St. Petersburg mayor Ken Welch announced this morning he’s selected the Rays’ proposed plan for redevelopment of St. Petersburg’s Gas Plant District (link via Colleen Welch of the Tampa Bay Times). The Rays had partnered with real estate development firm Hines for a proposed project, one of four such proposals submitted to the St. Petersburg Mayor’s Office in early December.
The selection does not represent a firm commitment between the Rays and the city of St. Petersburg for a new stadium. The organization still needs the approval of a term sheet by the city council, and Wright indicates that’s not expected to be decided upon until at least the summer. The mayor’s office selection of the Rays’ proposal over the other three under consideration represents a step forward in those negotiations, however.
Rays team president Brian Auld said Monday the team was “fully engaged” with St. Petersburg on negotiations but cautioned they’re still in the very early stages of the process (link via Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times). The Rays can continue to explore other long-term stadium possibilities until/unless a term sheet is agreed upon. While Welch expressed optimism the franchise would not do so, Auld indicated the organization was “continuing the dialogue” with the City of Tampa as well.
The Rays/Hines proposal extends well beyond the construction of a new ballpark. The Rays promoted the plan as a project featuring “more than 5,700 multifamily units, 1.4 million square feet of office, 300,000 square feet of retail, 700 hotel rooms, 600 senior living residences, a 2,500 person entertainment venue, and various civic uses” as part of a press release last month. The proposed new stadium would be a 30,000-seat venue at the site of current Tropicana Field. Topkin notes the project comes with an estimated price tag in the $1.2 billion range and would require agreement from the Rays, St. Petersburg city council, and Pinellas County on funding — highlighting the challenges still remaining in settling on finances in the coming months.
While far from an endpoint, the mayor’s decision represents some progress toward a potential agreement on a new stadium plan that’d keep the Rays in St. Petersburg. The franchise’s lease at Tropicana Field runs through the 2027 campaign, which obviously places a sense of urgency on any negotiations that’d involve a massive construction plan for the organization’s new venue (and associated projects). Hannah Dineen of WTSP chronicles some disparate responses among those within the St. Petersburg community regarding Welch’s decision.
Rays ownership has to be out of their mind to stay in Tampa. Winning team and still bottom 5 in attendance.
They actually wouldn’t do bad in downtown tampa it’s the fact that they is 30ish minutes outside not even counting the horrible traffic. But at the same time they could do so much better somewhere else as living Tampa through the early part of the 2010s it never seemed like the rays where the cities priority
Yes, but the new proposal is for St. Pete!!
Yup, lived in SoFL for years and you only go over the bridge if you absolutely have to. Building in Tampa would be great for them whereas St. Pete is not good for baseball. I’d personally like to see how they do in Tampa before they move, let a team like Oakland move and expand the league so we don’t have to have interleague play everyday.
I assume you mean the I-275 (Gandy/Howard Frankland) bridge since that would be the closest to downtown Tampa. It can be busy, but the vast majority of traffic before a game would be going northeast on I-275. Traffic to Pinellas at that time is not bad. I can easily do it in 30 minutes unless there is an accident. And there are accidents.
But it took me longer to get to Turner Field when I lived in north Cobb. Even with Truist in Cobb, it was more than 30 minutes from my home in north Cobb to the stadium.
I guess I do not see the issue getting to downtown St. Pete for games. We went several times last season, doing both weekday, evening, and weekend games. Never took more than 30 minutes to get to the park. Took longer to exit the parking lot and get to I-275 than I would like, but that is a parking lot issue.
The team would be far better off if they moved to Tampa proper and got Sternberg to sell to someone who has a connection to the Tampa area. He seemed like an elitist who doesn’t know or care about his players when I saw him get interviewed during spring training a few years ago. He’s extremely lucky that his subordinates crafted such a good baseball ops department or else he’d be more hated than Nutting, Castellini, Moreno, etc
They’re not really in Tampa and that’s their main problem. If they move the stadium to this side of the bay, they’ll have higher attendance just based on ease of access alone.
Shows how little Stuey cares. Also shows just how much money these teams are making by keeping things exactly as they are. But, how can you turn down an annual profit and a brand new taxpayer-funded stadium…..
It’s called taking the best available offer that you can get. That whole area around the Trop is getting redeveloped so imagine the positives with a redeveloped Tropicana Field lot can offer (I buy a season ticket plan every year & I live in Dade City).
At first glance, I thought it read “St. Petersburg’s Gas Pants District”. Now that would be a newsworthy announcement.
No, the state of Florida is the real problem, not the city of St. Petersburg. They may draw somewhat better with a new stadium in Tampa proper, but their attendance will suck compared to most other teams after a couple of years. The Marlins have already proven it.
No MLB team will ever manage to have decent attendance in the Snowbird State.
They are not just building a stadium on the current site but a mixed use development.
Please call Florida something other than what you did. The few natives here (24%) are tired of the outlanders who move here and are then called “a man from Florida” Most of the time they are from another state, country or planet. I would rather pay the highest state income tax in the country than have all these millionaire/billionaire people living here to avoid taxes. We do not call them snowbirds anymore. They are snowflakes.
Since most people come from somewhere else they go to a baseball game only when their “home team” is playing. Until the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966 the south had NO team. I had favorite teams and today I would not cheer for any of them.
I watched spring training games but only went when teams I liked were playing because I did not like the team that was using Tampa. (Reds) I saw the best MLB had back then. (Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle etc)
I was born in Tampa. St. Petersburg is definitely a better place to live.
I worked in Tampa and I could not have gotten to downtown Tampa for a game unless it was 8pm or after. Ybor would be the absolute worst choice. Crime is too much.
Florida is not a good place for summer sports. Baseball has a long season, but most of it is spring and summer. People are mostly here as tourists fall and winter. (another thing I wish I could change to NEVER)
I agree: Florida teams will never have high attendance. Thank God.
LV would have the same problem as Florida. Mostly people going to see their home team, not a local team.
Sorry for my ignorance, but isn’t location one of the biggest issues with the current stadium? How does building a second stadium on the same site ease that barrier?
I thought the same. If I was the city, I’d let the team walk.
I live an hour away from the stadium and yes, location is the main issue. A new stadium in the same place does nothing.
All we’ve heard about for years is the Rays issue is their stadium location. The proposed solution: a new stadium in the same location.
Maybe this is a negotiating tactic to put pressure on the city of Tampa during their negotiations.
This is exactly what I was going to jump on. How can franchise ownership quietly push the idea that the location of their present ballpark is the root cause of their attendance and support issues then propose not moving? I thought that word would have come down from MLB to either find a new location in the vicinity of Tampa or make plans to leave the area entirely.
It’s beyond time that cities refuse to fund stadiums for gazillionaires. It’s ridiculous and many studies in the past have dis-proven the benefits claimed by team owners.
I agree. They are the ones with money not average citizens.
You mean there’s actually hope of getting out of that dump of a stadium now?
terible idea rays need move out crap tampa
Will need at least until the summer to sort out the graft necessary to gain the support of the city council.
Too little, too late. Moving to Vegas seems like a no brainer.
I’m in Orange County, CA, and wish Arte Moreno would do something – anything – to the little A. Mind you, I’m a Dodgers fan by blood, but I still want my community to thrive. He’s awful. And it’s a shame he’s staying owner.
Well he did have a deal in place to update the stadium and surrounding area until that fell through and costed the mayor his job. So i guess technically we can say he tried to do “something” even if it wasn’t exactly legal
It’s tough when the economic corruption in your town runs so deep that it takes an FBI sting operation to unravel. I’m sure the voters will make different decisions tomorrow!
Ditto. Gotta love that 6% property tax bump. Comical to hear how California cares about it’s people.
No brainer is right. You’d have to be lacking a brain to move from the 13th ranked market, Tampa Bay, to the 40th, Las Vegas.
The people who keep pounding the Vegas drum for MLB have zero clue about LV being a very small TV market (smaller than Cincinnati). No matter how large the population in LV gets, it will never really have suburbs to increase its overall market size. Local TV money is everything for MLB teams. Stadiums, advertising, and sports betting help, but local TV money is the gravy. The city of Las Vegas can build a new baseball stadium all they want, but they can’t provide a team with a competitive local TV contract. It would take a massive overpay by the local LV TV sports network to make it work so a MLB team can compete for salary demands. Otherwise, a LV team will be run by either constant rebuilds and/or numerous salary deferments. MLB in Vegas would likely be a failure no matter how many fans are in a new stadium.
The Golden Knights and Raiders say hello..
MLB economics are different. MLB teams need that local tv money. NFL has no such need. I have no clue how NHL economics work. I imagine attendance is very important in hockey.
NHL economics 101
Canadian teams drive 75% of the revenue for the league.
Knowing they are the #4 or even #5 sport up against NBA and NFL for most of their schedule (including MLB playoffs and WS) they have a hard cap that’s well below any of the big 3 and once you have 2 or 3 players maxed out you’re essentially capped out and everyone else signs low AAV short term deals to fill out rosters
Thank you! That helps. Does NHL have both a league wide broadcasting contract and a local broadcast contract like MLB? Or do they all feed from the same pot like the NFL. I’m sure, either way, the total sum figures are quite small compared to the NFL, MLB and NBA.
I’m not an expert, but I stayed at a Holiday inn once.
Yea pretty sure it’s a close 50 50 split between players and owners. Where all attendance all merchandise all TV or app / media money is pooled and split between all teams.
There’s an escrow to ensure salaries aren’t out of line with revenues since last CBA, if revenues skyrocket the league would eliminate the escrow and split monies etc.
It’s expected a larger salary cap rise in a year or two
Ahh…total revenue sharing. Thanks!
You’re welcome, might have a thing or two slightly off, but that’s pretty much the skeleton structure of the league.
My team gets punished, we drive the majority of the “Canadian” revenue in Toronto and have been labeled “the center of the Hockey Universe” even though we haven’t won a first round playoff series in nearly 2 decades haven’t won a Cup since 67. I wasn’t even Alive then and my father barely remembers it.
We were doing our best Yankees impression for a few years, Even maybe what’s in store for the Mets. Just tried to buy our Championship and far outspent every team because…….we could
Had the strike not happened and all these salary restrictions etc not occurred, We’d probably had gotten contraction from some warm weather places that don’t support Hockey as much. But made the player pool stronger, better game etc and my team might have actually broken the curse by now.
Anyway rant over
Actually broad street, according to multiple sources including the Chicago tribune “The NFL earns the lion’s share of its money with TV deals”
Honestly common sense should tell you the NHL and NFL draw smaller crowds than baseball with both having much shorter seasons. The Vegas golden knights play with 17,000-18,000 seats.
Despite what you think about the suburbs of Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas are growing faster than most cities. According to the 2020 census, Nevada was the 5th fastest growing state of the last decade. Plus Vegas has more TVs at bars and casinos and 42-32 million tourists per year. Many of those sports fanatics and professional gamblers. The TV market might be on the smaller side but it’s growing exponentially faster than 90% of the country, while some current MLB markets are shrinking.
@ Joey
NHL is half with an 82 game schedule
NFL has I think an 18 game schedule, but let’s not get confused, NFL probably makes more revenue in super bowl advertising than the NHL makes for a whole season. So I don’t think using both are a good comparison to MLB.
In my mind I think both leagues pull in similar revenue, NFL boasts the ability to benefit from the scarcity, you HAVE to tune in because there’s only 1 chance per week to root for your favorite team. MLB gets the summer to themselves essentially to profit, open air stadiums come get a hotdog with family
It’s getting away from that and I’m worried it’ll kill baseball
As far as Vegas, we got it poured down our throats on both NFL and NHL expansion that Vegas is bad for the leagues because….Gambling, not just the optics if something weird happens in a LV game on tilted odds, but both teams apparently just give away tickets similar to free buffets and Celine Deon performances that aren’t selling well. Freebies.
Tourists might schedule a trip to see their team if they’re diehards. Or Canadians might just go see whoever knowing they’ll get comp tickets.
Not shattin on LV, cool place. The lake Meade drama and it receding is interesting. Growing population. BAR RESCUE is a pretty awesome show from back in the day. Always wanted to do a tour to see if any are still around
NFL teams share all the tv money equally. Not so in MLB. The difference between the Dodgers and the Reds is enormous.
2020 proved how (not) vital attendance is to MLB. They don’t need fans in the stands to thrive. The teams that spent this off-season have local TV contracts that pay between $60M and $200M per season on top of the national tv money.
No matter how large LV and its 2 suburbs get in population, it will never outgrow its boundaries of desert, mountains, Death Valley, Lake Meade, reservations, and national parks.
Applying whatever successes that the Raiders, Golden Knights, and Aviators currently have in LV is a useless exercise. The must-have money for competitive success in MLB comes from local sports networks broadcasting the daily games. The LV footprint will never get any bigger no matter the population, and people won’t be sitting around watching baseball on tv in LV. Any team moving to Las Vegas just for a shiny new stadium is still going to have payroll problems if they can’t score a lucrative local tv deal. Kind of hard to do in the island desert of Las Vegas.
@ jays
The comparison between leagues will never be perfect but being 3 of the 4 biggest sports in North America make them the best we have.
People have said for a long time Vegas would never get pro sports teams because of the gambling but that’s been proven wrong.
If Vegas keeps growing faster than the rest of the country they will get an MLB team. It’s just a matter of when. Casinos love giving away free tickets to shows and sporting events to big spenders. While most tourists won’t go to sporting events, some will. The overall number of tourists, the cheapest flights in the country and free hotel stays for gamblers bodes well for trying to attract crowds. The no state tax, and cheap construction are other factors sure to attract a billionaire owner, eventually.
When the Golden Knights and Raiders play 81 home games outdoors in the Summer, your analogy will have merit. There is zero correlation between an NFL team playing 8-10 home games indoors in the Fall, or an NHL team playing 41 home games indoors over Winter and Spring, and the long MLB season played outdoors.
The relocating team is going to have to finance a stadium on its own. Allegiant Stadium is backed by room tax, extremely unlikely a second such tax would be added to hotel bills. AAA team just built 10,000 seat outdoor stadium 5 years ago.
Add in the extreme boom/bust of the Las Vegas economy, too dependent on tourism, and this is not an optimistic idea.
This thread has worked to restore a bit of faith in the comments section…some nice detail and discussion by a few members. A few points to consider:
* Saw something years ago on the potential market share for each sport. By memory (the numbers might be off but should be at least in the ballpark)…about 60% or more of US population was available for capture by the NFL / 50% and declining for MLB / 40%ish for NBA / and something like 5% for hockey.
* Never understood why the NHL needed to expand everywhere. Canada and the original northern markets? Sure. Slow expansion to adjacent markets over time…yup. But there is no deep fan base in most of the expansion markets.
* Vegas…yeah, it has issues as a market for sure. And the Vegas growth rate is really down, with major water issues. They should have stopped growing due to that alone. Tourist market, not a deep fanbase market…similar issue to FLA in that regard.
* No easy solution to baseball in FLA where everyone is from elsewhere, but at least put the Tampa stadium in Tampa. Terrible location in St. Pete.
Completely inaccurate. As in MLB, TV revenue is the big driving financial force. In face the US has more teams so that would equate to it adding more than the ‘far left’ I mean far north.
Agree. Same issues as Fla
While not as much as the TV deals, attendance is still pretty important for MLB. The pandemic forced most of the teams to significantly cut payroll the following offseason.
Vegas will draw tourism fans.
Fla doesn’t
They aren’t in Tampa Bay. They are in St Pete.
Tampa Bay isn’t a city; it’s a body of water. Tampa is the city. As such, the team is accurately named, as it’s meant to market towards both sides of the Bay in both Tampa and St. Petersburg, just as the Minnesota Twins are named to market both of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Even if they build it, the fans still won’t come.
The problem is that it’s hard as heck to get there. Building a new ballpark in the same location doesn’t help with the biggest problem of playing at the Trop.
True, staying in St. Pete doesn’t help, but the biggest problem is that they’re playing in Florida.
BS. Tampa Lightning attendance has been great. Florida Panthers have done well for themselves. Even the Dolphins and Bucs get support.
Until the Lightning starts losing
The people with the most money, the Snowbirds, don’t live there during most of baseball season. That’s not an issue for football or hockey.
Besides, it takes a lot fewer fans to support an NFL team than it does to support an MLB team.
So long as people are watching on TV, that’s the most important part. A new stadium can help increase revenue and lower costs, but local TV money is where the important money is. The Rays could get by with a new 24K seat stadium. The casuals will mock the size, but they’re irrelevant. 40K seat stadiums aren’t needed anymore. All those empty seats may look embarrassing, but the real money is the people sitting in the barstools and couches. You really want to support your MLB team, make sure you tune in to every game you don’t attend. Ratings increases the broadcasting rates when the new deal is being negotiated.
I know what you’re saying, but a stadium facility is more than its main tenant. A 24K capacity stadium would never get an All Star game, be passed over for bookings of stadium tours for musical acts, etc.
Then it doesn’t matter if they leave? I live abroad and enjoy plenty of baseball.
That’s just more reason to leave Florida entirely.
What the Rays really need to do is move into Tampa. Where they are today (St. Pete) is quite a long drive for most Tampa residents and is in an area that is hard to drive to, so that is why they can’t get fans to show up (in addition to that horrible stadium). If they actually built a 30,000 – 35,000 seat stadium in Tampa itself, they will draw considerably more fans. Look how well the Bucs and even the Lightning draw in Tampa. The Rays can do the same with the right venue and location.
I’m not familiar with the Gaslight district in St. Pete’s but if it is anywhere close to the existing stadium, this sounds like a bad idea as they will have similar issues drawing fans for the long run. They should build this stadium near Ybor City in Tampa if they want to attract the maximum number of fans. Tampa is a great sports town but they need to make the location easy/attractive to get to for its residents.
I missed the part where this new stadium would be built in the same location as the existing stadium. Bad idea given the challenges for residents/fans to get to the existing stadium today with bad roads and bad traffic. They need to move to Tampa regardless of what St. Pete’s offers them to stay in the same area.
I’ve read this over and over from locals. To an idiot like me, Tampa and St Pete are just side by side. But the stupid body of water known as the Bay means people have to drive around the Bay to get to the Trop. And they say the highway traffic is so bad on weeknights that if one attempted to drive from suburban Tampa to the Trop after getting home from work they wouldn’t get there until the 4th inning.
I guess that makes for good TV ratings, but makes it that much more curious why ownership continues to dance with St Pete when a location in Tampa seems like the winning move? Better/more tax breaks?
@geo – part of the reason for staying in St. Pete is that they’re going to build housing and business development as part of this deal and get the revenue from those places. So even if the St. Pete stadium is still empty, they’re still going to bank.
It’s a ridiculous excuse. Ive been there It took 30 minutes to get to a game from downtown Tampa, including parking and walking in the front gate. Getting to a game in any major city takes that long because of Public transit times, or having to wait for parking lot traffic, or just city traffic in general being nuts. Tampa people are lazy, and don’t support the rays, full stop.
@GOAT insert facepalm emoji here.
Must have been a weekend, because that trip is an hour plus on a weekday. And that is on a good traffic day.
The Bucs and Lightning don’t have to draw for 81 home games while the Snowbirds are up north.
Someone’s being gaslighted here.
Still embarrassing that the league is using this as an excuse to avoid expansion.
Expansion? Even with the international players, the league is watered down. Partially because pitchers simply throw as hard as they can and batters hit homers, strike out or get walks. MLB had to erase the shift and come up with artificial changes. It would never happen but contraction would make the game better to watch.
No the league is not watered down at all. There are more players from more countries available to play baseball than ever. You wanna know when it was watered down? Before 1947 and on through the years until it was fully integrated competition. I was waiting for someone to bring up the tired old watered-down talent base argument.
Agree
Of course they are, as they should! They can’t expand until they know exactly where the Rays and A’s will end up, as either one of them could still easily wind up skipping town to one of the commonly proposed expansion sites. Expanding now would unfairly limit their options on where they can move.
Plus, if one or both of them does move, that then leaves their previous home as a new option for an expansion team, although MLB would be crazy to immediately put a new team in the Tampa Bay area.
I agree darkside, billionaires holding taxpayers hostage with threat of moving their team is embarrassing.
You’ll see contraction before expansion with the small markets having trouble competing in the fouled up system MLB has allowed to go on too long.
There have been haves and have nots in baseball since it began in the 1800s. Remember the old perennially bad franchises like the Washington Senators, St. Louis Browns, Boston Braves, etc? There have always been weak poorly-run teams, some small-market and some not, and there always will be.
Spoken just like a large market apologist.
There is a difference between revenue disparity affecting competition and poorly run teams.
There are poorly run teams in the NFL and NBA too where there are salary caps. Those are different issues.
The smallest market in MLB is Milwaukee.
They ran out a $130 million payroll last year because their ownership uses the revenue sharing and national TV money for its intended purpose: payroll.
There’s a huge difference between actually being unable to carry a decent payroll and simply not doing it.
And Milwaukee is thinking of trading Burnes, Woodruff and Adames for what reason?
Writers are speculating that but none of them are gone.
Even if they do, they will still have a larger payroll than Oakland, Pittsburgh, Cincy, and several other smaller markets.
Math is math. Every team gets $60.1 million from the league and every team takes an equal 3.3% out of a pot that contains 48% of all local revenues, which is about $120 million per team..
In short, every team gets about $180 million plus 52% of their local revenues.
The fact of the matter is several small market owners simply pocket that money instead of spending on payroll. As long as their fanbase believes they actually don’t have any money, they’ll continue to do so.
I’ve been outspoken that my team’s payroll is 50 million below their max a few years ago. They might not be able to spend 30-40 million on a guy but they could have built a great bullpen and/or filled a lot of holes for that kind of bread.
However, even though I know they aren’t going to be able to spend 40 million a year for a decade on a player with a max 130 million payroll, the best I can hope for is a 3-4 year window to maybe win something before they have to rebuild yet again. Even if they did happen to do it for one guy like Minnesota just did with Correa, they better not make a mistake or they would be set back a decade.
Those are the things small markets have to deal with. It’s going to start happening to Milwaukee later this year or the off-season.
Definitely a lot of disadvantages to being small. Losing the talent you develop being the #1.
You fail to realize that MLB franchises have a LOT more expenses than just the Major League payroll. Yes, the owners insist on making a profit, but they aren’t hoarding huge amounts of money that they could otherwise spend on their teams.
I realize there are other expenses. But consider Nutting took in $180 million from those two sources and spent $60 million on payroll. There’s zero percent chance he has expenses that are 200% larger than payroll.
And, also, the luxury tax payroll calculation already includes insurance and other benefits for players.
Wrong, other expenses such as the minor league farm system, stadium and office supplies and maintenance, scouting, international development, salaries for other employees, etc. can indeed reach that level, especially if a team is still repaying stadium debt.
Minor league payrolls are minuscule. It’s been a huge story for years.
25 players in AAA at $30k per is $750k for the year. And it goes down from there.
Nutting contributed $40 million to the construction of the stadium and taxpayers covered the rest. He got that back his first year of revenue sharing.
There are people who research this and there are people who believe what the owners say.
Typical of a large market apologist, just focusing on one thing to try to blow off their advantage rather than the whole statement.
Small markets have to spend more one scouting and player development, bas wall academies in Latin America and the Far East and the like because that’s the only shot they have for at least a 3 to 4 year window if everything happens to come together before they have to blow it up again.
Large markets don’t have to worry, they can just buy the guys 20 smaller markets have to let go. That’s why they have no incentive for a level playing field even for the long term good of the game. Like many corporations and politicians, as long as they get theirs the hell with the rest.
I fully realize there are disadvantages to being in a small market.
I also do math and when an owner gets $180 million from revenues designed to create parity and only spends $60 million of them on payroll, the math is obvious.
It’s harder to win in a small market.
Even harder when the owner is pocketing money.
Doubt that is a valid number because local TV revenue is not shared and some teams get a whole lot more than others. If one team gets a billion and another team gets 100 million the league might say it averages 550 million but that doesn’t mean every team gets that. You can make numbers say what you want depending on how you frame it. Governments, political parties and companies do it all the time.
MLB likes to sell one thing but reality is quite another.
Each franchise has at least 5 minor league teams, along with ALL of the expenses that go with it such as stadium maintenance, equipment, other employees’ salaries, etc.
Then there are all the other categories I listed and more. Altogether, a single year’s expenses run well over $200M for even the teams with the smallest Major League payrolls.
Oh, and let’s not forget the large signing bonuses that the top drafted players and international signees get in addition to their minor league salaries.
I still remember the time my friends and I drove by the trop on a road trip. Rays were playing and we scored seats from a scalper for $4 each.
They ended up scoring whatever amount of runs it took to get a free burrito from Tijuana Flats, so the tickets paid for themselves.
Needless to say, investing more in this team is an outstanding idea and nothing could possibly go wrong.
Hmm.. the most common complaint from fans is the location/drive to the ballpark.
So they are keeping the ballpark right where it is?
Genius!
The Rays staying in Saint Petersburg, Florida, is, by definition, insanity. The outcome will remain the same!
I thought Americans hate “socialism”. More “socialism” for a few rich guys. Why should taxpayers give a rich guy their cash when that rich guy bought the whole team for 340 mil? How about taxpayers actually own what they pay for? They don’t have to pay for something they don’t even own.
It’s kind of a catch 22.
If you operate a town like a business (whether right or wrong is not the issue here) then investing in a stadium on behalf of citizens for the long term tax revenue might make financial sense. And other towns are in competition for that tax revenue so you’ve got to offer a better deal to “win”. Kind of like the inverse of selling municipal bonds.
And so in operating like a business in a free market, you’ve enabled a measure of socialism (which is really poorly understood by 99% of those who use it derisively).
At least that’s the theory behind it. Haven’t seen the numbers myself to verify the truth.
Responding to myself: For me, the practice should be illegal. As you’ve said, the end result is just to make the rich richer in return for relative chump change.
But I also prefer the UK’s strict campaign finance limitations for the same reasons, so whatever.
If taxpayers pay they own. Simple. If they pay to build a new stadium, infrastructure plus all manner of homes and shops, they own it all. After that the city/region hire a GM to run the team. A city/regional manager than sells the rest of that development to private owners. For example, senior residential apartments get sold or rented to seniors (or all of this just gets cut). There is zero need for one guy (or a handful of guys; and they are almost always guys) to “own” something he didn’t pay for. We need to end blackmail and kickback “socialism” for the few rich guys. The Packers and many European soccer clubs are actually owned by fans/cities/regions. We can no longer give out free money for rich guys who then take that cash and hoard it, give some of it to politicians, or leverage “ownership” to get bank loans to buy more teams, etc. while sending teams into “rebuilds” constantly until they blackmail and bribe their way to yet more taxpayer cash. I want Conservatives to tell us why it is OK for there to be “socialism” for the rich few, for them to get taxpayer cash, when the sane and “market” solution is for taxpayers to actually own and control the teams they pay for. Please Conservatives (aside from George Will) and others tell us why you support so strongly “socialism” for the rich.
It’s weird that you guys are using the word “socialism” to refer to an unregulated capitalist practice, which is almost the opposite of socialism.
Certain people hate socialism for the common good but seem to like it for rich people and corporations.
Let’s be real and forget the political postering to cover up the bribes, er…campaign contributions being given by dark money.
In America it’s socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.
I think you’ll find most Americans oppose tax dollars for sports stadiums. The folks in San Diego voted down multiple tax measures to keep the Chargers in town. And nobody loves to tax themselves more than Californians.
Personally I’m fine with tax dollars going towards major construction projects like this IF the math works out long term for a benefit. For example, the combined property tax, income tax, and property tax revenue on a project this size would be huge here in CA and the taxpayers would likely come out ahead after a while.
It’s a race to the bottom in the competition between cities and the winner is the owner, every time. Always. Seems like a good idea in isolation but the market for luring sports teams only has one consistent winner.
Not to mention that a significant proportion of those tax dollars generated are just the locals themselves funneling money through the team to get some rebate towards their tax bill, which just increased because of the stadium.
Should be prohibited, imo. But I’ll get off the soapbox.
I’m pretty much with you. I just also work in real estate/lending so I’m always up for a good long term investment.
Of course politicians don’t care about long term. Just need to get through that next election cycle.
Hey look, a shiny new ballpark everybody!
Still on the wrong side of the bridge…..
I think it is a proven fact that the Rays model, and the A’s model aren’t going to work. Time to move these teams to Charlotte/ Montreal, and Vegas. MLB should add teams in Nashville and Charlotte / Montreal and they will be rolling in the doe.
What’s your definition of “working”? Because if it’s being perennially competitive, you couldn’t get rid of the Rays.
Even the A’s piece together a team with a shot 1/3 of the time.
And the Orioles are a team on the upswing. You could probably have made that argument against them a few years ago. Now they have a decent shot at playoffs.
Personally, the Rockies are a team I would get rid of. Forever sub-par without the vision or motivation to tear it down and rebuild, or the talent to do it properly. Even the angels manage to squander two truly generational talents in trout and sho. Money keeps them both ticking, and keeps the churn moving.
Like Montreal worked
“Like Montreal worked”. True. But keep in mind, Montreal failed for the same reasons Tampa Bay is failing, plus have multiple crook owners who simply used the Expos for racketeering. Olympic Stadium is the same problem as the Trop. Located far too outside the main metro area in order for everyday fans, or tourists to want to travel to get there. To this very day, for a team to work in Montreal, they need a state-of-the-art facility downtown. In Tampa, they either need to build in Ybor or Channelside on the Eastside of the Bay, or possibly in West Brandon near I-75 in order to draw more fans from Tampa as well as North, South & East adjacent fans, and trust me, attendance will rise.
Rays need to move to Tampa. Half of the problem now is the location. It can take more than an hour to get there for 2/3 of the population in that metro area.
This basically sounds like the city realized the end of the lease is getting closer and they are now ready to get serious about a new stadium.
Why are the Rays even considering staying in St Pete? They’ve endured it this long and can basically get started on a stadium elsewhere and have it ready by 2027.
Even though they’re stupid enough to try to stay in the same location, at least they’ve realized that they’ll never have a need for more than 30,000 seats.
And the scam goes on.
Moving to Tampa just wouldn’t solve anything. It’s a ridiculous excuse. Ive been there It took 30 minutes to get to a game from downtown Tampa, including getting across that bridge (there was congestion but it cleared up quickly), parking, and walking in the front gate. Getting to a game in any major city takes that long because of Public transit times, or having to wait for parking lot traffic, or just city traffic in general being nuts. Tampa people are lazy, and don’t support the rays, full stop. Move the stadium to Tampa and you’d have a couple years where attendance went up and then it would be straight back to what it is now
I went to Space Camp once, but it didn’t make me an astronaut…
This isn’t news yet. All talk, no action, just like every time. Rays were going to have a new stadium 10 years ago. We will see.
Taxpayers shouldn’t pay a dime for this.
If taxpayers pay they own. Simple. If they pay to build a new stadium, infrastructure plus all manner of homes and shops, they own it all. After that the city/region hire a GM to run the team. A city/regional manager than sells the rest of that development to private owners. For example, senior residential apartments get sold or rented to seniors (or all of this just gets cut). There is zero need for one guy (or a handful of guys; and they are almost always guys) to “own” something he didn’t pay for. We need to end blackmail and kickback “socialism” for the few rich guys. The Packers and many European soccer clubs are actually owned by fans/cities/regions. We can no longer give out free money for rich guys who then take that cash and hoard it, give some of it to politicians, or leverage “ownership” to get bank loans to buy more teams, etc. while sending teams into “rebuilds” constantly until they blackmail and bribe their way to yet more taxpayer cash. I want Conservatives to tell us why it is OK for there to be “socialism” for the rich few, for them to get taxpayer cash, when the sane and “market” solution is for taxpayers to actually own and control the teams they pay for. Please Conservatives (aside from George Will) and others tell us why you support so strongly “socialism” for the rich.
The problem is location is correct. What does Tampa/St Pete have to offer. Aside from local residents and visitors to the beaches, what is the draw. The Rays should be located in the Orlando area. Orlando draws millions of non residents to the area year round. Fans for visiting teams will visit the Orlando Rays far more than the Trop draws. No more public money aside for infrastructure. The current owner receives millions of revenue sharing dollars and puts it in his pockets. Spend the money or make him sell.
Orlando wouldn’t solve anything, either. While they get a ton of tourists, that’s all they are, tourists with no loyalty to the local sports teams. Meanwhile, the Snowbirds will still be hanging up north during most of baseball season.
The only way to truely fix the economic gap between teams in the mlb is for the mlb to take over all local tv deals. Then do full revenue sharing a cross the teams. NFL survives on national tv deals that are shared. Mlb national tv deals aren’t worth nearly as much. The real money in baseball comes from local tv deals. Because each market sizes is so different it creates a massive gap in revenue. If baseball took over the local tv deals and shared it evenly across the teams there would be economic balance. The problem is the major market teams would never want to do this. I also don’t think baseball wants to do this either because they like seeing the big market teams play in the playoffs.
So you just end up year after year with a broken system. The difference between local tv deals is nearly 200m from larger and small market teams.
With the RSN model falling apart, how much closer is MLB to some form of partial revenue sharing based around a primarily MLB.tv form of game distribution? I think by 2028 there will be minimal “local” TV as opposed to team-based local streaming (so team specific announcers like today, but national distribution).
@ Simm — I thought the point of the Competitive Balance Picks in the draft were made to address the market size/revanue discrepancies.
By giving the smaller market teams additional picks in the draft, they have more of the better talent at the cost controlled rates. The 6years of player control really offsets many of the harshest financial realities. For example, the other sports leagues (NBA, NFL) are paying substantially more for young talent than MLB.
I’m just making the point that MLB has some very unique aspects in regards to payroll/market size that other sports don’t have. Both in positive ways, and negative ways too.
In the end, your right. Cash rules, and owners aren’t going to want to decrease thier money, to benefit competition.
I think any pooling of revanues means the MLBPA will demand a restructure of player salaries (higher league minimum), and correctly so.
O’s: maybe so but you know as well as I do that the baseball draft does not have the same impact as the other leagues as many of these guys never make it to the big leagues, or have any staying power to affect a ball club.
Reds — I think trying to compare MLB draft vs. other sports is hard to do. NFL and MLB are miles apart, and since only NHL has a real minor league (and only 1 of them at that).
So many of the other sports have drafties go Pro from draft, and MLB never does. Real Apples and Nebulas similarities, idk.
My point was that advantage was not as much as it sounds.
So they plan on building a new stadium in the same spot that nobody wants to drive to see them at now. Brilliant.
Nailed it
I’ll miss that dented tuna fish can they are currently playing in.
Rays to Nashville. A’s to Portland. Marlins to Charlotte.
The Reds aren’t going to allow Nashville unless they themselves move there. The ownership is already poverty and “non-profit” status.
Nashville is as close to Atlanta as it is to Cincinnati, which is a 3.5 hr drive. Those aren’t Reds fans or Braves in Nashville. They are Cards fans.
The Reds can’t do anything about it. They only control the Cincinnati metro area. The only reason the Orioles were able to get involved with the Expos/Nationals moving to Washington is because they actually share parts of the same metro area.
The Trop isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be, maybe b/c I was a Metrodome season ticket holder for so long lol – light years better, especially with all the improvements. People don’t show up, period. Right off the freeway, east parking. Last time I was there, summer, Friday night, raining, two first place teams, about 10-12k announced, maybe 8k actual, 2/3 for the opposing team. Move
As an Orioles fan living in St. Louis, I thought the problem was always traffic access in St. Petersburg that would be minimized with a stadium in Tampa. So how is this better with a smallish stadium in the exact same place?
I could watch baseball in a sandlot field, but this is good news for us Ray’s fans.
Move the team to Charlotte or Montreal or Portland or Nashville. Get out of that dirtbag state. Go to Charlotte before the Pirates beat you to it.
Lol. Pirates are a legacy franchise. They aren’t going anywhere.
“Dirtbag” lolz. One of the most economically thriving states out there. Rays just need a better location. Miami has always been fair weather, and the Fish have been bad for nearly 20 years now other than the CovidCardChamps in 2020. Bucs to Charlotte? You trolling? MLB would seize that team and give it to Mark Cuban with the stipulation it STAY in Pittsburgh, before the Pirates leave. The Pirates leaving Pittsburgh would be like the Cubs leaving Chicago. They are one of the oldest legacy NL teams in Baseball. They, along with the Reds ain’t going anywhere.
Well, “dirtbag” in regards to MLB attendance. The Marlins couldn’t even draw well the two times they won the World Series or when they got a new stadium themselves.
MLB told Stu to make it work in the TB area, Baseball is not going to dump the #13 and one of the fastest growing TV markets in the country. Stu wants to build in Tampa but doesn’t want to throw in any $ and Hillsborough Co doesn’t have the tax streams to come up with 1 billion dollars. Pinellas Co will extend an existing hotel bed tax they used to build the Trop to cover the costs. Thats why they will stay in St Pete.
Possibly. But couldn’t they do the exact same thing in Orlando?
I suppose they could move to Orlando, I was hoping they would find a location east of Tampa along I-4 to open the Orlando market up.
The Rays and St Pete had 4 firms bid to redevelop the Gas Light area where the the Trop is currently located, both sides choose the same firm. The Rays get a large % of the profits from redevelopment so its a win win situation for both. I think even though its a long way from a done deal, they are going to stay in St Pete.
MLB is not gonna pass up that sweet expansion $ from LV,Nash etc.
The size of the TV market doesn’t matter when not enough people in the market actually choose to watch the local team on TV (or in person).
Florida is a rapidly expanding market, TV market, with a rapidly expanding population which I think is a big reason why both teams still haven’t been moved. But money is money and I still think ultimately relocation happens. I could be totally wrong, but my gut has continued to say A’s go to Vegas, Rays go to Montreal, and the Marlins end up a new 3rd New York (or Jersey) team. Places like Portland, Vancouver, Nashville, Charlotte and/or Charleston get the eventual 2 expansion teams that MLB has wanted for years. I just have a hard time believing that within 20 years that FL will continue having any MLB team unless a major change is made.
They can thrive in Tampa but no one wants to drive to St Pete. Period