New Rays Owners Discuss Stadium Plans

One week ago, the Rays officially changed hands, with a group led by Patrick Zalupski stepping in for Stuart Sternberg. An introductory press conference was held today, featuring Zalupski and other key personnel, with Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times reporting on the proceedings.

With the Rays, the natural focus is stadium plans and that was indeed the case today. Sternberg had been trying for years to get a new stadium plan in place. There was a plan to knock down Tropicana Field and replace it with a new stadium complex. That plan appeared to be on the proverbial one-yard line before hurricane damage to the Trop threw the plan off course. The subsequent squabbling between Sternberg and government officials scuttled the plan and soured the relationship to such a degree that this sale was the result.

The new ownership group is naturally going to resume that search for a future home. The Trop may be repaired to a playable state by the start of the 2026 season. Even if that does come to pass, the club’s lease there only runs through 2028, leaving the future up in the air.

The Zalupski group said today that it plans to pursue an “aggressive and perhaps audacious” plan which would include a fixed roof stadium as part “world class live/work/play experience” in a complex of over 100 acres which would open in time for the 2029 season. The Battery complex which surrounds Atlanta’s Truist Park was cited as “the gold standard” for what the group has in mind.

This type of project has become more popular for sports franchises in recent years. By having non-sports businesses in a larger interconnected network of commerce including things like office towers, hotels and restaurants, it diversifies the portfolio and lessens the pressure on the team to be successful. Even if the club is performing poorly and there’s a drop in terms of attendance and/or television ratings, the owners could still be making money off the other elements of the complex.

What’s still to be determined is the financing for this plan. Per Topkin, the group acknowledged the need for public contributions. That’s another element that modern sports owners love, as it’s obviously a much nicer arrangement if someone else is putting up the money for your real estate projects. Government officials often feel compelled to comply with such plans out of fear that opposing them will hurt at the ballot box. Just last year, Royals owner John Sherman essentially admitted that he bluffed a threat to take that team out of Kansas City because he thought it would help him sway voters in a ballot measure about stadium funding.

Securing that government funding will likely be a key storyline for the Rays in the coming weeks and months. As mentioned, Sternberg’s worsening relationships with public officials made it essentially impossible for him to move forward as owner, which led to this sale. Sternberg’s plan was set in St. Petersburg, meaning he was dealing with officials in that city and officials from Pinellas County.

Zalupski’s group is expected to target Tampa, meaning a different city council and also a different county, as Tampa is in Hillsborough County. That could provide some optimism about getting something done but Sternberg also previously explored Tampa without much success. Tampa mayor Jane Castor was present at the press conference today and said the city is “not going to spend tax dollars on building” a stadium. Topkin notes that Zalupski’s group will be meeting with officials from both Tampa and St. Petersburg, perhaps indicating they are keeping their options open or maybe just doing due diligence. Topkin’s report also adds some specific locations which could be fits.

If the group is successful in getting a stadium and larger complex built, Zalupski suggests that would be good for the team on the field. “It’s what you have to have in today’s Major League Baseball to be successful,” Zalupski said. “We think without that revenue generation, it’s going to be really, really challenging or nearly impossible to compete with the major markets. So for us, this is critical to building a championship team.”

The Rays are well established as one of the lower-spending clubs in the majors. According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, their payroll has been in the bottom third of the league for over 20 years. They have still found some success despite that investment, which is often attributed to the club’s cutting-edge approach to analytics. They made the playoffs five straight years from 2019 to 2023, though they’ve dropped to just below .500 in the past two seasons.

Combining the club’s analytical bent with some more resources would be a nice boost, though that may take years to come to fruition. At this point, there’s no real way to tell if the Rays owners are genuine in that plan to make more meaningful investments in the team, but Zalupski did elaborate.

“We’ve got to deliver this world-class development, generate the revenue to produce a consistent champion,” Zalupski said. “You don’t want to be one year great and five years bad and have to go all in. We want to build a sustainable championship team. I think the revenue generation that can come out of this development, will provide that.”

For what it’s worth, Atlanta did ramp up spending after Truist Park opened in 2017. According to Cot’s, their payroll has moved into the top ten recently, after being more middle-of-the-pack in the preceding decade. On the other hand, it was also hoped that the Twins would open up a new era of spending when Target Field opened in 2010, but Cot’s shows that didn’t really happen.

It’s unclear what would happen if the new stadium cannot be ready by the start of 2029. St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch has said the city would be open to a Trop extension but they are also planning new developments of the site which could involve the Trop being torn down, per Colleen Wright of The Tampa Bay Times.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement, Imagn Images