Sternberg: I shall decide on Rays stadium by March 31, based on dunno really

Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg has opened his mouth again, this time to admit that the ball’s in his court to decide whether to commit to his end of a proposed stadium deal by March 31, or else the city of St. Petersburg can walk away from it. And he will absolutely make that decision, which is his, by means of something, he just doesn’t know what yet:

“We’ll decide how we want to proceed at that point, well before that point,” said Sternberg, who on Monday attended Suncoast Tiger Bay’s State of the Bay event at the Vinoy Golf Club. “We have to make a decision, so we’ll have something by then.”

Asked what would help drive that decision, Sternberg said he didn’t know. “I’ll make sure our organization does what’s necessary to meet whatever conditions we need to meet,” he said.

Well, that’s clear as Lena Blackburne rubbing mud! St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said at the same event that he has met with Sternberg and that there’s “another issue that we need to work through,” but told reporters they would have to ask Sternberg what it was; Sternberg, in turn, deflected all questions, including how much more money he wants to receive from the city in compensation for the “significantly higher costs” he says he faces thanks to the start of the stadium work being delayed until the April deadline that he himself agreed to last July.

If that last sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, there is a fuckton here that makes no sense. The two most reasonable explanations for Sternberg’s continued foot-dragging are:

  1. The Rays owner wants to back out of the deal, but if he declares that he’s backing out, then he doesn’t get to keep development rights to the Tropicana Field land, so he’s hoping the city will back out first.
  2. The Rays owner wants to go ahead with the deal, but also wants to sweeten the pot for himself if possible, and keeping St. Pete officials on tenterhooks until March is his only leverage to get additional city money.

Neither of these is what you would call a good plan: The first would require city officials to score a phenomenal own goal by failing to realize they could just run out the clock; the second would require them to ladle on more public cash out of fear the Rays owner will walk away from the $1 billion already approved. If I had to put my money on one or the other, Door #2 seems the most likely: Sternberg’s I know we need to make a decision but I just can’t deciiiiiiiide pairs best with the international hand gesture for moar money pleeze, and Welch’s indication that he’s open to “working through” issues other than “take the deal we gave you, already” suggests that Sternberg might be able to get it.

Either way, it’s some dicey gamesmanship — to make this whole gambit worth his while, Sternberg will have to end up with more additional public cash than he’s losing by twiddling his thumbs until March and delaying a stadium opening by another couple of months. You can’t get if you don’t ask, though, and Sternberg probably figures he stumbled into his first billion-dollar public check despite having no leverage, maybe lightning will strike twice? He, and we, may have to wait until the final seconds before the clock runs out on March 31 to find out.

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4 comments on “Sternberg: I shall decide on Rays stadium by March 31, based on dunno really

  1. I wonder if he’s trying to work a deal in Tampa at the Westshore Mall site. It’s scheduled for demolition and was just rezoned for the same kind of redevelopment that’s planned for the Trop area. There might be a problem with height restrictions since it’s just south of the airport. Otherwise it would be a great location. Assuming anyone wants to support a team owned by Stu at this point.

    1. There’s also the bigger problem that Pinellas/St. Pete are the only ones offering him money, and they’re not going to fund a stadium in Hillsborough/Tampa.

  2. It would be appropriate at this point for the local pols to stop meeting with Sternberg and stop discussing their “willingness” to work through issues.

    He and Auld have gotten everything they asked for in the deal. The only thing left to do to cement the deal is “theirs” to complete. Yet they won’t stand up and honour their part of the deal they negotiated.

    The city and county should do absolutely nothing for these two clowns unless and until they have met their commitments as required under the current deal. If they do not, the deal should be allowed to die on the table.

    To quote the late (and fictional) Paulie Gualtieri:

    “dis fuckin’ guy…”

  3. 300 teachers missed their paychecks yesterday in Phoenix, and Arizona was just reported to be near the bottom for 4th grade reading, so what is the priority at the State Capitol? Funneling $500 million to the Diamondbacks for Chase Field gold plating. If the Diamondbacks don’t like it in the nation’s 5th largest city, they can try joining the Coyotes in dinky Salt Lake City. The A’s, Ray’s, White Sux, Diamondbacks and probably more MLB teams are begging for billions of taxpayer dollars. Will the politicians wake up and realize with so many teams at the trough, and so few cities to move to, MLB has no leverage.

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