Rays owner Stuart Sternberg spoke with Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday from this week’s owners meetings. He made clear that he is not having any conversations about selling the franchise amidst their stadium uncertainty.
“If it was (for sale), people would know it,” Sternberg said. “I’ve always been, and I will continue to be, pretty transparent about our intentions. And pretty — not pretty — but very honest about them. And I have been.”
The Rays need to decide in the coming weeks whether to move on plans to build a new stadium in St. Petersburg. Last summer, the Rays had reached a tentative agreement with the city and Pinellas County to construct a new $1.3 billion stadium by the 2028 season. That was delayed following the hurricanes in the Tampa area last fall. The County postponed approval on $312.5MM in public funding on the project. The County voted to approve the bonds in mid-December, but the Rays had already expressed frustration with the delay.
The agreement leaves the team responsible for cost overruns in construction. The Rays have claimed the delayed bond approval makes it impossible to have the stadium ready until 2029. A county official said in December that the Rays had put the estimated price hike around $200MM; Topkin wrote yesterday that the overruns are expected to be close to $150MM. In either case, the team said in December it “cannot absorb this increase alone” and wanted to renegotiate with the city and county to “solve this funding gap together.” Local officials have stated that they will not commit more public money.
The Rays have until March 31 to meet various construction benchmarks. If they have not done so, the agreement is nullified. Sternberg did not provide a specific timeline on when the team will make its final decision. “I’m not saying a decision or this or that, but I’ll be prepared coming out of this (meeting) and speaking to owners here,” he told Topkin. “There’s a lot that goes into it. … I don’t know what the rush is for anybody, or for us. If this is, in fact, a multi-generational decision, I don’t think anyone will care if it’s a date in January, February or March.”
Topkin spoke with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred about the situation on Thursday. As he has on multiple occasions, Manfred made clear that the league does not want to see the team relocate. “We’d like to keep the franchise in Tampa Bay. We think the market is big enough and that there is passion for the game. Having said that, it is challenging,” Manfred said.
Whether they move forward with their long-term stadium plans, the Rays also need to figure something out for the next few seasons. They’ll play at Tampa’s George M. Steinbrenner Field for the 2025 season because Hurricane Milton destroyed the Tropicana Field roof. The Rays’ lease at the Trop had run through 2027, but it’ll roll over through the ’28 campaign since it isn’t in use this year.
Responsibility for the Trop repairs falls on the City of St. Petersburg. That comes with an estimated $55.7MM cost. It’s unclear whether the stadium can be fixed in time for Opening Day 2026. Sternberg and Manfred each said there are no current plans for where the Rays would begin the ’26 season if the Trop is not done. “I remain committed to the idea (that) we’ve got to get the Trop fixed, because we have an interim period beyond 2025 that we have to cover no matter what,” Manfred said to Topkin. “I think Stu is on board with that idea that we need to get it fixed as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we have a ton of uncertainty in terms of ’how fast can you get it fixed?’“
The team cannot absorb the costs? The taxpayers say the same thing. The owners are all billionaire con men.
They’re lucky to avoid a popular vote, even places like sports crazy KC are starting to reject the corporate welfare state.
Someone is going to give Sherman a new park around KC. The KS legislature has already earmarked Star Bonds I believe to try to pull them out to Johnson County.
I don’t know… Kaufmann stadium won’t get teared down without a fight
Maybe voters would approve a cheaper renovation instead of a big stadium
I’m a major fan of Kauffman. But from what I’ve gathered that overhaul might cost near a new stadium. I believe a downtown park is a mistake in Kc anyway. The reason they had turf all those years was to avoid rainouts for their large regional fanbase. Kauffman is so rare for its era. It really needs saved.
But there’s major money in play on the KS side. We shall see.
I get the team.is losing a substantial amount of revenue by playing at a AAA facility. They don’t draw huge, but, they do typically exceed the capacity of steinbrenner and certainly do so for marquis matches with fanbases that travel well like NYY/BOS/Etc…
But you’d think either insurance would step in to help cover the costs for steinbrenner updates and lost revenues, or, some settlement could be arrived at with the municipality?
Except they have increased the price of each ticket. Low supply = high demand. It actually works out really well for the Rays and Sternberg. They will sell out with higher ticket prices (due to Yankees/Phillies/Red Sox fans crowding in, and make good bank. Even if they have to pay rent to the Yankees, they should be able to cover that and more.
I would love to see your math.
Rays – There’s so much you’re neglecting to consider, I could write a book about it.
To keep it short – the Rays had been drawing around 17K average only because they had the capacity to sell 22-25K in tickets for the marquee matchups. GMS holds only 11K, which means they would have to literally double the prices for those marquee games in 2025. That is simply not gonna happen, even the most fanatical fans of those visiting teams won’t pay double especially for a ST park experience and especially June thru September.
For non-marquee games the attendance will be shockingly low. A big reason why is because much of the revenue that was generated in The Trop for non-marquee games came from corporations and casual fans just wanting something to do. They will not show up for a much lesser experience, much less comfort, in an open-air stadium with the heat and humidity and weather delays that will surely occur June through September.
@fever
Go ahead, I’ll wait for that book to be published.
The location is better and closer to more people. They will play a good chunk of their games against AL East foes which will draw many opposing fans (whether those snowbird fans wanna put up with the elements is yet to be seen but I’m sure they’ll attend). Yankees fans don’t and won’t care about playing at Steinbrenner because they’ll see it as their 2nd home game because Steinbrenner is a Yankees stadium. Even double the price for a Rays game is much cheaper than going to a home game in NY, so no, I don’t think Yankees fans will care much about paying double. Red Sox fans and Jays fans as well. I don’t think 7k attendance at the trop and 7k attendance at Steinbrenner for an Orioles game is much of a difference, except they’ll make more money per seat compared to the Trop. They’ll lose some profit from food and merch space, but they weren’t really all too utilized at the Trop anyways, plus they can cut jobs by having fewer stands.
No they don’t have to double their ticket prices to make up for a smaller stadium. But from what I’ve seen they intend to increase their ticket prices by about double, at least for suites and premium tickets.
Either way, they will not hurt as much as they say they’re hurting from playing at Steinbrenner. You can believe Sternberg if you want but losing those tickets is not a big deal.
Rays – This is a situation where we will see with certainty who is right as the regular season plays out. I do hope you stick around under the same handle so we can continue to discuss this subject throughout the season. All too often people “disappear” after they’ve had similar discussions with me.
Rays home opener is now just 49 days away and they STILL haven’t put out ANY information on single game tickets. So clearly if they still don’t know how much demand there will be, how can you possibly be so sure that demand will be strong enough to sell out most games at double the prices?
FTR I do plan to look into buying tickets for the April series. But I can assure you, I will absolutely NOT pay over $200 for seats anywhere between the bases. And even if bleacher seats are only $50-$75 I will NOT be sitting in the bleachers.
Do you even know what snowbirds are? Apparently not. They are people who live in Florida only between November thru April, and not necessarily all of those months. So how are they gonna “attend” games in May through September if they aren’t even in Florida during that time? That’s an incredibly silly comment you made.
Here’s another thing you don’t realize, the Sox and Yankee fans who have been turning out at The Trop (and Sox fans have decreased because their team has been bad for years) do so because it’s not that expensive. Price is absolutely a factor that would keep them away if the tickets are unreasonably high.
You think paid attendance in The Trop for low demand games like the Orioles was only 7K? You don’t have a grasp on reality.
All 7 home games against Baltimore last year had paid attendance of between 15K-24K and 4 of the 7 games were over 20K.
Do you even realize the Orioles ST facilities are located in Sarasota, which is approximately only an hour away. My guess is you don’t.
Stu is a horribly greedy owner, but he’s telling the truth about how much revenue he will lose this year which is why his reducing payroll so much is justified this year. What we will probably never know is how much MLB will be donating to the Rays because of the location change.
I look forward to discussing this again when ticket prices are finally released.
GaSox – MLB is compensating the Rays for lost revenue, I don’t remember how much though.
Fever – if it follows past ‘compensation’ it’s probably not dollar for dollar. I’d suspect 40% to 60%
Interesting… I would think he should want to sell if their profit margin is as nonexistent as he often claims. He must really, really love baseball.
Maybe for the Mets, but not for the Rays! I’ll give credit he finally spent money this year but that’s a rarity!
He spent money? You mean Kim? Not much else ad far as I can see.
@always
Kim and Danny Jensen
Which, to be fair, is more than he spent last year or the year before, at least on free agents addressing the team’s weaknesses.
But yeah of course he could and should always spend more. But he just stands idle so often that when he does make a move (especially on this FA climate) it should be noted.
Rays – Dear God where do you come up with this stuff?
Last year’s tax payroll was $107M and this year it stands at $87M.
It’s justifiable this year though, since revenue is expected to be a lot lower.
He’s from the greater NY area and a Mets fan.
Mostly a joke but take it however you want.
Clip – I bet he pays people to say “Ignore the Forbes numbers”. which routinely reflect one of the largest profits in the game.
All of the owners are losing money, just ask them.
The lady who got arrested?
Athletics left Oakland and will play in a triple A stadium in Sacramento. Some estimate because Sacramento will likely be sell outs for the size crowd Oakland routinely draws that Oakland will be fine this year in Sacramento.
Surprised because in the past the athletics and raiders shared a stadium that the athletics haven’t had more talk about going to Las Vegas early and sharing a stadium with the raiders for 3-4 seasons
According to Forbes the A’s were already a top 5 revenue team while playing in Oakland. Cutting nearly all payroll, selling off assets, and collecting tv contract and revenue sharing made them extremely profitable.
Revenue sharing is one of the reasons they supposedly moved to Las Vegas wasn’t it ? Market small enough to retain the highest level of profit sharing.
I think the revenue sharing issues aren’t region specific. The recent collective bargaining agreement brought them back into the fold but they were about to be bounced again for ownership’s refusal to spend… the Severino and Rooker contracts seemed like a direct response to threats of removing them again.
Me thinks you mean top 5 profits. There is no way the A’s have high revenue. They’re bottom 5 as are the Rays.
The Mets are the only team that was unprofitable last year. Why? they are 11th in revenue and top 3 in payroll.
Cleav – Where are you seeing the individual team numbers for last year? Forbes hasn’t published it yet, way too soon.
You’re right, I meant profits, not revenue.
Bad blood between Davis and Fisher is why. You can pretty much blame the Raiders for this whole fiasco in the first place. If they never have to make the horrendous renovations to the Coliseum to make Al Davis happy, and the Raiders never come back to Oakland, the A’s could have made similar renovations like the Angels made to their stadium and it’s possible none of this ever happens
As Stu reminds us, he is an honest person. There probably hasn’t been a more truthful person in the history of the world than Stu. That’s what Stu is telling us.
If $tu were so honest, he would tell us he is in it for profit, and not to win a title. If the Rays somehow win a title during his tenure as owner, it will be because they got lucky during the playoffs as an 85-88 win wild card team.
Indeed. Like the low WC winners of 2023, the Rangers.
The only similarity is the low win total. Remember, the year before the Rangers went on a spending spree signing Semien, Seager, deGrom, and later trading for Scherzer. $tu would never sign that many free agents or ones that good.
The biggest mystery here is why and how Sternberg thinks he’s transparent. Probably the most secretive and conniving owner out there.
Sounds as honest as another Florida resident.
Liberal tears
He should run for office.
Gezz if you want to get higher attendence, then you need to put it in Tampa, not St Pete. They draw aweful there for Boston and NY, who are they kidding. They have been receivers on revenue sharing for a long time. And they made their way on the TV revenue. St Pete is your basic snow bird town and that’s anouther reason they have a problem with attendance. Maybe it’s time for Orlando to have that team.
Next season, they should move to Orlando and play at the Disney wide world of sports complex. They could stay there until the stadium is built.
It’s very hard to be a baseball team owner….the impossibility of negotiating with governments for free money must tax them terribly. Who amongst us doesn’t feel a kinship?
They should go to NashVegas baby!
Teams that can’t draw fans should move or sell. Texas could easily host a third team. Nashville. Charlotte. San Juan. And, there is no way the As are a top revenue or profit team. The big market teams lead: Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies by virtue of a multi state TV market, Red Sox by virtue of owning the cable network.
Beaches or Baseball?
It’s a losing formula mlb will never win. Let alone tax advantages to players in the state.
Now Orlando wants a crack at this?
Nashville is 10 hours away and begging for an expansion or relocation.
Make it happen Manfred
Everything I’ve heard about the group that is trying to get a team to Orlando sounds like they have their ducks in a row.
I’m sure they do, but is it profitable or a pipe dream. Out of all the la and fl teams the only one successfully doing it is the dodgers.
Anaheim stinks, okalands moving, San Diego is broke, Miami just cleaned house, the rays are fully aware of the gravity of the situation long term and the dodgers defeated till most of us are in retirement.
Just because a populist exists in masses doesn’t mean it will transition to profitable ball clubs and organizations.
I just see Nashville making a ton of sense for the next one up. If Orlando happens great. If it doesn’t I’m truly not surprised.
I think Nashville is going to get an expansion team. The Orlando group is only expecting to be able to get an existing team, and even then, only if something goes sideways with the Rays in Tampa/St. Pete.
Floridians eat, sleep, and breath Football and even they don’t support 3 NFL teams as the Jacksonville Jaguars regularly don’t sell enough tickets to not have home games blacked out on tv.
A third MLB team would probably be the same, or worse, as they already don’t support the two teams they already have. And with a name like the “Orlando Dreamers” i don’t see that taking off. Only compromise is to either move the Rays to Orlando or relocate and then try again with a second Florida team
@rsox
To be fair, the Jags have been pathetic for over a decade. Really hard to sell those tickets. Bucs and Dolphins do just fine I think.
California doesn’t have beaches?
They do but when you defer money past social security you don’t run into those kinds of problems under similar situations. What’s the kicker is the tax brackets. Only a fool prefers la to fl on an mlb contract for their wallet. But that’s death and taxes for you.
The solution here is obvious. The league needs to engineer a sale of the Yankee spring training facility to the Rays. Then they can either scale up the current stadium by adding an additional tier and bleachers or put up some temporary bleachers and get to work on building an indoor stadium right next to it. At least they will be in a location where fans are willing to go.
That’s just reshuffling deck chairs. The Yankees still need another S.T. camp site if they sell it to the Rays. They can add additional seating but it will always be limited compared to a MLB ballpark. Rays need a new MLB stadium or move.
Repairing Tropicana Field makes no sense. Tear it down and use the repair funds to subsidize the team while a new building is under construction.
ORLANDO.
Gotta love how there’s news about Barry Larkin and the Orlando group right when this is heating up. But I’m not sure that’s not a better market, actually. Manfred makes my skin crawl.
“We’d like to keep the franchise in [Oakland]. We think the market is big enough and that there is passion for the game. Having said that, it is challenging,”
Hey, Stu..cry me a river.