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July 15, 2009

Rays study: Stadiums are expensive, let's build one!

The coalition of business and political leaders put together to explore options for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium has issued its preliminary report, and concluded that... the Tampa Bay Rays need a new stadium! The report by the Tropicana Options Committee of A Baseball Committee — available here and here, though they apparently put the same attention to detail into orienting the PDFs as they did to naming their committee — compares Tropicana Field to newer baseball stadiums and determines that it would cost too much to make it look like a new one, almost as much as building a new building entirely.

What the study doesn't examine, of course, is whether either renovation or a new stadium makes sense at this price: The committee says that "Tropicana Field will require renovations if it is to continue to serve as a viable and marketable baseball facility," but is it really worth half a billion dollars just to have more legroom and allow fans to watch the game while on line for hot dogs? (At least one other team has decided not so much.) Bud Selig thinks so, but presumably he doesn't expect to be (or have the Rays be) the one paying for it.

The St. Petersburg Times' Aaron Sharockman, meanwhile, sums up the committee's findings as: "Renovating Tropicana Field is impractical, selling it now doesn't make financial sense and paying for a new stadium will be difficult when there's millions of dollars in debt on the old one." Though RaysIndex.com has the pithier headline.

COMMENTS

Neil,

The Royals also went the same route as the Sox. ESPN has ranked Kauffman as tied for sixth best stadium overall. The renovations cost $250 million, about half of a new stadium downtown.

Posted by Chris M on July 22, 2009 07:50 PM

The Rays had a winning season last year so feel they deserve a new workplace at a cost of $600 million or so paid for by the taxpayers.

Posted by Ed on July 23, 2009 09:24 PM

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