Previously on Rays: The Roof: “Congratulations on your shiny new $1 billion stadium subsidy!” Hurricane: Look what I can do! ROAR! “Hmmmm, maybe selling stadium bonds is not such a good look right now. Also, the team might play in the next county over, what’s with that?” “Not selling bonds, eh? Well, maybe we’ll just move!” “Really not selling bonds now.” “This deal is dead!” “Dead like you’re backing out of it and returning the cheap public land we agreed to give you?” “(silence)” “We know you can hear us even though you have your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears! What’s your answer?”
CUT TO: Tampa Bay Rays team president Matt Silverman, trying again with the whole letter-writing thing to see if he can get the tone right this time. No, Silverman writes, his co-president Brian Auld “did not waver from our commitment to the new ballpark project,” not even when Auld said “our agreement effectively died” when two new county commission members opposed to the stadium deal were elected before the bonds were sold. In fact, it’s Pinellas County, not the Rays, that “falls short” by not immediately approving the stadium bonds, writes Silverman, because team execs had previously made clear that they wanted bonds sold before the elections, even if they didn’t put that in writing “as a technical matter.” So the shoe’s on the other foot now, see?
There are many, many questions about this letter, especially coming after Silverman and Auld’s previous letter: For one thing, how did a multi-billion-dollar stadium project suddenly go from a slam dunk to unviable just because the bonds weren’t sold five months ahead of the deadline the team itself agreed on for doing so? (The previous Silverman/Auld letter said that even pushing back the bond sale by a month would result in “significantly higher” costs, but didn’t attempt to put a number on it.) The latest Silverman letter seems to imply that really he’s mad that Pinellas County commissioners stalled on approving the bonds — apparently because key commission members were cranky about Rays owner Stu Sternberg not prioritizing their county as the team’s temporary home while its hurricane-damaged roof was being repaired — long enough that the elections tipped the balance from 5-2 in favor to 4-3 against. If so, that’s got to be frustrating, especially if Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano is correct that no one in the Rays front office saw it coming; but, you know, you still gotta stick the landing, and Silverman and Auld have only themselves to blame there — though they now say they obeyed the letter of their agreement by considering (and rejecting) temporary sites in Pinellas before settling on a stadium across the bay in Tampa, maybe that wasn’t the best way to win friends and influence people with a key commission cote coming up.
And yet, they are blaming the county, because at this point that’s the only thing left to fight over: Nuh-uh, I’m not the one pulling out of the deal, you are! This is a matter of both public posturing and legal maneuvering, since handing over the current stadium property for a bargain price was part of the stadium deal, but stays in place even if the stadium deal is canceled, but only if it’s the county or city canceling it. (If Sternberg backs out, he has to give back the land.) So we have a standoff, at least until some actual deadlines are reached — the county has another vote scheduled for December 17 and the city for January 9, but there doesn’t look to be anything stopping either government body from kicking the can back to the team at that point rather than give up and let Sternberg have his cheap land.
The latest Rays letter went over better with commission chair Kathleen Peters, at least, who replied: “Despite the Rays’ lack of political prowess of late [ed. note: ouch], I’ve always been optimistic about this project because of the great economic impact it could bring to our county. … I look forward to continued discussion with my colleagues about how this stadium can do just that.” That certainly sounds like she’s down for trying to convince one of the four county commissioners opposed to moving ahead with the stadium deal to change their vote; as for Silverman, he said the Rays “continue to wait for decisions and actions” by the city and county, so they’re not closing the door on anything either. NEXT WEEK ON RAYS: THE ROOF: How many development subsidies for their district will it take to flip one stadium vote?
“…but stays in place even if the stadium deal is canceled, but only if it’s the county or city canceling it. ”
It’s a crowded field but that has to rank pretty high on the list of all-time worst stadium negotiating decisions.
At this point, it’s pretty clear that the Rays’ play here is to take the land and get a stadium in another market, probably with another sweetheart land deal there as well. Plus, if Stu is looking to sell (and I get the feeling he is), the team is more valuable if it isn’t tied down.
The things I’m certain of here are that MLB will never be played in Pinellas County again (except for spring training), and that this will go to court. Who comes out ahead in front of a judge is anyone’s guess.
That’s what I’ve been thinking since they sent the first letter.
The county is not in contravention of anything in the agreement and most of the key points were successfully negotiated (whether they are “good” for the taxpayers is another matter, but the team and county made an agreement).
There is literally no other reason for them to try to bail at this point than that Sternberg’s only interest was in grabbing the redevelopment money and bailing on the market and/or baseball altogether.
This is disgraceful conduct even by MLB standards. And that’s saying something…
Maybe I’m giving way more grace to other local/state governments than they warrant, but if that really is the Rays’ angle, then I can’t imagine any other city or region wanting to set itself up to be suckered by that operation. Even the slightest bit of due diligence would inform them of how Stu Sternberg and co have done business and conducted themselves over the last several weeks, and throughout the entire stadium ordeal in TB.
Alas, every city thinks “that won’t happen to us” until it invariably lets that thing happen to itself.
At this point, my prediction is they might sell to the Larry H Miller group and the team moves to SLC. If you might recall, 900 million for a new ballpark if MLB comes to Utah is on the table. They will sell to the Miller Group and the team plays at Smiths ballpark temporarily while the new one gets built. The way this is going, I’m predicting that as a final result. Heck, a year prior to the Coyotes moving, I correctly called that prediction that they move to SLC and create a situation similar to what the Browns had with Modell moving the team to Baltimore.
The Rays are not moving to the west.