The Pinellas County Commission, which voted 6-1 in October to hold off on selling $312.5 million in bonds for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium following damage to the area from Hurricane Milton, and voted 6-1 in November to hold off again after team officials threatened to back out of the deal, voted 5-2 yesterday to approve the bond sale after all. As expected, two commissioners who were really for the deal all along but just voted last month to kick the can down the road because they knew they didn’t have the votes to win voted yes; in addition, commissioners Dave Eggers and Chris Latvala, who had voted against the stadium deal back in July and had hinted at wanting more concessions from the team, ended up switching their votes in exchange for absolutely nothing, thanks to … the rhetorical gifts of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred?
Latvala is now a yes. Apparently Rob Manfred worked his magic on him! Says he is voting yes because he trusts Manfred and his commitment to this region, but doesn't trust the penny-pinching Sternberg. Friends, have you ever heard anyone say nice things about Rob Manfred?
So with both the city and county signing off on bonds, the Rays’ stadium deal, which includes $1 billion in public cash, tax breaks, and land discounts, is back on, right? Hahahahaha, that would be far too easy:
“As we have made clear, the county’s delay has caused the ballpark’s completion to slide into 2029,” Rays President Matt Silverman said in a written statement. “As a result, the cost of the project has increased significantly, and we cannot absorb this increase alone. When the county and city wish to engage, we remain ready to solve this funding gap together.”
Yes, Rays management responded to news of the approval of a $1 billion taxpayer subsidy by saying well that’s nice and all, but now our costs have gone up, so the public has to help pay for that. Those of you with online dictionary subscription will soon notice an update to the image accompanying the entry for “chutzpah.”
What happens next is really anyone’s guess. SBNation’s DRaysBay, which has been one of the better sites covering this story, summed it up as that “the Rays still sound angry and sour and if their goal is to rebuild bridges with local government they have an odd way of doing it. They sound to me like someone who is trying to be so mean and unpleasant that their partner breaks up with them, so they can get out of the relationship without bearing the costs of instigating the breakup.”
Which sure is how they sound, but is Stu Sternberg really prepared to walk away from a $1 billion check just because he’s upset about two months of inflation in construction costs? (The language about the “county’s delay” pushing any stadium opening back a year neatly elides the fact that the county couldn’t have actually sold bonds by now anyway, since the Rays haven’t yet finished all the paperwork on their end of the deal.) Or is this just a gambit to see if he can guilt the city and county into sweetening the pot even more, like trying to demanding one more prospect in a salary-dump trade? It’s anybody’s guess here — it’s not even clear right now whose court the ball is in, but hopefully we’ll get some clarification from someone, someday.
For the city’s and county’s part, they’ve sent out the message that they’re holding up their respective ends of the bargain, and that they’re perfectly fine to let the Rays organization wallow in the optics of not deciding to follow suit, at least not immediately.
This is one of those rare stadium deals where both the team and the local governments have basically worked themselves into a shoot. It’s absolutely true that St Pete and Pinellas don’t really need to be spending upwards of $1 billion on a ballpark that won’t have tangible benefits for anyone other than the developers, the Rays franchise among them. On the other hand, there’s a scenario where Stu Sternberg and co entered into the agreement — in which they wilfully took on the responsibility of covering any overruns — knowing full well that they didn’t actually have the mojo to fund their portion of the project, let alone any added costs.
And because there will be commenters demanding they move to Nashville, Charlotte, Montreal, Salt Lake, Timbuktu, or any other city that supposedly “wants” an MLB franchise… if you’re the local government in those cities, and you’re seeing how the current ownership of the Rays is behaving even after receiving $1 billion in public funds on a ballpark — just weeks after a hurricane ravaged that very region, btw — why would you want to have ANY dealings at all with these people?
They would all be wise to wait until Sternberg puts the Rays on sale before even formulating a concept of a plan. And if he decides to hold onto them indefinitely? Then the Rays can stay being someone else’s problem — Sternberg himself included.
It is a disappointment that the county has approved the bond sale, but it is not surprising nor is it really anything like a “final” step.
The commitment some council or commission members required of the Rays will still have to be fulfilled before the bonds can actually be sold, so they have actually done “their part”. Having said that, I would have preferred that they refuse to approve the bond sale until the Rays have provided everything they are required to provide… but it may be that there are legal hurdles to doing so at this time.
Regardless, the ball is now in Sternberg & co’s court. And the county and all other interested parties should absolutely hold their feet to the fire on the existing deal.
The next step HAS to be either the Rays completing their obligations toward the existing deal or opting out of it. No party to the present deal should even respond to the Rays demand that “someone else” cover overruns.
Scumbag Stu can meet his obligations under the present deal or walk. He does not have and should not be presented with a third option.
I want to be a Rays fan. I liked the Trop. It worked for me. But as a resident of St. Pete, The relationship with the Rays is problematic.
First, the Rays want to blame the location of the Trop for their issues.
Then the City of St. Pete.
Then the bridges.
Then the lease which prevented them from talking to other places.
The they propose a stadium on the waterfront, that had even less access from I-275
Then the other places in Tampa Bay didn’t agree to pay
Then the stupid St. Pete/Montreal idea.
It is always something. And there is something else. In 35 years of Tampa Bay baseball, only one community has consistently shown a willingness to actually pay for a building: St. Petersburg.
Now you and I can argue that we shouldn’t have. But we did, the Trop exists and no one nowhere else has been willing to make a deal for the Rays.
And the new stadium deal sucked. But it was a deal. Then we have two hurricanes, and we have to do this stupid dance because Stu thought there was a chance he could get the Development rights AND be able to build his stadium somewhere else.
People bag on the trop and St. Pete as if we don’t deserve to have the team play here. But at the end of the day, we are the only ones who are willing to pay for it. So, heck yes, we deserve the team.
All that said. For the last 15 years I have been faced with the question of whether to invest time and money in a team that just doesn’t want to be here.
So If Stu can’t take yes for an answer, then screw him. We kept our commitment. I expect the Rays to keep theirs.
Sports fans tend to really undersell “The owner is an irredeemable prick” as a valid, legitimate reason for what they regard as tepid fan support for a team — particularly in places like Florida that don’t produce billionaires but merely attract them, and especially in the case of the Rays, whose owner seems to be under the impression that several postseason runs is enough justification to demand the moon from the local government in the most off-putting way imaginable.
Whether by design or out of haplessness, Sternberg has reached the point where just about everyone in his orbit wants to be done dealing with him. Not too dissimilar to John Fisher, where people have asked him and his handlers for answers for years, only for them to offer a hearty heap of mush in response every single time.
If Rob Manfred had anything resembling a spine, he would at least take a straw poll of the other 28 owners in MLB over whether they should explore “doing a Meruelo” to one or both of them.
TB Times “reporter” / stenographer John Romano has a front page column in which he says that after the County Commission election (but before any votes were postponed) the Rays were afraid there might be a problem “which led the team to, temporarily and WISELY, shut down construction plans.”(caps added) His main point is that he thinks the Rays need to explain in detail why they need more public money.
Not that the whole idea that there was any actual delay in required action by the city or county is a lie. Not that the Rays agreed that they would absorb any cost overruns, which was one of the selling points on the deal to begin with.
I’m totally fed up with the Rays’ (and Times) bs and am now looking forward to the day everything falls apart, March 31…the day before April Fools’ Day.