratic backwashing.
Manny, I couldn’t agree with you and gbs more. You guys are right on point. They are in this for one thing – profit. They simply don’t care anymore about the fans, the game, or the players. I am pro-owner, typically, but their separation from the game and their gradual business-only outlook has been nauseating.
Each team could pay 10mil a year, 300mil a year towards a new stadium or a reno. Start with the older stadiums.
I think it’s absurd that the league and/or owners say they want the A’s & Rays situations sorted. They just want the serfs to cough the $$ up, not them.
Isn’t Tampa Bay gonna be underwater by 2025? They better be allocating taxpayer dollars to that not a staduim
There’s a Kevin Costner + Waterworld joke somewhere here.
“If you build it (on stilts or inflatables) they will come.”
Lol, that’s some extremist forecasting.
Pretty sure Tampa Bay is already a body of water.
Move the team to Orlando. The owner of the Magic has in the past professed interest of buying the team. Orlando has plenty of room for a baseball stadium unlike the DUMP in Tampa Bay Area. Millions more visit Orlando with all the parks and would be easy to fill for attendance.
You don’t get baseball fans from people visiting
Agree 100% on -0- tax money, at least state tax money involved for a stadium. If Tampa/St Pete want to dole out half each.. Be my guest, but not a dime of my cash, or from the state.
What baffles me is how much construction costs have increased. Baltimore opened one of the first cathedrals of baseball (Camden Yards) in 1992. The total cost to build that stadium was $110M. Now these stadiums are costing anywhere from $600M to $1B+. I know the value of real estate has increased substantially along with the cost of building materials but that it is huge increase in costs from 30 years ago. It will be tough to get any owner to shell out the entire amount to build a new ballpark today as it will take 30+ years to see any type of return on investment. At that point, the stadium is dated and will need major renovations or even need to be replaced by a new ballpark. Billionaires don’t make those kinds of investments. If Tampa wants to keep the Rays, they had better get creative on public funding for the stadium as other cities like Vegas could offer to build the entire stadium for them and lease it back to the team.
For prime downtown sites in big cities, there likely has been an order of magnitude increase in the cost of the real estate in the past 30 years.
But also, in the old days they built stadiums wherever it was cheap to build stadiums and made the fans drive. Now they build the stadium in a prime location only.
Yeah Dorothy_Mantooth, inflation numbers don’t quite equate? Take the salaries from today and adjust them to 1960s pay? Then take a salary from 1960 and adjust it for today on baseball reference? Either the calculator they have isn’t right or millions of dollars are missing.
I did the math the other day ago. At 8% interest on 28 trillion which is the national debt the government would have to pay 2.4 trillion dollars just to keep the debt from increasing…. the debt is so large now the exponential growth is going to be unreal? If my calculations are correct we will be 40 trillion in debt by 2027 if 2.4 trillion isn’t paid to the principle? Disgusting? It’s a black hole, supermassive black hole
Beg to differ Hippy. Robert Kraft of the Patriots privately funded his stadium with only help from the state on infrastructure issues ONLY. It can be done if the owner “invests” their own money. This cheap owner in Tampa while receiving “revenue sharing” funds from the other owners is pocketing that money and not spending it on players. As for revenue, costs like property and costs, those items are among the lowest in the country in Orlando.
Just build a stadium that houses 15-20K people.
Woah now there’s a novel idea, but where’s the money In that?
TV money and other revenue streams bring in way more than attendance.
With these comments by their mayor, and the talks the Rays have already had with Montreal and MLB of having sister cities…I have no hope the team will still be in Tampa even on a part time basis by the end of the decade. Which, between their team successes, and having two young stars in Arozerana and Franco, is a shame.
How about building a ballpark that’s actually located in Tampa? Also, the Montreal idea doesn’t seem very wise, considering the issues with crossing over into Canada. Just ask the Jays.
I imagine by the time the team moves to Montreal (if they were to, COVID protocols would be over.
Not if our Prime Minister has his way! god I hate politicians…
We know how you feel. Our current administration is trying the same so I say tactics.
COVID protocols aren’t going away until there’s a Canadian Revolution.
Covid and the protocols are a money machine for the government, it’ll NEVER be over..
Move the Rays to Nashville.
They will once Tampa is underwater
You’ve already said that and it was quite clear.
I’m not saying I disagree that the Rays need a new stadium or that the Trop is anything fancy, but the stadium really isn’t as bad as people say it is. It’s always mentioned alongside Oakland as the worst ballparks, but the Coliseum is much much worse.
Nah, Trop is the worst. I have never been to Oakland but visually it is at least better than the Skydome..
No, it’s not. Joe Robbie was worse.
I have been to both, albeit my Oakland visits was in the 70’s. Tampa is dreadful and has no ambiance or life during the games. Just a boring, lackluster and dead place to watch a ballgame.
I agree the haters just jump on the bandwagon to make fun of something because it makes them feel important but the trop isn’t that bad. There’s many nights games would’ve been rained out and it’s always the perfect weather. It rarely causes game issues just seems like a lot because the media blows it up like the world ended but it’s a quirk just like Fenway and Yankees stadium and any other stadium that has stupid field dimensions or like the old hill on the Astros field. They’ve done a pretty good job of making it decently nice inside. Oakland is by far the worst and it’s not even close
I grew up in the sf bay area, and am an a’s fan, moved to tampa 4 years ago. The coliseum sucks, but the trop is worse. The atmosphere is so weird, its just not a good baseball venue. It feels more like it should be an indoor waterslide park.
Well they don’t have sewer backing up into the dugouts, so when that happens you can maybe convince me the trop is the worst
If they’re going to stay then go back to the “Devil Rays” uniforms. They were less boring.
Agreed
The name change and putting the sun into the uniform design to imply they’re the sun rays just screamed “don’t come to games in our dingy dome, stay outside and enjoy the sun.” Not a good marketing strategy.
I live there and it’s they have the worst marketing dept so much that it seems intentional not wanting to draw fans.
Move them to North Carolina, Charlotte, Greensboro, Asheville would be great places to start
Greensboro Goblins
Since everyone considers the team to be so smart, how about the Asheville Smart Ashes?
The Asheville Hipsters
The Trop isn’t nearly as bad as people make out. It’s a time piece now that chronicles the era of AstroDome, KingDome, & MetroDome. Along with SkyDome, it’s the last of it’s kind. I remember the days of 100% Humidity, 95F weather and 25 rain delays a game in Miami @ Joe Robbie/Pro Player. The Trop is a beautiful, comfortable living room compared to that.
Curveball, put the crackpipe down. You have had enough. Trop is a shithole.
I guess I’d like to know what makes stadiums good and bad. Because the blown out speakers, dark as hell outfield, poop overflowing into the dugout and ridiculous field and bleacher dimensions makes Oakland well behind in last place. I bet the rays stadium has better technology and more fan experiences than Boston or wrigley or any other old stadium. Yeah the environment is weird because nobody is there of course there’s no atmosphere but that’s not the stadiums fault. During playoff games they’re a blast
Absolutely zero atmosphere or area activities outside the ballpark. Those who have commented locally fall into 2 categories. They either live within 15 minutes of the warehouse or they love it for the AC.
Considering that Tampa has become a dominant sports town and they still can’t draw… move ’em. It was EMBARASSING that they couldn’t even sell out Game 1 of the ALDS with the Red Sox in town in an area where the Red Sox spring train a little further south in Ft. Myers and have a big fanbase. If they can’t draw in playoff games, they’re finished. You can only blame the Trop so long, until you have to start blaming the area. If the Trop was lifted off the ground and put in Las Vegas, with no changes, it’d immediately draw better. I think it’s over. Sternberg & Co. have moved on, and so are the A’s. Would not shock me at all if by the end of the decade we have the Montreal Expos II and the Las Vegas Athletics.
Because it’s not in TAMPA. One of the rays beat writers just posted the other day the drive from Tampa to St. Pete is the most miserable drive ever and it is. All the business and younger crowd is in Tampa and they go to football and hockey games all the time, nobody wants to cross the stupid bridge into old people town St.Pete, if the stadium was in Tampa it would boom
I’m not from the area but have been there a couple times on vacation. The trop is actually kind of cool for a tourist. It has to be terrible for anyone that lives there based on location. I went to a Jays/Rays game with about 4,500 others in attendance and spent $45 for a ticket and a couple beers.
I live 3 miles from the ybor location where the rays are considering. I won’t drive to the trop even to see the a’s when they’re in town and I’m an A’s fan living here. It’s 45 mins, and you have to go over 1 of 3 bridges to get over there, traffic is a mess here now.
You are correct. The place is a dump and it’s in a dump location. And if they continue to blame the fans for their lack of attendance instead of looking in the mirror, it’ll only get worse, a contender or not.
Let us know when you get a clue, please.
Curveball gets it. Florida isn’t coming out to watch baseball no matter how good the team is. Build a stadium in Tampa and we would just have the Marlins 2.0. No one cares about baseball in Florida.
It’s time for eight new markets. That means six expansion teams and two relocations (and name changes). The two franchises that relocate will remain in their current divisions.
AL East: Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Buffalo Bisons (expansion), Charlotte Knights (formerly Tampa Bay Rays), New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays
AL Central: Chicago White Sox, CLEVELAND, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, San Antonio Scorpions (expansion)
AL West: Houston Astros, Las Vegas Vipers (formerly Oakland Athletics), Los Angeles Angels, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, Vancouver Sharks (expansion)
NL East: Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals
NL Central: Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers, Nashville Bandits (expansion…”Stars” is not creative) New Orleans Gators (expansion), St. Louis Cardinals
NL West: Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Dodgers, Portland Thunderbirds (expansion), San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants
Ambitious! Nice sneaking Pittsburgh back into the East (where they belong). I’d recommend switching Portland and Vegas to better support more natural rivalries l, similar to Houston/Dallas.
As a matter of fact, I want to see more geographic based divisions, like Basketball. With so many games a year, putting local teams against each other is the best thing to build interest and authentic rivalry.
How about expanding all the way to 40 and reform the league to represent East and West.
Div 1
SEA, VAN, POR, SF, OAK
Div 2
SD, LA, ANA, LV, ARI
Div 3
TEX, HOU, SAN, NO, MEX
Div 4
SLC, COL, KC, OKC, OMA
Div 5
MIN, MIL, CHC, CHW, StL
Div 6
TB, MIA, ATL, CHA, NSH
Div 7
IND, CIN, CLE, PIT, DET
Div 8
NYY, NYM, BOS, TOR, PHI
….
Ok, so depending which coast you start with, you start to run out of room, but you get the idea, lol.
@48-team
You need to get Houston and Texas out of the AL West for travel reasons. So, it might be better to do this.
AL West: Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Vegas, LA Angels, San Diego Padres
NL West: SF Giants, Colorado Rockies, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, Arizona Diamondbacks, LA Dodgers
In a 32-team league I would have the two Texas teams with Colorado and Kansas City. I’m trying not to have too many teams switch leagues. Only Colorado and Tampa Bay (possibly relocated) would switch leagues with my 32-team proposal. It’s a bit trickier with 36 because you would have six divisions of six instead of eight divisions of four.
That’s crazy that they can sell out weekend playoff games. No business man wants to get off work at 5 and drive over an hour half to get to a game and that’s if you work in Tampa. Any surrounding area you’re looking at a couple hours to get to a game after getting off work of getting kids from school or any normal life activity during the week then drive home after the game. The stadium is on a fricken island with one way in and out and is away from all the young population. Tampa is statistically the fasting growing city in the whole country right now. How in the world do you expand to some other city and move away from the fastest growing one in the country. That would be idiotic.
Facts
You are wrong FWTABT. The area is booming and the Rays are on the sideline or I should say, on the bench. Missing out.
Nope….not the lack of interest in the team, it’s the disinterested owner who routinely insults fans, or the location with poor ancillary demographics. I was a ticket holder for years until I couldn’t force myself to give Sternburg another penny.
or maybe the private entity should just pay for their own stadium instead of using taxpayer money. I would have hoped the state would have learned their lesson after the mess that was the marlins stadium but I guess only time will tell…
Tampa is the 18th largest MSA in the US and is larger than any other possible expansion site except………..Montreal. Makes little sense for MLB to give up on such a large and growing area and let the Rays move. The stadium issue is fixable if there is the will. And where there is the will, there is a way. Few major stadium projects can get built without some help from the government. So if the government of Tampa or the state of Florida is unwilling or unable to come up with a solution then it is them, not MLB who is giving up. I am glad the mayor of Tampa wants to keep the Rays. But time to put up or shut up.
No, plenty of stadiums could easily be built without financial help from the government and it has happened plenty of times in the past.
Move them to Tokyo.
Zimbabwe Zebras
2030 expansion baseball teams:
Honolulu Flying Hawaiians, Tokyo Godzillas, The Kia Seoul Power, & Mexico City Pancho Villas
London Werewolves
Siberia Space Dogs
Peru Howler Monkeys
Halifax Demon Ducks
Buenos Aires Vampire Bats
Nunavut Ninjas
Surprised the rays don’t get vacationing fans from other cities to watch their team play more often. I’ve heard sports announcers state its on the wrong side of the bridge. Why should a city fork up millions for some millionaire when govt services are being cut back? Repurpose Tampa Bay football stadium?
Move them to New Orleans.
Move them to Green Bay. Sure you have some cold home games, but you save money by only having to change half the city name on all the merchandise. Aaron Rodgers can buy them, he and his fiancée are both doing fairly well financially.
Move them to Iceland or Greenland instead.
For everyone complaining about the traffic, come out to LA and drive. Both the Angels and Dodgers draw over 3 million fans a season. The Reys have been better the last few years, than the Angels have. I live about 25 miles from Angels stadium, non weekends games take over an hour. I live about 35 miles from Dodgers stadium it takes about 2 hours to get there.
But millions of people live closer than you to Angel Stadium and Dodger Stadium, and they no doubt make up the bulk of season ticket holders. There’s only a couple hundred thousand in St Pete.
You’re one person, not the whole population. 95% of the population going to those games is on the other side of the bridge.
Ft Myers would be prime area with new domed stadium and mega baseball complexes. East commute from Tampa too.
There we go, make it even further than it is now. I’m sure all those retired blue-haired, snowbird yankees are going to support a baseball team in Ft. Meyers.
Tampa or bust!!
Been to both stadiums – Oakland worse but lack of fans makes Tampa worst experience, by far. Tampa is growing yes, but not convinced the growing business and young folk will go, but it’s a must that a new stadium – if built – is on Tampa side, easily accessible. Atlanta a possible model: build in burbs near I4/75, with other stuff around it.
Owners will get Oakland/Tampa settled before expanding, and there will be two spots, for 32 team league. Las Vegas likely getting A’s – it makes too much sense, leaving Nashville, Charlotte, Brooklyn, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis as possibles.
The young kids go to football and hockey games. You have to understand one thing about most of the younger generation, it’s about snapchat stories and Instagram posts and looking cute not the actual sport. You put a new stadium in the middle of a city isn’t a bunch of kids they’re gonna go regardless of the sport.
This is a unique franchise and with all their success you’d think the city would want to show them off. But Montreal Stuart? You’re kidding right? Their going to be wearing masks up there until we’re all dead and going to there for games.
North East Tampa is a must. Out near Lakeland even.
I’ve been to the Trop on a couple of occasions and it’s just not as bad as some make it seem. The bigger problem is the weather. The stifling heat and humidity in the summer and the frequent 6:00 thunderstorms make either a domed stadium or retractable roof stadium a must. Replacing the Trop is expensive so who is going to pay for it?
Ironic that the Marlins have a much nicer venue yet average less fans than the Rays. Of course, that can be attributed to the contending Rays versus the struggling Marlins. If the Marlins get their act together that should change.
Location…..location….location.
Oakland A’s games are great. I am opposed to using taxpayer money just to be luxury corporate suites for the richy-rich. Before the pandemic you still buy a good seat at field level maybe a few rows up just a day before the game. For a weekday game against the Mariners, the good seats would be at face value, affordable, a wonderful experience. I have never had a problem in the parking lot either, it seemed family friendly as much as any other sports stadium which means you might hear a little bit of profanity but felt safe. In contrast, to buy tickets to a single San Francisco Giants game you may have to pay hundreds of dollars per ticket to a ticket broker. The Giants fans apparently are more affluent than the A’s fans.
More affluent, better team, better park, better accessibility, etc.
Rays are perfectly capable of building their own stadium on their own dollars.
Tampa built a concret igloo to try to land a MLB team and now that they have one they have no interest in building anything else for them
I think the Braves and Cardinals may be against it, but Nashville would be a good place for the Rays. The middle TN area already supports an NFL football team in spite of huge college football fan bases, as well as an NHL team. I’m sure the Nashville AAA team could be made happy in the process…
Maybe go with “Memphis Hound Dogs.” That was nearly an NFL franchise in the’90s.
ban public taxing to fund baseball facilities. not all the public like baseball.
The biggest obstacle to the Rays staying in Tampa is the Rays. They’ve never developed a significant fanbase, so there’s little pressure on politicians to help with public funding (not that they should).
I’ve lived in Tampa since the Rays became the Rays. Worst baseball marketing I’ve ever seen. Seems intentional in their lack of a serious attempt.
I’m curious as to what you think the Rays should do differently. What marketing ideas should the Rays have done to significantly increase attendance and revenues?
So ya’ll think that the city of TB who used to pack the Bucs with Jameis as QB, and have one of the best attendances in the Lightning don’t deserve the Rays because fans don’t want to drive and hour to get to crappy St. Pete for games. The answer is Ybor the only problem is the owner of the team.
*city of Tampa. Tampa Bay is a region.
That’s exactly where the Rays belong: Tampa!
Exactly….Stu continously let’s the fans know that he doesn’t respect them.
What has he done to disrespect the fans?
He literally wanted to put a sit season poster during the ALDS at the Trop. Plus he has one of the best teams in baseball, is one of the richest owners in baseball, makes large amounts of money, more than most teams. And still won’t spend some money on Free agents
Why is the owner the problem? What should he be doing differently to get a stadium built in Tampa?
With the millions he has, he could donate some money to try and build a new stadium.
Both the Rays and Marlins should move their teams out of Florida in favor of cities who would be more apt to support them with attendance.
Charlotte/Raleigh and Nashville/Memphis are the obvious choices. Any of those cities should be able to support a team and both franchises could remain in their current divisions that way.
Marlins got that ballpark just a decade ago. They won’t go anywhere. As for the Rays they need to move to actual Tampa the attendance would immediately increase.
FL needs baseball, Miami won two World Series, and the Rays are the smartest team in baseball. One the Marlins lost their attendance once they stopped caring about winning. The Rays are screwed by a bad owner and a bad stadium