Tampa Bay Rays co-presidents Brian Auld and Matt Silverman waded back into the stadium wars late last week, and the Tampa Bay Times scrambled all its reportorial jets to cover it. For those who haven’t been following, the Times has three writers who’ve been working on the Rays’ stadium story: baseball beat reporter Marc Topkin, who is historically a mouthpiece for Rays leadership; sports columnist John Romano, who is more a “can’t we just find a solution here” guy; and St. Petersburg reporter Colleen Wright, who actually reports the news. All three were on display over the weekend, and they did a classic job of describing the elephant:
- Wright kicked things off on Friday by reporting on how Auld and Silverman went on a team-sponsored radio show Thursday night and again blamed St. Petersburg and Pinellas County officials for delaying their stadium financing votes from October to December following Hurricane Milton, which they said “effectively broke the deal.” City and county officials, in turn, were “expressing growing impatience” with Rays execs, wrote Wright, with County Commission chair Brian Scott, a strong supporter of the stadium deal, saying, “If you can’t make a deal work with $600 million in public funding [Ed. Note: more like $1 billion actually], then you’ve got a business model that’s not sustainable. That’s not something that public dollars are going to fix.”
- Romano followed up Saturday evening with a column on how “Mayor Ken Welch and a handful of city council folk were just about the last allies the Rays had in the universe and now they’ve managed to tick them off, too.” And while “to a degree” the Rays ownership’s anger was justified, he wrote, because the county commission did delay their vote until new members came on board, those new members “realized their error” and decided they didn’t want to be blamed for “the bungling of a $6.5 billion redevelopment deal” and approved the funding anyway. This is Rays owner Stu Sternberg’s last chance to get a stadium in the Tampa Bay area, Romano argued, and if that doesn’t happen, either 1) Sternberg will move the team, 2) Sternberg will sell the team to someone who moves it, or 3) Sternberg will sell the team to someone who gets a new stadium built locally. (The idea that maybe the Rays don’t actually need a new stadium, or at least a new stadium that costs $1.3 billion plus whatever the Trump steel tariff surcharge will be, seems not to have crossed Romano’s mind, despite his writing that it’s likely “the team will not see huge profits upon the opening of a new stadium” because nobody really wants to go see Rays games.)
- A few hours later, Topkin chimed in by turning over all his column inches to Silverman, who said “we have four years to figure this out” and “we’ve always wanted to be here” and “we’re going to try to figure it out,” but that Rays execs are still deciding whether to go ahead with the new stadium deal by March 31, after which it turns into a pumpkin and everyone goes back to square one.
It was all really quite the case study in the breadth of U.S. newspaper coverage, running the gamut from straight-up team boosterism to even-handed reporting. And even more than that, it’s a reminder of how daily news outlets seldom convey a perspective that isn’t held by someone in a position of power: We have Topkin telling us how Rays execs see the stadium fiasco, columnist Romano expressing how Mayor Welch and other pro-stadium councilmembers see it, and Wright reporting on the perspective of city and county officials as a whole. The idea of consulting economists or budget experts, or just regular local residents who still haven’t been asked what they think of the deal, is crazy talk — who even are those guys?
Meanwhile, none of this gets us any closer to understand whether Sternberg and Friends are truly set to walk away from a $1 billion check because they just realized stadiums are expensive or Florida gets hit by hurricanes or something, or if they’re waiting to see if St. Pete officials will sweeten the deal if they hold out until March 31. That sure doesn’t sound likely given the latest statements by local elected officials — don’t forget, even Welch indicated two weeks ago that he’s ready to walk away from the stadium deal if Sternberg doesn’t live up to his end of things — but we’ll see. The power of “let’s just get things done” is powerful, especially when it’s posed as the sensible middle.
It would truly be a great day for area taxpayers if the team either deliberately or accidentally fails to meet it’s requirements (contrary to what they have been saying, it is the team officials who have not met their requirements, and not the city or county, under the existing agreement) and scuttles this deal.
Should that wondrous thing occur, I would hope that Welch and co simply move on to other things and expend neither effort nor money to negotiate any future deal with the Rays’ ownership.
I’m sure there are many other things that area residents could benefit from MUCH more than a billionaire’s sports palace.
Wait. Are you suggesting that the elected officials should actually represent the people that elected them and not just give in to the billionaire owner who promises all manner of economic wins?
:P
BTW here’s a bit of a rational assessment from a local blogger with a forum. https://www.draysbay.com/2025/2/14/24365569/rays-continue-false-claim-county-delay-approving-bonds-broke-stadium-contract
Daveyk, that is an excellent column — rays-continue-false-claim-county-delay-approving-bonds-broke-stadium-contract — and good reading for anyone interested in the stadium mess going on in St. Pete. Truly, a mess created and nurtured by the Rays ownership. Stu and Silverman should run for office!
DRaysBay has been doing great work. It’s a bit more than “local blogger with a forum,” though — it’s the SBNation Rays site, which makes it at least semipro?
I know someone who writes a column for SB Nation. And you’re right that it’s probably more than a blogger with a forum. But semi pro might be overstating it a bit.
So I fell back to the obvious.
Maybe well informed independent local journalist?
Just my opinion.
Yeah, I didn’t mean it as a criticism, just a clarification. Anyway, agreed that DRaysBay has been far better at reporting on this than anyone at the TB Times, Colleen Wright excepted.
All good. (Smile)
So “we have four years to figure this out” sounds like “the deal is dead, so we can go back to square one and make a new deal with {magic public entity with tons of money}!””
Except…if the deal is dead, doesn’t that mean that the original Use Agreement is still in effect? And doesn’t that mean that the Rays can’t talk to anybody about playing elsewhere until 2029? Will they need to get permission to look elsewhere like they did before from the St Pete City Council? (HA!) Nah, probably they could talk to anybody about where they’ll go when the Trop agreement is up in (maybe) 2029. But it’s fun to think of the City suing them for breach of contract.
Best case scenario: The current deal dies. St Pete spends the absolute minimum to make the Trop playable. The Rays can’t make a deal anywhere with anybody. In 2029 they leave town, the County uses its tourist tax dollars to do things that actually support tourism and St Pete gets to sell the Trop site piece by piece to companies that actually build stuff and not Wall Street corporate raiders.
Barry – you are correct on the “four years to figure this out” statement. I believe this deal will expire March 31st given that statement by the Rays and other words speaking in the past tense.
Stu never had the money; was looking for new investors which he admits that he couldn’t find any and has given up on that search. Look what he did to his current minority partners. They have 500 million reasons to be upset!
Mayor Welch should be ashamed of himself for trusting this clown – the previous mayors of St. Pete and Tampa city councilman Ken Hagen already knew.
Stu has set the clock back four years now – at least – but I think in the long run, this is the best thing that could have happen. The city will have control again of the 86 acres – all sitting on the skirts of a booming downtown. Residents would be foolish to reelect Welch to another term next year.
The team belongs in downtown Tampa, closer to 1.5 million people within a 30-minute drive. This is where the business center is (companies buy 65-70% of the season tickets for the average MLB team), it is younger and with much better demographics.
Regarding your question on rather the agreement is in place for four more years – that is correct – 1 season will be at Steinbrenner Field, and 3 more at Tropicana (assuming the stadium is repaired in time. However, the Rays are free to discuss plans with another city as long as it does not entail any mention of playing before 2028 there.
The commissioner has made it clear the team will not be leaving the 11th largest TV market in the United States. The only option is to sell the team. But since that takes time and it takes 3 years to build a stadium and another year to design it, the clock has run out.
Don’t be surprised if they are playing baseball at the “Trop” beyond 2028 until this is all figured out.