Now that the Tampa Bay Rays have killed a massive $1.3 billion stadium and $6.5 billion redevelopment deal planned for the 86-acre Tropicana Field site, what's next for the team?
It could be sold. Or owner Stuart Sternberg could wait until the Rays' stadium contract with St. Petersburg ends in 2028.
Tampa Bay Times sports columnist John Romano has reported the Rays are pitching the idea of renovating the Trop, which would keep them in St. Petersburg for another 10 years.
Romano talked to WUSF about the possibilities.
You mentioned that the Rays had "cold feet" about this whole deal. This wasn't entirely unexpected, though, was it?
No, the Rays have pretty much been signaling they were leaning in this direction since early November, after the Pinellas County Commission had delayed the bond vote. And when I say cold feet, the way the team has described it, is, even when they signed the deal last summer, they felt that there was a small margin for error there, that basically, if they were going to commit $700 million of their own money into building this stadium, they needed to make sure they were going to make enough profit over the next 30 years to make that $700 million worthwhile. At the time, they said it was a very close call.
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Once there was the hurricanes, the (commission) delay, the stadium was going to open a year later. Also, they were going to be losing money in 2025 because of the move to (Tampa''s) Steinbrenner Field. Lots of different scenarios worked into it, but they said it no longer was advantageous for them.
But we've never actually seen any kind of documents as to what kind of money they're talking about, though, have we?
They talked about the idea that the one-year delay was going to drive costs up for them for a number of reasons. You know, they were throwing out hundreds of millions of dollars potentially, but they've never shown proof of that, and that's one of the things Mayor Ken Welch talked about on Thursday, that there has never been any evidence that there would be a cost increase.
Now you could say common sense would tell you that a year later, construction costs are going to be more than they would a year earlier, but there's also the possibility that interest rates go down.
Let's talk about where the deal goes from here. Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, has been putting a lot of pressure on the team to maybe sell it or keep the team in Tampa Bay. How much pull do you think that has in this whole thing?
Well, the commissioner hasn't talked about the Rays selling, although there seems to be a lot of speculation that he is leaning on Stu Sternberg to sell the team, but he has been pretty clear that he wants Major League Baseball to stay in Tampa Bay, which is obviously a good sign. And a lot of people take that very optimistically, but I would point out that the commissioner said the same sort of thing about Oakland nine years ago, that Oakland was a major league city, and it would be an even better city 10 years later, and now the A's are on their way to Las Vegas. So it's a good thing to hear from the commissioner, but I don't think you can count it as a guarantee.
We've been hearing a lot of chatter, a lot of rumors about several well-heeled groups that are looking maybe to buy the team, based in Tampa.
There's at least two ownership groups that have stepped forward and have been identified. Supposedly, there (are) more out there. T(here are some pretty big names that have been thrown out there as the sort of the quiet backers of these ownership groups. The problem is, we're talking an awful lot of money here. If St. Petersburg moves on with redeveloping the Trop site without a baseball stadium, that pretty much means the stadium is going to have to be built in Hillsborough County. In Hillsborough County, the city of Tampa, the political willpower has never been there to fund a stadium, so that means most of the money is going to have to come from private money.
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So if you're talking about buying a Major League Baseball franchise, the numbers have bounced around in terms of how much the Rays might want if they sell, but I think $1.5 billion is probably pretty close, give or take a couple $100 million in either direction. So you're talking $1.5 billion just to buy the team. Then if you're privately financing a stadium in Hillsborough County, that's another $1.5 billion. So maybe these people have the money, but a $3 billion commitment is an awful lot, and we haven't seen a whole lot of evidence of that in Tampa Bay in the past.
And to your knowledge, are those Ybor City sites that have been mentioned before as potential sites, are they still available?
Darryl Shaw has a lot of land in Ybor City. He has talked to the Rays on numerous occasions about a couple different plots in that area. One sort of in the heart of Ybor, and there was another proposal for a site closer to Channelside, with a water view. So perhaps the land is there.
But the redevelopment that was part of the appeal of Tropicana Field, is they had 60 acres of parking lot. They could take that 60 acres of parking lot and turn that into a lot of money to help pay for the building of the stadium. That won't happen in Tampa. So you may get land from Darryl Shaw, who would like a stadium to anchor the rest of his property there, but you're not going to get the windfall of redevelopment to pay for the stadium.
"These days, it's very hard to get a stadium built with public money. Back in the '90s, it was happening all over. Cities were throwing cash at Major League Baseball, NFL teams to build their stadiums. That's not happening so much anymore. So it does take private dollars to get these deals done. "John Romano, Tampa Bay Times sports columnist
It sounds like you're not too optimistic about the Rays staying in the Tampa Bay area after 2028.
Well, we have been through an awful lot of proposals, different stadium ideas, different locations. It's just part of the process. These days, it's very hard to get a stadium built with public money. Back in the '90s, it was happening all over. Cities were throwing cash at Major League Baseball, NFL teams to build their stadiums. That's not happening so much anymore. So it does take private dollars to get these deals done. Usually, that's what made the Trop deals so attractive, that there was money coming from Pinellas County and the city and the redevelopment to get it done. It doesn't happen often these days. So yeah, it's, it's hard to see how it's how we get there from here.
"That does give them another four years to sort of decide what they want to do if they didn't have a place to play. It might have hastened a possible sale of the team. Now, the Rays have been pretty insistent that they're not for sale, even though they'll listen to offers, but now they really have no incentive to sell the team."John Romano, Tampa Bay Times sports columnist
Now that the March 31 deadline is coming and going, that kind of takes the time pressure off of Sternberg to sell the team. So this might get drawn out for quite a long period of time?
That's where the sort of the law of unintended consequences. The commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, when the Rays said, look, we don't think it's worthwhile to rebuild Tropicana Field after the hurricane, the commissioner stepped in and said, no, I want the Trop rebuilt, even if it's just for three or four years. So the Rays went ahead and said, OK, go ahead and do that to the city of St Petersburg. So now that does give them another four years to sort of decide what they want to do if they didn't have a place to play. It might have hastened a possible sale of the team. Now, the Rays have been pretty insistent that they're not for sale, even though they'll listen to offers, but now they really have no incentive to sell the team
Any final thoughts you want to share with us?
Stay tuned. It's been a 20-year process, and you know, we've never known where it was going to go, and we still don't today.
