The Tampa city council spent all day meeting yesterday about the Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal, but honestly they could have saved time and just voted first thing in the morning. Public speakers were split in their opinions — public speakers are always split — and as for councilmembers themselves, there was little actual discussion for most of the day, with elected officials mostly talking past each other, knowing that everyone’s vote was already decided going in. The only reason you drop a half-finished bill on legislators’ desks less than a week before the vote is to avoid robust public debate, waiting till you know you have a slim majority then calling a snap vote while you know you have a W. The final vote was 4-3 in favor, same as had been since councilmember Bill Carlson used the leverage of his being a swing vote to win effectively no concessions whatsoever while patting himself on the back for doing so.
(WUSF claimed that the swing vote was councilmember Naya Young, but she’d already voted yes to the deal the first time it came up for a vote, leaving open the question of whether the NPR station doesn’t know what a swing vote is or just can’t remember as far back as March. The Tampa Bay Times, meanwhile, parroted Carlson’s line that Rays owner Patrick Zalupski will “cover” $100 million that previously would have come from city property taxes, even though Zalupski’s loan will still be repaid with city property taxes. This has not been a banner week for Tampa area journalism.)
The closest the council came to open debate was at the tail end of the meeting, whcn councilmembers took turns giving statements. I didn’t listen to all of it, but did hear councilmember Luis Viera claim that two-thirds of the stadium is being privately paid for because it’s “revenues from the project” — notwithstanding that it’s tax revenues that anyone other than Zalupski would be paying to the city treasury if they built such a project, but that instead will be kicked back to pay for the stadium costs; if that’s your criterion, everyone should get to write their yearly IRS checks to themselves, on that grounds that it’s tax money that “wouldn’t exist” without them. Councilmember Lynn Hurtak countered that the deal — what we know of it so far, given the many documents that remain unresolved — would put Tampa taxpayers on the hook for an unknown amount of future upgrade costs and called on councilmembers to “show we’re the smart city”; Carlson and council chair Alan Clendenin (yep, this guy) then mansplained at her to read the stadium funding agreement, something she’d already made plainly clear she had done, in detail.
There’s still a Hillsborough County Commission vote today, and while anything can happen, the council was universally seen as the higher hurdle here. For now, Tampa elected officials just voted to approve at least $180 million in future city property tax money plus $400 million or so in future city property tax breaks plus unknown amounts of future property tax kickbacks for additional upgrades, plus $1.5 billion or more in county and state subsidies, all to build a stadium for a billionaire team owner with no other offers on the table from other cities, after hardly any debate and before all the documents have been finalized. If there’s any upside, it’s that the interminable Rays stadium saga appears to be nearing an end, at least for the next couple of decades until the team’s lease at the new place gets close to running out; the cost is only the most expensive taxpayer stadium subsidy in MLB history.
Will other cities be the smart city? Let’s see how stadium and arena matters are going elsewhere:
- Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas’s explanation for spending an extra $7 million a year on bond payments for a Royals stadium is that it’s not just to get around a public vote, it’s also that the more expensive bonds would be easier for the city to default on. With a sales pitch like that, the city may end up having to offer an even higher interest rate than 5.725% to get anyone to buy their stadium bonds.
- The Beacon News, meanwhile, says that even though Royals owner John Sherman will only be putting up $55 million for a community benefits agreement against $600 million in city funding, that’s fair because tithing one-tenth of your income to private charity is a Christian tradition. That’s not even true, but it wouldn’t make any more sense if it were, just let it go, it’s been a bad week for journalism all around.
- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he has talked to some Illinois legislators about getting a Chicago Bears stadium done in that state. “We want to make sure that Arlington Heights and Illinois have an opportunity, as well as Indiana, to put their best foot forward,” said Goodell, presumably because “The bidding is now open!” would sound too crass.
- The Alpharetta City Council approved zoning changes that could lead to an NHL arena in Atlanta’s far northern suburbs, if Atlanta’s far northern suburbs got an NHL team, which nobody is predicting will actually happen.
- There could be a bidding war for the Oakland Arena between arena management titans Legends Global and Oak View Group, though both parties appear to be offering roughly the same amount of money (roughly $100 million), instead competing on which company can provide better “long-term stewardship” for the venue.
- Sports teams are really expensive when you’re bidding against billionaires, film at 11.
“This has not been a banner week for Tampa area journalism.”
This also reminds me of the phrases I’ve come to despise the most over the past decade or so (and even before that): “Do better” or “Be better.” By and large, the people and entities we make these demands to know damn well than they’re fully capable of doing or being “better,” and they’re just actively choosing not to do it.
And if people making that demand were more honest (e.g. wanting to be *seen* as demanding more rather than actually agitating for it), they would acknowledge that reality themselves, and start declaring these media outlets and public officials that are quite obviously in the tank for powerful figures to be… quite obviously in the tank for powerful figures. Even if shame, scorn and ridicule aren’t anywhere near the motivators they used to be, there are still contexts where they can be felt at certain individual or institutional levels.
Has the Tampa Bay media brought up the financial fiasco the Marlins deal has been for Miami Dade? Has the media mentioned, that except for the West Sacramento Athletics playing in a 13,000 seat minor league stadium, Tampa and Miami are dead last for attendance in the MLB this year? Have the Tampa politicians considered what Tampas financial position will be if the real estate tax is eliminated, which the trump loving voters of Florida will probably approve? In addition to swamps full of Burmese pythons, endless hot, humid summers, hurricanes, huge bugs everywhere, now stupid media, politicians and trump voters are good reasons to stay far away from Florida. Arizona can say no to sports teams, bye bye Coyotes, and we have 2 Democrat Senators, and Governor and Attorney General.
When you turn an economic argument into a political rant you lose all credibility regardless of which side of the debate you are on.
County approved it.
These two municipalities have just agreed to put more tax dollars than ever before toward a project that will really benefit the team’s owner (linked to the governor, who, well, you can find why he is in the news today) for a team the region has clearly demonstrated ennui toward, even when it wins.
Will being on the Hillsborough side of the Bay help? I am always going to think that – I grew up on the Hillsborough side. Will it be 2.5M people a year for the games and 7.5M people a year for the rest of it, all paying brand new dollars to be taxed?
Can’t see that.
But okay, there is no end to this, it appears.
Bucs are on the clock.
There were many lowlights to today’s county commission hearing, but Ken Hagan saying he knows the Rays project will be an exception to the rule that stadiums are bad deals for taxpayers because he asked AI and it said “yes” was an all-time classic.
OMG, he actually said that?
I’m not going to defend Florida’s education system, but, man.
https://www.youtube.com/live/5nW47pVvIVA?t=7784s
“AI said this development is a historic exception to the standard model. We’ve heard about live-work-play environments. But here we’d be creating the first live, work, play, and learn environment, surrounded by a major league baseball ballpark.”
Did he ask AI if people need sidewalks?
And later on Chris Boles said he asked AI to tell him if the revised deal was significantly better than the original one:
https://www.youtube.com/live/5nW47pVvIVA?t=12723s
Does Florida still have schools? Probably not for much longer given the lack of a state income tax, the upcoming property tax referendum and rising sea levels. The Marlins and Ray’s stadium deals still aren’t the dumbest thing Florida ever did, breeding Burmese pythons for pets is still the winner.
Hey Neil, I think Hagan proves that in the battle of Artificial Intelligence vs. Real Stupidity there are no winners.
The Meaty Man couldn’t leave office fast enough. And this isn’t just about (many) Floridians being ready to see the back of him… he himself might want to fast-track his own exit before further revelations of grift and other odious headlines undermine not only his own career and aspirations, but also the entire party at the state level.
Just incredible to watch so many supposedly smart people throw out their intelligence AND ethics.
Journalists, officials, fans— all just cheering on the blatant theft of generations, to subsidize a niche interest that has zero chance of fulfilling ANY of the wild promises being made. No wonder voters feel angry and hopeless when both parties are selling them out, and ignoring them.
The exact same thing happened 30yrs ago with the original stadium. And yet here we are again, being scammed by arrogant oligarchs and their bought off spineless politicians.
Suncoast Dome wasn’t *exactly* the same thing, though.
Public sentiment was supposedly 4-1 in favor (at least at the last public hearing). There were those who wanted a referendum (didn’t get it), and that never did get much traction in this case.
The publisher of the St. Pete Times, Jack Lake, was very behind it. Tom McEwen of the Trib was in favor of the Tampa Bay Baseball Group’s plan to build a privately funded dome where Al Lopez Field stood at the time. (Just down the street from where this thing will be, as it happens.)
But we only had a few sports radio types, and they didn’t parade in baseball uniforms in front of the council and insist that this was just a loan that would be paid back multiple times over.
St. Pete’s city council voted on July 24, 1986 to build the thing (for a supposed $85M, which is like $255M today if I have the calculation right) without a team and they weren’t giving a public subsidy to enrich a team owner (because no team and no owner existed).
We do have an unhealthy relationship with sports in this country and we do lose all sense of reason when it comes to them. That’s always been the case; the numbers are just so completely out of whack now.
And possibly more damning is that the Florida voters will be asked in November if property taxes should be eliminated.
So, yeah, the potential for no money coming in from that source makes this deal look that much worse.
Whaddya gonna do?
The A’s Vegas subsidy is a pittance compared to what the Rays and Royals are getting. Seems practically guaranteed that Fisher will be back in Carson City next year begging for money.
How many visiting team fans will come to Vegas to watch a series? The last time I took a math class, 162 >>> 17. For most baseball fans, there is a glut of opportunities to watch your team on the road. For example, Milwaukee is only an hour drive for Cubs fans and St Louis and Cincinnati are only 300 miles, while the White Sox are a 20 minute ride on the Red Line. How many Cubs fans will say, National Lampoon Vacation was my favorite movie, so lets drive to 2,000 miles to Vegas for a Cubs game? For the Vegas Athletics, the Dodgers, Angels, Padres and dbacks are 300 miles away, the Giants are 600 mile, Rockies are 800 and Texas Rangers are 1200 miles away. Except for the Southern California fans, division rival Angels in particular, I just don’t see much impact on the Vegas economy. Filling 150,000 hotel rooms 365 nights a year, along with millions of square feet of casino and convention space will just get more and more challenging. MLB and NBA will be a drop in the bucket.
Big fan of the site! I got into an argument today with a buddy about the sources of all the money. Is there a clear breakdown? I’ve read that the owner is going to contribute $1.37B. I have to assume that’s a misleading number or an outright lie, right?
Are they numbers that are being ignored by the media the free land and public ownership and therefore zero property taxes?
The numbers are super-convoluted, but it’s more or less:
$800 million from the county
$180 million from Tampa
$1.37 billion from the Rays, who’ll get $742 million back in property tax breaks on the stadium and $250 million in free land
It’s possible some of this changed slightly in the final deal — all the documents still haven’t been released yet — but you can find most of the details here:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2026/05/15/24130/friday-roundup-rays-execs-propose-squishy-mou-to-unlock-stadium-vote-bears-tax-hike-proponent-crushed-in-reelection-bid/
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2026/05/06/24080/rays-officials-wont-say-if-theyll-demand-stadium-development-tax-break-that-could-add-billions-to-public-cost/
To make Ray’s attendance look worse, Tampa came in 28th, ahead of only Miami and West Sacramento, the Rays have the best record in the American League. The teams tied for the worst record, LA Angels and Colorado Rockies came in at 13th and 16th. If you give away $2 billion you Don’t have, are you really giving away $2 billion, or have you retained a bankruptcy attorney?
That’s the sad part; the Rays are consistently good but people don’t show up. I doubt a fancy ballpark will change this.
I could see the argument of moving from an open air stadium to a dome in Florida but that’s not the case here. And by the way, that open to dome move didn’t exactly work out for the Marlins did it?
At the end of the day, a huge percentage of people living in Florida grew up somewhere else and in their hearts they still root for their “hometown” team. They may “support” the Rays but that’s not the same as buying season tickets or going to a dozen games a year.
Does this “allow” MLB to get serious on expansion now?
The fix is in for NHL expansion.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/houston-mayor-supports-nhl-expansion-plans-well-be-there/