If there’s one basic principle in negotiations of any kind, it’s to hold your cards tight and not give your opponent any unnecessary leverage. Even if you want to ultimately agree to a deal, to get the best one possible for your side you want to keep your focus on your own advantages, and don’t let — oh just never mind:
“I believe that it’s either going to be located at (Hillsborough College) or the team’s going to be in Orlando,” [Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken] Hagan said on a sports radio show Wednesday. “The reality is the they have significantly more bed tax revenue than we do, and they’ve been pushing for a team.”
Let’s say that it’s true that Orlando officials are likely to jump to throw money at the Tampa Bay Rays if Tampa does not. (They haven’t before now, but also former Rays owner Stuart Sternberg was mostly focused on playing off cities in Tampa Bay against each other, plus Montreal for some reason.) Or even let’s just say that Hagan believes that Orlando will jump to lure the Rays, and that new Rays owner Patrick Zalupski would be willing to move there. You still don’t say that out loud! Not when your city and county are about to have to negotiate unspecified “incentives” to help Zalupski build a new stadium on the campus of Hillsborough College, on top of $1 billion or more in land and tax breaks.
Hagan said something similar back in September when Zalupski first bought the Rays, declaring, “If for any reason we’re unable to get over the finish line, then the team may ultimately be in Orlando. It’s Tampa’s to lose.” But this week’s statement was phrased as even more of a threat on Zalupski’s behalf.
There’s been a lot of speculation over the years about why local elected officials do the bidding of sports team owners when they don’t have to, most of which come down to the ideas that they’re 1) stupid or 2) on the take. (My leading theory remains that they’re just doing what all the lobbyists and other people at the right parties are telling them to do.) But statements like Hagan’s betray a deeper problem: Many elected officials just want to make team owners happy, regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Announcing that the Rays will move to Orlando without subsidies in Tampa is horrible tactics — it will almost certainly raise the eventual public cost — but it does increase the chances that Tampa will win the right to shower Zalupski with money, and if that’s the only goal, then Hagan has done his job perfectly.
This has been Hagan’s M.O. for a long while now, back to when he declared the “sense of urgency” around building a Rays stadium to be “borderline dire” way back in 2013. Normally I would warn that being the commissioner who cried wolf will stop you from being taken seriously, but here Hagan is still getting headlines in the Tampa Bay Times with his dire warnings, so I guess it works different when you’re a county commissioner-for-life.
Easy response to the Rays. MOVE!!! The rest of America and probably Tampa doesn’t care. Maybe after the current CBA expires it will put MLB out of its misery. We have bigger problems in this country to even care about the Rays and where they’ll play. Go play in HELL.
If the last year could not drill into Tampa/Hillsborough politicos that if they build, they still won’t come, the next 90 years of 16k attendance won’t either.
The Rays in Tampa did 9712 in a 11,026 capacity stadium that was feet from this site. This while dumping tickets on the secondary.
The Tampa Tarpons FSL team, which normally plays at the stadium the Rays used in 2025, receives 1/3 of the gate of the Clearwater Threshers FSL, despite being in Clearwater instead of Tampa, being the Phillies’ farm team, and not being the most popular team in the market, the Yankees. Oh and Clearwater has both another FSL 6 miles from its stadium and Tropicana is 21 miles.
Outside of the 30 mile radius chart there is nothing to suggest the rays will see higher attendance in Tampa. Its still 45 minutes at least for those that live in Wesley Chapel.
I am not 100% sure FSL attendance is much of a true barometer. The league has been around for most of the last 75 years or so, doesn’t really advertise or promote and does not need your ticket revenue, frankly.
I am also not sure one temp season at Steinbrenner is a true test, though I admit that is just a sense.
As someone who grew up in Tampa proper, I am sure there is a passion for the game itself, but we have decades now of data that it is not directed at paying for (ridiculously priced) tickets to see the local major-league team play.
As a Hillsborough guy, I will always believe that side of the Bay is a better location, but I am not naive enough to think it solves all the problems.
A new stadium at Dale Mabry probably would do okay, at first, I guess? But there is no real reason to think you could put it anywhere and do really well long-term.
The temp move to the former Legends Field is a step up from an amenities perspective. After all, we kept hearing about how it was the crap stadium that was holding the great young competitive team back… right?
Well, the publicly funded stadium with the statue of George out front (hey, you gotta give the pigeons something…) was certainly a better experience for fans. It’s true that the scumbag ex owner chose that moment to raise ticket prices dramatically rather than welcome his existing fans to a better experience at the same price, but hey, Stu gonna Stu.
I agree with both of you to a point though, there is simply nothing to suggest that there are 22-25,000 baseball fans willing to pay MLB prices to see MLB baseball in Tampa (or St. Pete).
Lots of Yankee fans and retired fans of other teams who now live in or around TSP. But Rays fans? Not enough.
My sense is the concern is that the whole franchise/stadium gambit ( that this site and cottage industry is about) has eventual consequences for a lot of people, whether they live in or around Tampa or not.
So they move. (Or MOVE!) They can’t do that without setting in motion the same types of issues in some other municipality.
And so on.
We do have a lot of things to be concerned with in this country. SOME of those things are actually caused (or exacerbated) by elected officials siphoning off taxpayer money that could provide services for everyone and giving it to billionaires who provide entertainment for some.
I teach college courses in economics and public policy. About 25 years ago, one of my former students was working in the economic development planning office of a city government in North Carolina. He said he would regularly receive phone calls from companies he’d never heard of all over the country – like a manufacturer from somewhere in Alabama – asking what tax breaks the company could receive if they moved their factory to the former student’s town, At the time, NC did not allow local governments to offer tax breaks as an economic development incentive, and that saved him from wasting time talking to these inquiries from companies that clearly had no interest in opening a facility in NC. The inquiries were solely aimed at getting leverage to use in bargaining with the town where the company currently had a factory, so they could say “We could get a tax break of $1.5 million if we move to town XXX. Can you match that?” Pro sports teams are clearly taking advantage of state and local governments in exactly this manner.
Only without even getting the offers to use as leverage! Right now the Chicago Bears’ whole thing is “Give us money or we’ll accept Indiana’s offer,” when Indiana’s offer is “Uh, we could make a sports authority and give it money somehow from somewhere?”
It would feel a lot more like actual extortion if the marks weren’t preemptively opening their wallets and saying, “How much do you need?”
Gary has already been making the push https://bearstadiumdistrict.com/
They may not have gone public with how much cash they are offering, but I am sure there have been talks. Now, this could just be a PR exercise for Gary (like a lot of cities that made pitches for Amazon HQ2)
The reason for Montreal was that Sternberg liked hanging out there.
Having a multi billionaire on the hook as ‘co owner’ in that market – one of the few MLB feels is a viable candidate – that he could sell to at any time was a plus also.
But De Santis helped Stu out on that front too… what are middle infielders for, after all.
The funny thing is that there isn’t even an inkling of a sense that anyone in Orlando would care if the Rays moved here, either.
The list of reasons why the Rays (or MLB) wouldn’t work here is extensive, and I would be belaboring the point if I were to rehash them again. Just know that the usual trope about “Florida only cares about college football” is still way, way, way down on that list.
That’s the great thing about Stalking Horses – they don’t have to be real.
Next stop: Greensboro! Or Nashville. Or Portland (either one)… maybe one of the Springfields.
It’s like a 1950’s monster movie! The whole thing works best when you never actually see the monster, just it’s shadow (and the music… gotta have the music).