Does Anybody Want the Rays?

(photo credit: CNN)

Happy sort-of Opening Day!  The 2025 MLB season officially kicked off in Tokyo today, and natural order has been restored as the Cubs are already in last place.  This season is particularly exciting because two new ballparks are supposedly breaking ground for the Athletics and Rays.  The A's are always clouded in mystery, but all signs and government approvals are so far pointing to them having shovels in the ground by around the time Erik and I are in Sacramento in June.  However, the Rays are a completely different story.  Remember in August of last year when I reported that their new stadium deal was officially approved?  And remember when I boldly predicted they were "99% likely" to be playing in a new ballpark by January 2029?  Well, a lot has changed in the last 6 months.  Two devastating hurricanes in October, a changing of the guard in the November elections, and a few delayed votes later, coupled with that word "inflation" we'd all like to stop thinking about, and all of a sudden, the Rays find themselves playing out of a minor league stadium for the 2025 season, and potentially homeless soon after that.  The team made known that they have no intention of honoring the terms of the public financing commitment that was formerly approved in December but has stated they are open to continued negotiations.  In other words - they want even more money.

Tropicana Field will supposedly be repaired in time for the 2026 season after being ravaged by Hurricane Milton (see photo above), but even that is not a guarantee and has not been formally approved yet.  It is a situation nobody really wants, but St. Petersburg is contractually obligated to do so, and the Rays don't really have a choice as they need somewhere to play and continuing in minor league parks for additional seasons would be untenable and unprofitable.  With the Rays now backing out of the new stadium deal, both sides are playing hardball and doing a lot of finger pointing, and St. Petersburg will certainly be in no rush to complete repairs if at all, as all it would do is continue extending the Rays lease the longer they wait (currently extended by one year already through the 2028 season).  It's become clear through various reports that there is a lot of lingering bitterness and passive-aggressiveness between the parties to this deal, and that they never seemed to want to work with each other to begin with.  Any path forward with this current ownership group now seems near impossible.  Nobody seems to want the Rays to even exist at all - not even God himself by the looks of the hurricane aftermath photos - and that has been the story of this franchise nearly since its inception.  It is looking more and more by the day that principal owner Stuart Sternberg will have to dupe someone into buying this team, cut his losses, and leave town (and by losses I mean a meager $1.3B and 20 years of profit sharing).  Regardless of how he may feel privately, Manfred is going to continue to say publicly that Tampa is a great baseball market and that the team should stay there regardless of ownership, but there is soon going to come a time where the other 29 owners will have to intervene and put their proverbial foot down.  Perhaps a new ownership group would want to continue to try to make baseball work in the region and deal with the uncertainty of the Trop, but I don't see why any investor who values their time and money would want to do so, particularly when there are plenty of other eager cities and states out there ready to play ball.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now to never trust these new ballpark situations with any degree of certainty, but the pretty renderings distracted me!  I promise that I will not be using the phrase "done deal" to describe the Rays (or A's) ever again, and I will try not to report any more on these situations until there are literal shovels in the ground, or one of the teams has been sold.  But don't trust me on that.