(rendering courtesy of Gensler and Tampa Bay Times)
After 3 years of almost nothing but hearsay on the MLB ballpark front, all of a sudden it's been a really exciting time to be a ballpark chaser. The A's are supposedly still moving to Vegas and a vote is expected to take place in November by the MLB Owners group, the Royals are expected to announce a site for their new ballpark by the end of the year in order to get a financing referendum on the spring ballot, and the Brewers are still working through the details of a generational investment in American Family Field. The Blue Jays are midway through a huge renovation of Rogers Centre, and the Angels at some point soon will need to decide on their ballpark future. Among all of this chatter - particularly with the A's move - people kind of forgot about the Rays situation, just because it's been quiet for so long. But as of last week, they have suddenly emerged as perhaps the top contender to be the next team to land a new stadium. The Rays announced last week their plans to construct a new $1.3B stadium next door to Tropicana Field. You can read about all of the financial details here, but the intent is for a combination of team ownership and private investors to pony up about half of that cost, and for the other half to be funded through some sort of hotel/resort tax from Pinellas County and the City of St. Petersburg. The ballpark would be a primarily a one-deck ballpark, likely with a fixed roof, and would continue the trend of smaller ballparks within a larger year-round development. Pending government approvals (which are far from a guarantee), the goal would be to open the ballpark in time for the 2028 season, which is a significant date as it is tied to the team's current lease at The Trop expiring after 2027. This deal might represent the last hopes of Tampa Bay getting a new park built without some sort of lease extension or temporary home - or worst case, selling or moving the team.
All of the questions we always have about almost every new ballpark built in this century still apply to the proposed new Rays ballpark. Why does a millionaire need a handout? How is a 30,000 seat stadium economically viable for a public investment? How does a professional sports team positively or negatively affect the average taxpayer? What is the true amount of the total public money behind all of the smoke and mirrors - hidden infrastructure costs, who pays for cost overruns, sale cost of the publicly owned land to the team vs actual appraised value, etc? I'm conflicted on these questions at best and won't rehash the topic of subsidizing sports venues. It's a problem that is never going away as there is always going to be some city somewhere willing to shell out cash for a value that may be real or perceived. The Rays also have the added layer of their ballpark location. For the longest time, the team was pursuing a site in downtown Tampa as that is where the majority of the team's fans are concentrated, and studies have shown the huge obstacle of getting people to games over the bay as a reason for poor attendance. But the team is going all-in on the battle-tested theory that "if you build it, they will come." And in this case, I don't mean that the stadium is "it," but rather the development surrounding the ballpark. It came down to the fact that the Rays have access to a seemingly infinite amount of land at the Tropicana site, and just wouldn't be afforded that luxury at the Tampa site, despite the perk of being closer to the population base. The Braves forever changed the game when they constructed The Battery around their new ballpark 6 years ago, and we will be seeing every city in America moving this direction if they haven't already. It just makes sense to capture as much revenue as you can from 81+ events per year, particularly for teams in a smaller media market like the Rays.
Am I excited that we have another case of a wealthy owner essentially blackmailing a city for a new ballpark? Of course not. Am I excited that I will have to go back to God's Waiting Room in Florida, probably in the peak of summer heat? Hell no. But will fancy renderings of a beautiful new ballpark blind me to all of that? Absolutely. The Rays deserve a new ballpark more than possibly any other MLB team because of how good they've been the last 15 years despite playing in a dump with no fans and a bare-bones payroll, so I'm excited for them and I hope this new stadium is, for once, more than hearsay.
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.
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