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
I don’t think keeping the Rays in Tampa makes much sense. They’ve only finished in the top 10 in AL attendance 3 times in their history. Don’t see that there’s much demand. Why not emphasize a market like San Antonio, or a market where there is genuine interest? Tampa might come back with a relocated team in 10-20 years, but forcing the issue now really makes no sense,
Tampa is a hockey town with an abundance of swingers
You mean football?..
Not the past couple years. Havent been in top half in attendance since the Brady years
And you think the Rays are in Tampa, huh?
It’s Tampa bay and you know it
They have never been located in Tampa, that is why they are moving there.
Are you seriously saying Texas needs three teams? They don’t.
Each time a team tries to extort their home city for stadium money, the request is more brazen. The previous local politicians agreed to fund half of 1.3 billion. Now the team wants twice that.
Good luck to the Rays new ownership. My advice to Tampa fans: let the hostage be killed and plan on making the short-ish drive to Orlando once the trop closes.
Socialism only works for the billionaire class. Quick to ask for money for a new stadium, but they’ll be ready to jack up the price on tickets and concessions.
They’ll get it, all they have to do is grovel to Cheeto Benito and he’ll come to the rescue.
It would kill pudding fingers if he swooped in to help.
When that happens, I switch from being a Rays fan to a Marlins fan. He can rot in h, e, double hockey sticks!
Enough cities fund, at least partially, their local sports venues they must be making money on the deals right? Why else would they do it ?
When your team has somehow stayed competitive almost year in and year out your fans should be turning out. If that was a baseball area they’d have built a big following. It’s a huge red flag when cities don’t support the team when it should be the good times when your team is in the playoffs almost every year. I think a new stadium would be the draw itself until it ultimately drops off because it was once fresh and new but now you’ve been there a couple times and it’s 15 years later the stadium isn’t as exciting as it once was and you have little from the same again
Miami got a nice new stadium and nobody goes
ohyeadam,
Kickbacks and/or not wanting to be the one in charge when the team leaves.
“$2.3 billion, with the club willing to cover about half.”
Gee, ownership *only* wants to be gifted $1.15B??? Screw that, let them pay for their own ballpark.
Considering the fact that attendance for Rays games are notoriously low, I don’t see a stadium deal involving public funding happening anytime soon. They’re better off relocating.
Getting to the Trop is a nightmare. Moving across the bridge to Tampa would equal more people being able/willing to go to games.
It’s really not bad…
Wait, so they need half of the $2.3 Billion from taxpayers so they can then spend an additional $10 Billion on the areas around the stadium? Seems like they shouldn’t really need any taxpayer money.
The math isn’t adding up lol
Yeah, I mean, I get that. As good as your explanation is regarding the costs, the point is precisely that they are willing to finance $10B because of a $2B stadium. It just reflects the fact that the can easily finance the $2B to begin with.
I understand that stadiums are almost always paid for (to varying degrees) out of the taxpayer pot; however, I question the validity and sensibility of that practice.
True, but the same could be said for the taxpayers financing the building project. I get why the owner wants half the stadium project financed by taxpayers, I just don’t necessarily think it should be done.
I often think about what the Founding Fathers would say about taxation for these purposes…… not entirely convinced that taxes were intended to be used in this manner (to make private business owners wealthier).
I’ve always thought that if a state/city pays a certain percentage of the cost to build a stadium, then they (they taxpayers) should receive that exact same percentage of all revenue generated at this facilities.
If my taxes are going to fund a vanity project, a sports stadium being one, then either give a share of the profits, or significantly lower the prices on everything when I go to a game.
Whether it should be funded by taxes or not, entertainment investments aren’t vanity!
$1.5 Billion dollars in public funds is no easy pill to swallow. I don’t understand how building a stadium can cost more than the team itself
The bathrooms might be made out of gold like a certain golf course in Florida.
Move to Buffalo and bring back the Braves.
Let’s see.
Most Floridians can’t pay their home insurance, car insurance , suffer from rising property taxes and best yet can’t afford their utility bills.
Now with the latest economic news that more people are unemployed than the crisis of 2008-2009 you have a situation that will probably cause people who can’t afford to leave Florida because they are stuck in this crises are simply not ready to hear a billionaire get tax breaks and tax handouts.
Thats no lie
Can’t pay any of their bills lol
Orlando Rays?
Ditch the Stingrays and go with the Orlando Ultra Violet Rays!
Orlando oranges?
There are much better alternatives outside of Florida. Moving to another Florida city like Orlando would only kick most of the same problems less than 100 miles down the road.
I suspect it’d be a lot easier to draw visiting fans to go to games in Orlando. That’s how it’s working for the raiders and will work for the A’s shortly. No local fans
Come on and move them to Orlando!!! Tourists would come, they would be an hour closer to me, and I’m sure attendance would go up.
If the move would involve a change in ownership and potential spending on free agents and extensions to McClanahan and Caminero, I’m 1,000% on board. Tampa was fun, but ultimately with mostly retirees with devotion to other teams and a bad location, it’s time to give a central FL location a chance.
Taxpayers are fools to build stadiums for billionaires.
Wish the actual taxpayers had the say so.
Taxpayers in Minnesota repeatedly voted down new stadiums a couple of decades or so ago, but then the politicians took that power away from voters and gave billionaires huge amounts for new facilities.
Not advocating for anything, but just the facts: there will always be another city or county or state that will be willing to use taxpayer money to build a stadium so they can call themselves a major league city. I voted against the Rockies Stadium and the Broncos stadium in the 1990s, They expanded the voting area to the surrounding counties, especially for the Broncos in 1997, because they saw polling that indicated if only the city and county of Denver voted, it would be defeated. Now the strategy is to avoid putting the issue to voters and going to city councils and county commissioners, and even to state legislatures to vote them the funding.
“We represent the will of the people.”
B.S.
The will of the billionaires*
We’ve heard this song and dance routine over and over. If I were a betting person, I would wager they will wind up out of Florida.
Sure Orlando is physically close, however the drive that would take 1..5 hours in actuality takes up to 3 or even 4 (due to the horrendous traffic in the Orlando area) Most of the Tampa Bay area fans, yes there are lots of us, won’t be able to stomach the drive too often.
The biggest drawback to baseball in Florida, is that most people who live here, are from somewhere else. Their family allegiances play into that and they tend to root for the old team, wherever that team came from.
I see the same vehicles at each game I go to with Yankees decals, Cubs, Tigers and so forth. Those people wouldn’t be caught dead with a Rays sticker on their car, but they will attend games at Tropicana Field with regularity and they wear their old familiar gear (from their home area) when they go.
When the old home team comes to the Trop (Yankees, Red Sox etc) they fill the stands and cheer for their childhood allegiances, forgetting that they don’t live there anymore and they refuse to embrace the local team. Those of us who root for the Rays, well we stay home, because their fans can be a bit much.
I’ll continue to go until Tropicana Field is no more. If they end up in Tampa, good for them, I just don’t see it happening.
The new owners don’t seem to value the old Season Ticket holders, Their direct communication with us has dropped off to a trickle and some of the perks that we used to receive have been eliminated. Not that I’m surprised, they make a profit and crap on the fans is the basic motto.
“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.”
What a mess the end of this sentence is. Did anyone proofread this?
There’s no other game I would rather watch than baseball. My love of the sport is over 60 years. But it is not life, and it is getting harder and harder to tolerate MLB’s antics of soaking taxpayers to build stadiums and now entertainment districts. The argument that it brings in further tax revenues to offset tax increases is suspect at best, and if so, why do they need public subsidies if it such a profitable enterprise? Go like most business to private market to raise funds. Meanwhile most major cities are struggling with homelessness, deteriorating infrastructure, public safety issues, and a host of other problems.
The only acceptable form of a public subsidy is if the public entity (be it a district, city, county or state) receives equity in the team.
The only model franchise in US sports is the Green Bay Packers due to the controlling structure (not in the hands of few owners). And it’s why the Packers will remain in Green Bay and not hold Green Bay hostage.
Welcome to Nashville.
so ? what would happen if every city said no thanks ? guess that won’t happen because there is always at least one town with no self esteem .. who’ll be willing to pay the extortion
Since the owners apparently couldn’t care less about supporting their community, they should just auction off the location rights on EBay to whichever city will commit the most tax dollars. Maybe they can even find someplace willing to cover the players’ salaries too. Nothing’s too good for our deserving billionaires.
It is interesting to see the reactions to the idea of having taxpayers help fund this stadium. Keep in mind, the whole idea of paying taxes should be (ideally) to reinvest in the community. That is what taxes are for, whether it be for infrastructure, restoration, conservation or whatever it might be, the money paid by taxpayers is supposed to be money reinvested in themselves.
The idea that suddenly residents will be forced to pay a large increase in taxes to directly fund this project is not likely how this will play out. The task will be for local government to reallocate already existing tax funds away from certain areas and instead towards this stadium, in turn employing thousands of local workers through its construction phases and into operations.
The amount of bitter resentment towards ‘billionaires’ in these comments is always very sad and frankly unjustified. These billionaire investors are drivers of change and development within communities and the people living in the area where some major development like this is being proposed should be excited for the future and for the opportunities for their friends, family and neighbors.
Being an architect, I have kept my eye on these Tampa Bay Rays stadium situations for years, looking for the right chance to hop on board as an independent contractor of some sort. These kind of projects are always a great chance for people who try to look at things positively.