A new ballpark in the Ybor City area of Tampa would cost roughly $892MM, as per a study commissioned by the Tampa Sports Authority. According to Charlie Frago and C.T. Bowen of The Tampa Bay Times, the price tag would cover a ballpark with a 27K capacity, intended to be the Rays’ new home stadium for an entire season, rather than a split-season situation like the Rays’ now-scuttled proposal to play games in both Tampa and Montreal.
The cost of the Ybor City ballpark includes a roof, which is essential for playing games in Florida during the summer. (The Rays wouldn’t be using the stadium for Spring Training games, as the team may be planning a new spring camp site in nearby Pasco County.) Public revenue for the ballpark could be raised by some increased property taxes on local developers within the “ballpark district,” though it remains to be seen how much of the total cost would be covered by the city and how much would be covered by the Rays themselves. The club previously indicated they would be willing to spend around $350MM towards construction of a new ballpark, though that was based on the concept of a stadium costing around $700MM and in use for only the non-Montreal portion of the schedule. The Rays didn’t issue a public comment on the TSA’s study.
More from around the baseball world…
- The Rockies made a point of overhauling their analytics department this winter, bringing several new employees into the research & development department from other teams and other non-baseball fields. While the Rockies are often criticized for being an insular organization, these hirings indicate some acknowledgement that “adjustments were needed and fresh people needed to be brought in,” GM Bill Schmidt told The Denver Post’s Patrick Saunders. “There were, and are, a lot of good people here. But…we needed some new ideas. We needed everybody pulling in the same direction.”
- J.J. Bleday has yet to really break out in the Marlins’ farm system, with only a .224/.320/.374 slash line to show for 619 plate appearances in pro ball. Of course, the fourth overall pick of the 2019 draft had his development set back by the canceled 2020 minor league season, and Bleday told The Miami Herald’s Jordan McPherson that he is heading into 2022 around 20 pounds heavier than he was at the start of last year’s Spring Training. “I feel more grounded when I’m a little bit bigger, have more body control. And then the main thing, just recovery. My sleep’s been better, and overall my body feels a lot more recovered,” Bleday said. While his tough 2021 campaign resulted in several pundits dropping Bleday from their top-100 prospect rankings, there is already hope for a rebound. Bleday made some swing changes and hit better over the last five weeks of the last minor league season, and he then posted a whopping 1.035 OPS over 115 PA in the Arizona Fall League. With this performance in mind, McPherson feels Bleday will probably start 2022 with the Marlins’ Triple-A affiliate.
27k capacity tells you everything you need to know about the demand for Rays baseball in Tampa… in Ybor or anywhere else in the area. Get the team out of Florida, please
I thought that capacity had to have been a misprint!
It is. The actual capacity would be 52k . Living in Tampa and following the relocation drama over the past 4 seasons, the team has tries to relocate to the Ybor area and have also inquired about land near the TIA Airport. The property owners are demanding to sell at a very high price….No way the Rays relocate ST to Pasco Co. There is no interstate access from there to reach central / East Coast ST sites. They would have to drive south to hit the I-4 interchange to travel. And the team is looking for a retractable roof instead of another dome for a new park.
And why are public funds involved!
Other than Dodger Stadium which was privately built what ballpark did not include local Government assistance?
Ummmm….what’s the average attendance at good old PNC? Well under that even in their best years. Smaller park will lead to increased demand assuming a better location.
Are you high? When the Pirates were competing, they were averaging around 31K. They ranked 15th in attendance in 2015. The Rays don’t get close to that number even being a powerhouse team. PNC Park had around 41K in attendance for their last Wild Card appearance. In the Rays playoff series last year, they averaged an attendance 32K – just barely topping the Pirates 2015 regular season attendance. All of this despite the fact that Tropicana has the ability to hold thousands of more fans than PNC Park.
Boston only holds 5g more than that, right?
Fenway Park has 40% more capacity than 27,000 (37,731). That’s a big difference, given that’s the current lowest capacity. Probably not a huge issue for the Rays in the regular season, but seems like they’d lose a lot of playoff revenue with that limitation.
Correction, I see Progressive Field is actually the smallest: 34,830. But that’s a technicality because it’s artificially limited, the same stadium used to hold 45,000 and they do add temporary seating when they need it.
A great stadium making Comerica look half completed.
Rays baseball doesn’t exist in Tampa. It exists in St. Pete. If hockey works in Tampa, baseball will. They need an appropriately located park on the Tampa side of the bay. And Ybor and a 27k seat venue isn’t the answer either.
Hockey only works because the Snowbirds actually live there during hockey season, as opposed to baseball season.
What’s up with that big open field just south of the airport, at the corner of W. Spruce and N. Obrien? That looks like a lot of underutilized land. And it’s in Tampa, near the airport, and several major routes from Pinellas County pretty much lead right to it.
How about: Make the owner start paying for his own team, please? Moving the team doesn’t do any good when you have a system in place that heavily rewards a small-market team like the Rays. He doesn’t move them because he makes a killing on the team. He gets funds allocated to pay for his team by big-market teams, while having draft pick allocation, etc to support a never-ending crop of high-end, cheap, young talent he can trade in a few seasons.
That’s not dramatically lower than most new Parks that have been built lately.
If I’m not mistaken, it seems like most newer parks are being built with smaller capacities.
Not for MLB they aren’t, at least nowhere to this degree.
Truist Park (Braves) – Capacity of 41,084 (Initially 41,149)
Globe Life Field (Rangers) – Capacity of 40,300
27K is fine. Only two teams exceeded those numbers in average attendance. If the Rays double their average attendance from 9,500 to 20,000 they would be in great shape. A new stadium in a more accessible location will do that.
Average attendance means that many games draw well in excess of that number. A ballpark with such a small capacity can’t do that unless there are sellouts every game, which only ever happens during a stadium’s first year.
Besides, even an average of 20K is still well below most teams and wouldn’t help the Rays’ budget as much as they would reasonably need.
Florida? there is a team in Pittsburgh that can’t draw a crowd either. Easy to get to , beautiful stadium and no one shows up. Pittsburgh may lose their team after this next CBA.
I’ll forever wonder why fans of other cities care about Florida baseball team attendance. Could it be jealousy?
Did you not read the comment above? Pittsburgh can’t draw a crowd because they’re bad. When they were competing, they averaged 31K per game. The Rays barely got that in the playoffs! Even now, the Pirates draw more fans than the Rays do and the Rays are good.
When they were competing, they averaged 31K per game.
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Not really true. They never reached 31k. They did reach 30,847, so 31k obviously qualifies, but 31k is an average for one year, not the average for when they were competing.
One year they averaged almost 31k. The 2nd & 3rd highest was 30k. The 4th & 5th highest were 28k.
The more likely is that 2.1M is a bit of a stretch. They’ve only had 2.1M 5x in their history. And when they won their last WS in 1979, they still only averaged 17,722.
@JoeBrady the point is that the Rays have only had a higher attendance than the Pirates 4 times in their entire existence – one being their very first season (presumably for the novelty…). The Rays were a playoff team last year and nobody would have been flabbergasted if they won the whole thing. The Pirates lost over 100 games and STILL had a higher attendance than the Rays in 2021. The Pirates not drawing fans because they’re bad isn’t the same as the Rays issue. The Pirates attendance consistently has fluctuated with team performance. What the Rays are doing doesn’t matter. The attendance is always bad.
Yeah, and the Marlins still don’t draw well even after getting their new ballpark.
The big problem with MLB teams in Florida is that the people with the most money don’t actually live there during most of baseball season. Then you’ve also got all the senior citizens living solely off of social security and their other retirement plans. This all greatly hurts the potential of both ticket sales and team-based media subscriptions well out of proportion of Florida cities’ actual market sizes.
Is 27k really that bad though? The teams best attendance average was 23k in 2009. 27k allows a massive uptick from where they are now while still not looking like an empty stadium if it held 35k or more
Maybe not in a vacuum, but it’s just further proof that Tampa Bay will never meet the standards of an MLB market, and the Rays should be moved out of the state. Even such an improvement still wouldn’t allow them to have close to average payrolls even when they’re good.
One would think the MLB ownership would consider where the owner’s primary residence is too. Stu is a NY guy. Why would the team want him running a Florida franchise? His investment in the community is not going to be what it would be if it were a Florida business owner. Just my opinion though.
Las Vegas, Portland and Oakland are only planning stadiums that hold a maximum of 34,000. 27K will be fine.
Bleday been hitting Taco Bell…..
I was gonna to say… Did he gain 20 pounds of muscle or 20 pounds of fat? One is very good but the other is very bad. I’ve heard players like Andruw Jones, Miguel Cabrera and Pablo Sandoval trying to justify gaining fat before by coming up with various random reasons they say it makes them better but it’s never true. I remember Jones used to say he was better when he was fat because the extra weight gave him “more energy for the long season.” He was acting like he was an Eskimo trying to make it through a harsh winter or something. The fat definitely didn’t help him at all and likely contributed to him having such a short and often frustrating career.
You heard him: got grounded, so it’s gotta be tacos.
Rays are so cheap they will mess up the Ybor City deal too.
They act like people in the area care what happens to them.
That is, people other than bidnezz men wanting to make bank on them…..
Five non-MLB cities in the Southeast deserve a team more than Tampa Bay. Pick the one you like most and move the team there (and change the name).
Charlotte
Memphis
Nashville
New Orleans
Raleigh
I have always thought the Carolina Reapers would be a great name but I doubt any mlb team actually moves or is created to use it…
I like the Charlotte Ramplings myself
i would just keep the Charlotte Stone Crabs moniker. established, good color scheme, sounds nice on the ears.
830 that one went right over your head
Just get them out of Florida and change the team name. They can become the Virginia Beach Vampires for all I care. They would still draw better than TB.
Honestly I think even Birmingham would draw better than Tampa but I don’t see the state of Alabama ever getting a team.
They did have a WFL team if I’m not mistaken.
The Charlotte Mousses.
They have the Birmingham Stallions in the USFL
Don’t confuse St Pete with Tampa…. They would do much better in Tampa and everyone here knows it…
Charlotte had a stadium built just a few years ago when they got their AAA team but it doesn’t seat very many. I wonder if that hurts their chances. Like can they extend the bleachers or actually demolish and build a new stadium?
I am still surprised Raleigh, Charlotte and/or Nashville doesn’t have a pro team yet, especially with how conducive the weather is for baseball there. Beautiful cities with decent-sized populations that would attend pro games, imo.
Of those markets only Nashville could support an MLB team. Also see the Orioles as a team that could move there since Baltimore is a dead City.
Balt needs new ownership. They have supported teams in the past. But this ownership is only interested in money in their pocket…. Aka greedy… as far as the Rays, their answer is locating the team in Tampa, not St Pete or Ybor city… end of story…
Baltimore needs new leaders.
Badco: Yes, you’re correct. As I cited above, until MLB disincentivizes tanking & keeps rewarding based solely on small-market classification it won’t change. There should be one incentive for teams: winning. That’s when teams try, that’s when they put money into their team, that’s when they stop accepting fifth place in their division year after year. If not for the fans’ demands the Yankees would be nowhere near what they are year after year. And CashHal openly acknowledge they take action based on the fans’ expectations. He’s a greedy, penny-pinching owner just like the rest, but stays near the top in payroll because he has to, not because he wants to.
Charlotte has a significantly bigger CSMA than Nashville, and Raleigh is only one rank below Nashville (and Milwaukee one rank below Raleigh).
I wonder how the Rays would do if their stadium was closer to most of the population and was much more modern.
Of course, if they want to find out, they can pay for a new one themselves.
Of those 5, realistically only Charlotte and Nashville would have the best opportunity to be successful. It’s hard to believe Nashville doesn’t have a professional baseball or basketball team considering the location and popularity of the city.
I have two major issues with the Rays: First is that their entire operation is supported by others, yet they claim victim status to a small market; second, why in the world do they need a second ST stadium, especially if they are concerned with money and getting stadium locations?
It seems illogical to me. Instead of dealing with the issues Stu is causing, the ownership collective in MLB views him as a good business model. Personally, monetarily, he’s doing very well, but it’s at the expense of part of the game.
Tired of losing to the Rays? as far as the ST site it was ridiculous having it Charlotte to begin when the Fans are in the northern and eastern suburbs. Having ST in Pasco near I75 should always have been plan..
No, if you think that was the point you miss the bigger picture and problem with how the Rays are operated, as well as how it adversely affects ownership and revenue dispersement/drafting/compensation picks league-wide.
If the Rays move to somewhere else in the East then they would still play in the same division as the Yankees and the roster would still be the same. That’s assuming there’s no expansion of course.
Personally, monetarily, he’s doing very well, but it’s at the expense of part of the game.
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How are they doing professionally? ..617, 667, .593 looks pretty good. They just aren’t going to get the fans. It’s just not NY or Boston or Chicago, where the love of the local team has been passed down for generations.
Yes, but the only reason they’re doing well is because the system enforces rules that make it so. They wouldn’t be nearly as successful if Stu had to float his own team, based solely on success, not free comps. He doesn’t even live in Florida. His economics are now the envy of teams like the Yankees but it is working against the game itself in every respect. And professionally they are relatively successful, but still aren’t winning championships. It’s not that they can’t win them, but the choose to maintain a lower payroll. It’s cyclical.
So.. the Rays want the taxpayers of Ybor City to pay for their stadium…this should be a flat no. They don’t need that mess…
No the Rays don’t, not really. They know it will be rejected so they have another reason to move to Nashville.
Hockey sells out every night. Many hours before each game, the local establishments have plenty of people, MANY hours after each game, the local establishments have plenty of people. In St. Pete, you have to plan for your 5 mile, 2 hour ride to the dead zone; then, leave quickly for your 5 mile, 1 1/2 hour ride home.
That’s only because the Snowbirds actually live there during hockey season.
If you really believe that the Bolts do well because of snowbirds, you don’t know anything about Tampa, Florida.
$900M doesn’t buy what it used to. A stadium that seats 27k? That’s tiny.
Would they fill that up in the postseason?
If they built it (on their own dime) closer to the population center, I would think attendance would jump. Everything I’ve heard is it’s not conveniently located relative to most of the Tampa Bay area residents. I’ve visited the ballpark 2-3 times, and it’s certainly a sterile environment, but I didn’t dislike it as much as some do.
The Red sox lived with 33,500 for 100 years.
That’s still almost 25% more than this proposal, and the current Fenway seating capacity is 40% higher. I realize the Rays don’t have as many fans as the Red Sox, but they still need somewhere for fans to sit if attendance does grow.
Every MLB stadium built from now on should be a baseball customized version of SoFi Stadium in LA, with the covered roof yet still open air environment.
How many more people would go to baseball games if they knew they weren’t going to waste a lot of their time and money only to have rain (a fairly common event on Earth) ruin it all?
The Rays at Ybor thing is about dragging it out to the “Point of Diminishing Marginal Returns” then getting it done, like everyone knows will happen anyway. Why put up monies until you HAVE TO. 27K is crazy, build it in Ybor City and put in 40K seats, IT WILL WORK, IT IS NOT ST PETE (THE ISLAND NATION). If George was still here, this would have been done 5 years ago.
In other news: Do you know how to get an NFL player off his knees, just say ” court’s in session, will the defendant please rise”
The Rockies use of box scores from newspapers has guided their advanced analytics department admirably for years. Why change now when they are contenders?
im taking the over on 94 wins next year!
IRT Bleday, as others have mentioned, is that 20 pounds of muscle or 20 pounds of fat. Without that information, the 20 pound factoid is meaningless.
That said, I put a lot of stock into the AZFL, and that was a pretty good performance. He especially addressed some of his hit-and-miss tendencies with a very nice 23/20 K/W.
It’s muscle. Hardly a spare ounce on him. Article with pictures on Marlins website
Owners are anticipating lower actual game attendance in the future. While MLB Media/Properties continues to increase it’s impact on driving revenues. The games themselves have become destination experiences over the past generation. Makes sense to pack 30k in a park every night, rather than have parks appear half empty most of the time. It hurts branding.
There is a lot of nonsense written about Tampa Bay being a small market team. Tampa Bay is a larger metropolitan area than the following:
Denver
Baltimore
St Louis
Charlotte
San Antonio
Pittsburgh
Cincinatti
Kansas City
Cleveland
Memphis
But are people in Tampa baseball fans? They’ve had great teams over the last few years, and the attendance is abysmal. If Detroit had that team, every game would be sold out, and Comerica is a s**t ballpark.
bingo. just having more people doesnt mean those people will watch baseball games. this is why every sport has watered down Florida too much.
The stadium is located far away from their fans and no mass transit, It really is as simple as that. It’s annoying listening to people that don”t know the area putting their worthless 2 cents into an subject that really has nothing to do with them.
After my time at Bradenton and Sarasota…I can think of better things people can do there than sit in a ballpark. If baseball were a winter sport…Tampa might actually be one or the best markets.
Bradenton and especially Sarasota have a lot of snowbirds, beach people.
Yes, that’s true and growing. They’re not leaving that size population. Besides, is attendance going to be that important in the future? TV audience is much more important.
When at best you’re a mid market team the $60,000,000-$80,000,000 that brings in is pretty big. If they had excellent attendance (similar to Cardinals) they’d be even better the last decade and with money sharing they’d haveoney to put into their team before counting tv, parking, and other income.
The Rays just need to move and get out of Florida. Nashville actually supports their sports teams. Seems like a great location to me.
Perhaps. The issue is the 81 game home schedule.
I like the idea of Nashville but think the braves and/or Cardinals would have to be appeased in some monetary way.
27k is enough fans & it allows more space for other amenities.
Building a baseball stadium should be all about increasing the non-baseball revenues. Look at Portland and Oakland. Their stadium plans include a major real estate development. Non of the rental fees from the real estate get become shared MLB revenues.
The Mariners had low attendance and financial problems until they bought Root Sports the Northwest’s Regional Sports Network. They still have low attendance but they pay themselves a premium price for baseball broadcasts and collect from the other sports teams, too. Financial problems solved.
It doesn’t matter where the stadium is located. Same as the Marlins. Too many other things to do in Florida. Marlins stadium is beautiful but empty.Florida funny about BB. I played in S Florida and even the equipment was harder to find. Ex, lefthanded 1B gloves weren’t for adults and they had lefthanded Catcher’s mitts for BB, not softball. Funny state for BB.
It’s true. The Mets are one of the worst teams in baseball but they play in a state with a lot of baseball history. That’s why fans go to games. Florida has no baseball history aside from the Marlins catching lightning in a bottle and then immediately tearing it down a couple times.
It doesn’t matter where the stadium is located. Same as the Marlins. Too many other things to do in Florida. Marlins stadium is beautiful but empty. Same for Tampa. Florida funny about BB. I played in S Florida and even the equipment was harder to find. Ex, lefthanded 1B gloves weren’t for adults and they had lefthanded Catcher’s mitts for BB, not softball. Funny state for BB.