The Rays continue their efforts to find a workable plan for a new stadium in the Tampa Bay area. They took a step in that direction on Tuesday, as the board of trustees at Hillsborough College voted to approve a memorandum of understanding with the team (link via Nina Moske, Colleen Wright and Lucy Marques of The Tampa Bay Times). It’s a non-binding agreement between the Rays and the college as the team pursues a stadium/mixed-use development plan at its Dale Mabry campus.
The team’s lease at Tropicana Field runs through 2028. They’re hopeful of having a new stadium built for the start of the ’29 season. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to work out funding agreements with the city and county before getting construction underway. The team’s deal on Tuesday was with the college to zero in on a potential stadium site. They have not worked out any kind of public funding deals.
The Rays had a 2024 agreement on a stadium that would have been in St. Petersburg, which is located in Pinellas County. The deal collapsed after hurricane damage held up county approval of certain bonds, which led the Rays to argue they needed more money to cover cost overruns associated with the delay. Talks between the team and city/county officials became acrimonious enough that the Rays pivoted to working with Hillsborough County officials and the City of Tampa.
An inability to work out a stadium deal was seemingly the driving force in Stu Sternberg’s decision to sell his majority share in the franchise last year. Patrick Zalupski is now leading ownership and taking another crack at working out a deal within Tampa itself. City and county officials have given mixed signals on whether they’ll approve public money.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, a proponent of a deal in Tampa, suggested this afternoon that he believes the team would pursue opportunities in Orlando if they don’t make sufficient progress on the Dale Mabry site (link via Nicolas Villamil of The Tampa Bay Times). There has been growing support in Orlando for a team, either via relocation or expansion, but MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and Rays’ officials have maintained they’re focused on the Tampa area at the moment.
Move ‘em!
I think Orlando would definitely welcome the opportunity so Rays baseball would likely remain in Florida at least.
They may be more likely to give public funding than Hillsborough/Tampa. However, this new owner does seem to be better at cozying up to elected officials than Stu (nobody could be worse than Stu), so we’ll see.
I will say that being from Lakeland, I’d rather go to St. Pete than Orlando traffic-wise. Orlando is a nightmare to drive through. Orlando obviously has more people than St. Pete, but I wonder if moving them to Orlando would do much to fix the attendance issues. It would probably have similar commuting issues as St. Pete.
When does Charlotte get a team?
Hot Corner–2065 when MLB expands to 96 teams. Charlotte Harlots start playing 2 years after the Rabbit Hash, Kentucky Bucktooth Hillbillies get their new stadium at the local high school.
After Nashville, Portland and probably Salt Lake City, possibly after Sacramento and Oklahoma City. Charlotte deserves a team but it often comes down to which ownership group has the most corrupt local politicians willing to give the most in tax funds/breaks.
When the murder rate drops.
Move the team!
St Pete/Pinellas got annoyed that the rays moved the team out of county after Milton, plus the Rays keep asking for money – and have for years – thinking this area needs them. I live an hour and a half south of the Trop, where they play for spring training. If the Rays go any farther north, the only games I will attend are during the spring – and I’ll be prioritizing a trip to JetBlue before Charlotte Sports Park. It’s all about greed here.
Moving less than 1 and 1/2 hours away to Orlando isn’t the end of the world. That’s not as far as Oakland to Vegas for A’s fans or even San Diego to Los Angeles that Charger and clipper fans have previously switched. If Rays can get a better stadium deal and attract more fans. Might as well build a stadium next to Disney world.
Switch them to the NL when leagues expand, move them to Orlando, put them in the same division as Atlanta, Miami, and one of the new expansion teams like Nashville or Charlotte. That division would have extremely short travel which is one of Manfred’s goals with realignment.
“Non-binding Agreements” are worthless in the eyes of league ownership.
Just let John Fisher tell you about all the BINDING Agreements with Oakland he ducked out on when he announced he was moving the team to Vegas.
“MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and Rays’ officials have maintained they’re focused on the Tampa area at the moment.” And Fisher was focused on Oakland, until it became clear he didn’t have the money.
He still hasn’t spent a dime of his own money on the Vegas project, as he got $300M from Saks and $150M± from Aramark (secured by part of the team, about 7-8% it looks like.)
He’s still looking for suckers to buy a non-voting/minority slice that will make the project finally pencil out.