Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has been mostly quiet through this fall’s stadium drama, as the roof of the team’s current home blew off, county commissioners balked at finalizing bonds for the team’s new stadium amid concerns about local recovery costs and the possibility the team would relocate elsewhere temporarily, and election day brought two new commissioners who were skeptics of the deal to devote $1 billion in public subsidies to a new dome right next to the old one.
On Saturday, though, Sternberg broke his silence in a big way: The Tampa Bay Times’ John Romano ran a column largely devoted to quotes from the team owner, and he minced no words in threatening that the city and county needed to live up to the stadium deal they approved back in July, or else:
“Last month, the County Commission upended our ballpark agreement by not approving their bonds, as they promised to do,” team owner Stuart Sternberg said. “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…
“We’re going to exhaust all that we can here until, and unless, it comes to that. … We’ve been in that sort of position before, in a sense, but without an expiring clock. An expiring clock that just exploded, basically. If we had 10 years, 12 years left, it’s a different conversation. If we had one year left, it’s probably a different conversation. If we had no plans to do a stadium here, it’s a different conversation.
“But, as you point out, it’s a confluence of events and without the minds here coming together, [relocation] is not an unlikely conclusion.”
If that wasn’t saber-rattly enough, Romano upped the ante by writing that it’s “likely” the Rays stadium deal is “all but dead” and speculating that “the Rays could reap millions from redeveloping the Trop land while moving the team and building a stadium elsewhere.”
If the threat of moving the team if Sternberg doesn’t get his way is unmistakable, so is the timing: Last Thursday, team execs announced the Rays would play the 2025 season across the bay in Tampa, which several Pinellas County–side officials have cited as a kick in the teeth at a time when the city and county are being asked for a billion dollars for a stadium while figuring out both how to do hurricane cleanup and how to rebuild Tropicana Field’s roof until the new building is ready. (“If they want our county and the city of St. Petersburg to fund [almost half] of it, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable expectation to expect them to work with us and to collaborate to make everyone feel good about the funding for the new stadium,” Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector told Romano.)
More to the point, the county commission is set to hold its re-vote on the stadium bonds tomorrow, making Sternberg’s statements a clear shot across the bow to say: If you don’t rubber-stamp this deal, you realize this means war. Not that he has any great options of other metro areas to move to — don’t forget that he just spent several years first threatening to play half his team’s home games in a nonexistent stadium in Montreal and then when that didn’t work threatening that he’d sell the team to someone else who would figure out a city to move it to — especially since he now has a lease that expires in three years and a non-functional stadium that he needs St. Petersburg’s help to fix. He’s also going to face pressure to make a decision from his own fellow owners, who have been waiting not so patiently for the Rays to figure out their future so that MLB can try to play potential expansion cities off against each other for both the largest expansion fees and the biggest stadium deals, and who now may be stuck in a holding pattern again.
The most reasonable way of understanding Sternberg’s weekend threats, then, is as an attempt to head off any mutiny by the county commission, in hopes that “we’ve got to approve this thing now or else the team will leave” will turn at least one of the four skeptical heads on the seven-member commission: Chris Latvala, Dave Eggers, Chris Scherer, or Vince Nowicki. We’ll find out on Tuesday if they call his bluff; if so, things will start to get really interesting.
UPDATE: Putting this here as a reminder to myself as much as anything, since no one else seems to be reporting the details of tomorrow’s county commission meeting: It’s set to start at 2 pm, but the Rays stadium bonds are quite a ways through the agenda, so they likely won’t get to that until … 3 pm? 4 pm? It looks like the meeting will be livestreamed here, so maybe I’ll do a liveblog or something if it seems worth it.
The Times also ran a hysterical (in both senses of the word) editorial that if the stadium deal falls through, no one would ever ever trust Pinellas County again so no businesses would ever relocate there and nobody would move there and the county would slip into a deep dark economic hole forever and an asteroid would smash into it destroying everything left after the hurricanes.
Ok, I made up the asteroid part.
They only left that out because nobody thought of it… now that you have helped them to see the obvious, it will be mentioned…
This is the first sign of genuine worry I think I have seen from Sternberg. It is a sign not of strength but of weakness.
He has nowhere to go and, foolishly, he has publicly demonstrated over the past few years that he has nowhere better to go. He manoeuvred his “partners” into giving him a funding deal worth more than 100% of his personal net worth and is now terrified of losing it.
I hope the county commission stick to their guns on this one. They are not required or committed to approve the bond issue until they in fact DO approve the bond issue, which they have not done. Pinkie swears, as Sternberg surely knows, are not binding obligations.
They certainly DO have greater needs than a new baseball stadium. I heard one pol claiming that ‘people have to understand that this money can only be used for sports facilities, we can’t take it and use it to build homes or temporary shelters or provide food and services to the homeless’.
A greater indication of end stage capitalism I cannot imagine.
IF that is true, it is only true because those very same politicians voted to impose restrictions on how money raised through the so called tourist taxes can be used… and can easily vote to change those restrictions as well.
The other thing that makes this feel like a desperation move from Sternberg: He only needs to flip one vote tomorrow. If he thought he could to that, wouldn’t he be spending his time negotiating behind closed doors about what he can offer to peel off one county commissioner, rather than putting out a threat blast via Romano?
This is tea-leaf reading, obviously, but it does make me wonder. Guess we’ll all find out tomorrow.
I guess the counterargument is that levying the move threat in public can provide cover for any commissioners who want to switch their votes tomorrow in exchange for some new basketball hoops for their district or whatever.
Definitely tea-leaf reading…. but I would argue that is part of the purpose of Sternberg’s lashing out session.
Has he tried to get Stephen Bronfman to fly down to Tampa, you know, just because he loves the place?
If only he had a flunky like Dave Kaval he could send over to Nashville or Portland (either of them) to make it seem like there were options…
Maybe he should try selling the team or something.
The commissioners’ talk and behavior is also instructive in the sense that it highlights how different parts of *metro areas* in Florida see each other, let alone how different parts of the state of Florida see each other.
People outside of here have mostly been conditioned to think of Florida as this single massive monolith and monoculture, when in reality there are probably at least seven or eight different “Floridas” that are wildly different from each other, and which all hold varying degrees of disdain, scorn, and inferiority/superiority complexes toward each other. Miami is basically its own singular space relative to even Broward County immediately to its north, much less the rest of the state; there’s precious little love lost between Tampa and St Pete, let alone between Tampa Bay and Orlando (~90 minutes by car); all of North Florida is routinely lampooned by the rest of the state; the list goes on and on.
All of which is to say that it’s perfectly understandable why the Pinellas and Hillsborough counties wouldn’t work together to try and “save” the Rays from leaving the region. They’ve never seen each other as anything other than rivals, and that played right into Sternberg and co while they spent years trying to play them off against each other.
“all of North Florida is routinely lampooned by the rest of the state”
Florida: The further north you go, the further south you get.
Yup, and the corollary to that is, the further north you are in Florida, the less likely the rest of the state is to rock with you.
I will ask this question again. Why would Pinellas County or St Pete work so hard to save a team that so few seem to care about? The attendence even when the team is good shows that no one wants to go to St Pete for games
For the St Pete/Pinellas side of the bay, having the Rays leave for even the Tampa/Hillsborough side of the bay is tantamount to having them leave Tampa Bay altogether. They’ve never seen the Rays as a regional asset; rather, it’s something to be kept and monetized for themselves — or if we’re being more blunt, something that absolutely cannot be “stolen” by its bigger, more populated rival across the water.
Obviously not saying it’s right or smart for the local government(s) to go to these lengths to keep the team there, but that’s part of the dynamic at play here.
The Rays have never operated as a regional asset though. They exist cuz of a lawsuit. Sternberg has operated the team cheaply. It has to be difficult for what fans they have to see their favorite players leave and the stadium only being full for Yankees or Red Sox games.
When baseball puts a team somewhere to avoid a lawsuit- it usually doesn’t work out, or takes a really long time.
The Seattle Mariners would tend to disagree.
Kansas City Royals too
The Mariners were the worst team in baseball for their first 20 years in the bigs. They needed 1995 to get out of one of the worst ballparks in baseball.
Also the Royals are the exception but they forced expansion in 1969 when no other city/ownership group was ready. The other 3 teams:
Expos- disaster
Padres- disaster
Pilots-disaster
The Mariners drew 2.1 million fans and won 83 games in their 15th season, and were solidly good and popular for a decade after that. It’s tough to blame either Seattle fans or the Kingdome for things like trading Danny Tartabull for Scott Bankhead.
No winning season until 1991, no stable ownership until 1992. By contrast their expansion mate was winning by 1985.
I agree that eventually they got it together, same with the padres, but the the first 15 years sucked.
The mariners golden age was from 1995-2003. They were in the mix, but ultimately couldn’t win a pennant. The 20 season playoff drought that followed was so bad it made Seattle a soccer town in the summer.
Right, but I thought by “doesn’t work out” you meant in terms of building a fan base. Success on the field is far more about having an owner who hires front office staff who know how to draft.
The Rays went to the World Series in their 11th year, by the way, so they don’t exactly qualify as “a really long time” to achieve on-field success.
The Rays off the field is kind of sad though. They’ve been great for the last 17 years- however the attendance is bad and they probably won’t have a single Hall of Famer from that era, and even someone who makes it won’t have a Rays hat on in Cooperstown.
There was a study about attendance and how it correlates to payroll. Basically the higher the payroll the better the attendance, it correlates more than just winning.
My take away is that a decent payroll suggests you’re paying “your guys”, the fans are getting to see their favorite player every day. The long time players become a reason to go to the ballpark. The Rays don’t do that!
Also regarding the Mariners- I think taking 15 years to find competent ownership who didn’t want to move the team is kind of a disaster. That’s 15 seasons of weak fan base building. You see that in their attendance from that time, after their first season they were averaging 10,000-14,000 for most the 80s.
“There was a study about attendance and how it correlates to payroll. Basically the higher the payroll the better the attendance, it correlates more than just winning.”
Even controlling for market size? Small-market teams tend to spend less, and small-market teams tend to draw fewer fans, but that doesn’t mean that spending less results in fewer fans.
(I do agree that a constant player churn like the Rays have had makes it harder to build fan loyalty, sell jerseys, etc. But I haven’t seen any studies showing it has a significant impact on attendance beyond the effect of winning itself.)
This isn’t the study I read, having trouble finding it, but it does touch on winning vs spending. Finds more of correlation between spending/attendance then winning/attendance.
There’s several real life examples that kind of highlight it though. Obviously the low salary Ray’s have low spending/low attendance despite winning.
It’s a small sample size but the Seidler era Padres have been amazing at the box office and relatively weak when it comes to wins particularly in the post season. What the padres do though is spend money on recognizable players and those players are very present in the community. In Baltimore there was decades of mismanagement from the Angelos family, now the team is good but very young, payroll is low, they’re winning but fans haven’t yet returned for whatever reason. The Marlins never got sustainable attendance boosts from their World Series wins cuz they gutted the teams after.
This is before getting into adjusting to market size but the crux of it to me is that it’s probably better to spend money on players fans like then to win a World Series with a bunch of mercenaries.
https://tht.fangraphs.com/how-are-wins-attendance-and-payroll-all-related/
As that FanGraphs article itself notes, those are all correlations, but don’t say anything about causation. It’s equally possible that increased payroll leads to increased attendance, increased attendance leads to increased payroll, or playing in a larger city leads to both. (It doesn’t look like the author attempted to control for market size.)
I view this the same way as the Coyotes in Arizona. I didn’t get elected officials falling all over themselves to keep a team that the general public has no interest in. Its one thing when a municipality/county/state makes a bad financial deal because people love the team but why do all that if no one cares about it?
Finally Arizona politicians learned about the Coyotes after 28 ugly years. Cory Woods and Jennifer Adam’s were all giddy about stealing the Coyotes from Glendale, despite the black hole the Coyotes were in Glendale’s budget. After
the Tempe deal collapsed, Bettman found a total sucker 500 miles north in Salt Lake City. SLC is eagerly throwing $1,000,000,000 in tax dollars into a so called Delta Center renovation and entertainment district. Hopefully Stu won’t find similar sucker’s in Pinnelas County or anywhere.
We went to many games coming from Bradenton.
Rays fan here.
I no longer care.
This has gone on too long and it’s not worth it anymore.
Just move to Nashville and be their problem.
Agreed Kenn,
Let the Rays go, anywhere is fine with me.
While Saint Petersburg MIGHT have needed the Rays at some point in time,,, NOW is NOT that time.
I don’t believe this is about renegotiations or about which minor league park the Rays will be playing in next year. If the County Commissioners don’t want to live up to last summers’ deal. fine vote no and Sternberg can start to look at Nashville, Charlotte or Montreal as potential new homes. Neither Miami or Tampa have supported MLB teams. Thus, Florida does not deserve having MLB teams. Simply that. I am from Boston and would love to have the Rays in Montreal. Nashville would be a fun city to visit and have a MLB team.
“…..(relocation) is not an…..”.
Neil, I forget my English rules but aren’t parenthesis used when a word is left out or as a substitute for another word?
Why were they used in this case, can you tell?
Sorry to go off topic, but I see this occasionally and it irks me.
Thank you in advance for the indulgence…..
Those are brackets, not parentheses. Anyway, presumably he said “it.”
Thanks! I guess I forgot more than I thought lol!
Let’s just take a breath and be honest, will a new stadium right next to the old one really bring in 5000-10,000 more fans per game ? I seriously doubt it. All it does is increase the value of the Rays and make it much easier to sell the team to a new owner. Pinellas county thrives on tourism, it’s our bread and butter. Most tourists don’t come here for 81 baseball games, they come for the weather and beaches. Tourist/hotel taxes shouldn’t be spent on a stadium with promises of affordable housing. They should be spent on keeping our beaches, parks, piers, in top condition and used for marketing our area. That would be a much bigger impact on all tourist related small businesses throughout the county than a new ballpark that hosts 81 games a year and a few concerts.
This is kind of hilarious.
https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/relocation/reminder-to-tampa-bay-rays-fans-the-funding-in-las-vegas-isn-t-team-specific-01jcy6rhmmbq
The problem is neveda/las Vegas is only putting up $400 to $600 million out of the estimated $1.5 billion needed to build the stadium. Is Sternberg able/willing to come up with $900+ million?
St Pete don’t need a bully to tell us what to do , I gonna stay polite and not tell him what we tell to bullies , St Pete need a new or better sewer system , we need a better public transportation. , better street lights , , what the real deal with him , who is on his payroll ? City officials? Local political activists? Who ?
Rays can go play somewhere else they will have a better audience , it s time to get this bully out off the city .
I think the Rays should once again look at the offer that Tampa Bay was giving them. It would make a lot of sense to move them to the other side of the Bay. They had already picked out a site for a stadium and it would be a whole lot easier to get to. Not to mention the new fans that would come to the games and bring attendance up. You would have a strong fan base there with fans coming from Orlando and other surrounding areas that don’t come to games because it is to far away. Tampa Bay worked really hard to get the Ray’s to move there and I’m sure they would try even harder with everything going on right now. Tampa Bay is where the Ray’s should be the only question is how quickly they could get the new stadium built. I’m thinking if they act quickly it could be done in about 2 years. The site and the plans are beautiful. I as a Ray’s fan would definitely go to more games if they were on this side of the Bay along with many others. I would probably go as far as buying season tickets. I live just north of Tampa and it would cut my travel time in half. We have been traveling to St. Pete for many years to see games and it’s time for St. Pete to travel our way. Either way the team would get a lot more fans going to games here which will boost their income and be able to keep their star players instead of trading them to save money. This would bring back a quality product back on the field and be in the playoff hunt every year. It’s all up to Stu now to get back to the negotiating table with the city of Tampa and Hillsborough country to finalize the original deal.
What original deal are you talking about? Neither Tampa nor Hillsborough actually came up with a plan to pay for a stadium. (Which is only one reason it’s so insane that St. Pete and Pinellas counteroffered with $1 billion.)
I love the conceit of a Rays stadium on Tampa’s side of the Bay being a draw for Orlando and beyond, as if simply eliminating 15-20 miles from the overall trip would be enough to convince thousands upon thousands of new fans to make what is still a two-hour drive down I-4 on a good day. Orlando doesn’t rock with you guys — the same way you guys don’t rock with Orlando. And that’s perfectly okay.
Tampa Bay is a body of water. I think you mean Tampa.
Pinellas & St Pete has 2 options & not much leverage.
Leave you piece of crap
Can you be more specific? If you’re talking to another commenter, that’s a personal attack and not allowed; if to Sternberg, that’s fine and allowed (at least until he starts reading this site).
Please take them and go less traffic less drunks on the road
I would say since 2020 I just thought within a few years, I could see the Rays relocating. Whenever I watch MLB and check out a full game or even highlights over in Tampa Bay/St Petersburg, there is just rows of empty seats. I remember the first ten years the then Devil Rays were a constant basement dweller. Since then there has been more competitive teams than on field disasters. One cannot say they are always a 90+ loss team.
They may not operate on a big budget but they are able to find key reclaim players and usually draft and develop well. There would a few teams regardless of the market size would like a competitive run in the last 15 years similar to TB. Tampa may not be a traditional hockey market but they can get a better fan turnout in December than a team in the wild card race in September for the Rays.
This off season has not gone well. From extensive destruction to the roof of Tropicana Field to scrambling around to find a temporary stadium for 2025 and maybe beyond. I know the team has a lease at the Trop for another 3 seasons. I am not sure if it is worth it to fix that roof for maybe 3-4 years of baseball. Since it might be torn down. I also never understood building a new stadium right beside the existing one. It would make more sense to build it in Tampa. One benefit the Rays have is a decent amount of spring training parks within a 60 minute drive.
Finally I think MLB really needs to look seriously at what they want to do with this team by 2026. Do they want to keep this team in the market or get a bidding war of relocation interest. There are some viable markets to keep in the east. Montreal even if that is a longshot. Nashville seems logical. Charlotte Raleigh/Durham is another option. Maybe Orlando but FL seems to bring up attendance questions with the Marlins.
Rob Manfred clearly has let it known he wants expansion. He also wanted the Oakland & Tampa stadium issues resolved. Now it might be 2 relocation teams and 2 expansion teams.
Attendance is way down on the list of reasons why sports teams ultimately relocate. And teams based in Nash, Raleigh, or Charlotte would face the exact same problem that the Rays, the Marlins, and the Dbacks out west face: those are all cities whose growths are entirely dependent on out-of-towners who bring their rooting interests with them.
It’s easy to rail on Florida as this monolithic sports bloc that “doesn’t care” about anything other than college football, but there’s a passionate fanbase for each of the pro teams here. They’re just not as expansive as those of teams that have been around for literal centuries.