Ha ha ha ha this sign:
‘Dear Rays, Montreal won’t pay for your new stadium’ billboard up near Trop https://t.co/ks0bRigeUg
— Sports by Tampa Bay Times (@TBTimes_Sports) October 25, 2021
That’s Renaud Brossard, director of the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, standing next to a mockup of a billboard, and also in front of a real billboard, declaring, “Dear Rays, Montreal won’t pay for your new stadium. Sincerely, Taxpayers.” The sign is on I-275 right outside the Tampa Bay Rays‘ Tropicana Field, and is of course a reference to Rays owner Stuart Sternberg’s stated demand for two stadiums, one in Tampa Bay and one in Montreal, because something about complementary weather and culinary connections.
“If the Rays want to come and play in Montreal, they’re more than welcome to do it,” Brossard told reporters. “We’ll give them a warm Canadian welcome. But we’re not going to let them use our wallets as an open bar.”
That’s a slightly mixed metaphor, but I will cut Brossard some slack, as he’s not speaking his first language. Also he was kind of rushed: The federation only coughed up $1,300 to run the digital ad for one week, so Brossard flew down to St. Petersburg for a couple of days to get in a quick photo op.
The CTF, as you can probably guess from its name, is an anti-tax, anti-spending, pro-free trade group with ties to conservative parties in Canada and international libertarian groups. Brossard cited a March poll finding that 60% of Quebecois (and 59% of Montrealers) don’t want to spend government money on a new baseball stadium; in the same poll, only 42% of people in Quebec even want the Montreal Expos to return, which is not a terrific showing.
The fact that a guy running an anti-tax group found $1,300 in his budget (plus whatever it cost for plane tickets) to run a billboard ad for a week isn’t really news so much as a media stunt, but there is a point here: Everyone in Florida is acting as if Montreal is a legitimate rival to Tampa Bay for Sternberg’s affections, or at least half his affections, but attempts to get a stadium funded there have an even longer, sadder history than they do in Tampa and St. Pete. Sternberg still appears to be trying to create a bidding war between two metropolitan areas that haven’t shown much interest in bidding, while also declaring that both cities will end up half-winners, which is not how bidding wars work at all. It’s tempting to think that there’s some evil master plan behind the Tampontreal Ex-Rays gambit, but really, billionaires are just as capable of doing stuff without fully thinking it through as the rest of us humans, so it’s equally possible that he’s just flailing around because he doesn’t have any better ideas — in which case, getting trolled by a 20something Canadian with an electronic sign may end up being the whole plan’s most fitting epitaph of all.
Tampontreal! I love it!
When can we buy T shirts?