Rays’ 2028 stadium deal in jeopardy

The Rays will play their 2025 home games at Tampa’s George M. Steinbrenner Field — the Yankees’ spring training home — in the wake of damage to Tropicana Field from Hurricane Milton. There’s been an ongoing debate about whether “the Trop” will be repaired in the interim, as the current site was planned to be the site of a new Rays stadium set to open in 2028. Recent events have put that 2028 deal in jeopardy, John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times reports, and Rays owner Stu Sternberg is again referencing relocation as a possible outcome.

As Romano outlines, Hurricane Milton and the ensuing damage prompted the city council and county commission to postpone scheduled bond votes that were key to securing financing for the redevelopment plan. Those delays pushed the vote back by one month, but in doing so pushed them back beyond the November election, meaning the composition of the boards who are voting on the requisite bonds has changed. Romano adds that the timeline to break ground in 2025 was already “tight” and carried “very little wiggle room.”

“Last month, the County Commission upended our ballpark agreement by not approving their bonds, as they promised to do,” Sternberg told the Times. “That action sent a clear message that we had lost the county as a partner. The future of baseball in Tampa Bay became less certain after that vote.”

Sternberg pledged to “exhaust all [options]” to keep the Rays in the area but eventually conceded that relocation is “not an unlikely conclusion.” Pinellas County commissioner Chris Latvala, per ABC Action News’ Chad Mills, recently blasted the team for committing to play the 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field rather than a facility located within Pinellas County, such as Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark (the spring home of the Phillies). Clearwater mayor Bruce Rector offered similar criticism to Romano.

Romano points out that Steinbrenner Field has a larger capacity and much more recently upgraded facilities, setting the stage for a smoother transition and lower revenue losses. Latvala and Rector contend that Pinellas County taxpayers are committing $1 billion in public funding, and thus the Rays should have felt obligated to play their games at a stadium within Pinellas County, rather than nearby Hillsborough County, where Steinbrenner Field is located.

There’s no indication that the Pinellas County Commission will now vote against the previously approved bonds, but Latvala didn’t sound particularly motivated to speed the process along, regardless of the redevelopment’s tight timeline. 

“If we want to take our time, we can take our time,” he told Romano. “…I don’t think we should be rushed. And if the bonds fall through, so be it.”

It’s possible the delays could already be enough to push back breaking of ground and delay the stadium’s readiness into 2029. That could come with increased construction costs, which Romano speculates could put the Rays on the hook for more than $100M in additional expenses — all at a time when they’ll be taking in reduced revenues from 2025-28 due to playing games at a smaller site. That will also play a major role in the team’s decision on whether to remain in Florida or more aggressively pursue a relocation bid.