Tropicana Field was damaged by Hurricane Milton last week, most notably with the majority of the roof being torn off. Per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, there’s still a lot of uncertainty around the full nature of the damage and what comes next, but it seems unlikely the Trop will be ready to host games by Opening Day of 2025.
The Rays are scheduled to be at home to start the next season, hosting the Rockies and then the Pirates for a six-game homestand that is supposed to start on March 27. But it seems there’s a decent chance the Trop won’t be playable by then. The facility doesn’t have any drainage, which means the lack of a roof is a significant problem until a solution is found. That’s on top of other potential damage that is still being assessed, laid out by Topkin in his piece.
The Rays had planned to build a new stadium adjacent to the Trop’s current location, with the hope being that it would be ready by 2028. It’s currently unclear if that timeline will be impacted by the hurricane damage. Even if that ends up being delayed, the club may have to make some tough decisions about the Trop, since it was planned for demolition to make room for the new stadium.
From a financial point of view, the club won’t want to devote significant resources into a facility that is on its last legs, which is perhaps why they are in this situation in the first place. Last week, Sam Blum of The Athletic spoke to David Campbell of Geiger Engineers, the group that installed the Trop’s roof back in 1990. He said the roof came with a timeline of roughly 25 years, meaning it probably should have been replaced a few years ago. But Campbell suggests that the plans for the new stadium probably pushed the club to forego the cost, which left the aging roof more vulnerable to the damage it ultimately sustained.
Campbell estimated that the roof could be fixed in five to six months “if the primary structure is serviceable.” That roughly lines up with the time until Opening Day 2025 but it’s possible that further inspection could find more damage and push that estimate, which is why the odds seem to be against the Trop being viable by March.
The Rays will now need to have some discussions about next steps and it seems there’s a wide range outcomes. “The Rays have to get a sense on whether they are looking for a temporary home for a few months, for a full season or for all three years,” Topkin writes. “Plus, Major League Baseball will have a say, and the players union is sure to be involved.”
Topkin goes on to mention a number of possible backup plans, which are all imperfect in various ways. A nearby minor league stadium would be convenient in some ways, as the location wouldn’t be drastically different, but each would likely require investment of some kind to get it closer to major league standards.
The minor league stadiums also don’t have roofs, which means frequent weather delays and postponements could become an ongoing problem. That’s on top of the logistical hurdles of sharing with the team that normally plays its home games there or moving that club elsewhere. Each venue would also come with concerns in terms of capacity, amenities, accessibility and so on.
There are also more extreme suggestions put forth, such as playing in a city like Durham or Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Montreal, Quebec; or even San Juan, Puerto Rico. Those all seem to be speculative on the part of Topkin but perhaps those situations will get more serious consideration going forward. If such an extreme scenario does come to pass, it will make for an odd alignment with the Athletics. The A’s are planning to move to Las Vegas but their stadium is also not planned to open until 2028. Their lease in Oakland ran out and a new deal wasn’t reached, so the A’s are planning to play in Sacramento until then, in the Triple-A park of the Giants’ affiliate. It seems there’s at least some chance that two clubs are nomadic for the 2025-27 seasons, which would be an odd and unwelcome development for the league.
The full extent of the damage and related costs are still being worked out, which is why there is still a wide range of outcomes here, but it will be a notable storyline to follow in the coming weeks and months.
