Category: Tampa Bay Rays

Tampa Bay Rays officials and their Hillsborough College partners in a proposed $2.3 billion Tampa stadium plan held the first of three planned community feedback sessions yesterday, and the theme appeared to be it’s all cool, man, don’t worry yourself over the details:

“We took a no-harm approach to the work that we’re doing. No part of our financial proposal will take funding away from other priorities that the city and county have committed to,” [Rays CEO Ken] Babby said. “No part of our financial proposal will take money away from other sports teams in the community that desperately also have asked for resources around an opportunity. The Rays will take on 100% of cost overruns on the ballpark.”

That’s nice about the cost overruns and all, but vowing that “no part” of $1.15 billion in city and county spending — actually more like $2.25 billion counting free land and tax breaks — would take funding away from any other spending priorities is quite the claim, especially when the WUSF article acknowledges two paragraphs later that “where that money will come from still needs to be worked out.” And especially especially when one possible option on the table — raiding a county infrastructure and schools fund — would in particular seem to take away from those other priorities. (Presumably Babby meant that the stadium will be such a cash cow that there will be enough money to go around for everyone: He asserted that the project could generate $55 billion over 30 years, presumably in “economic impact,” also citation needed.)

Hillsborough College President Ken Atwater, meanwhile, tried to reassure students that building a pro baseball stadium and surrounding development for Rays owner Patrick Zalupski on top of most of their campus wouldn’t disrupt their studies too much, because there are lots of other colleges that have classroom and athletic fields and stuff for however many years construction is underway:

“It may mean instead of moving to temporary, we move to rental facilities or some other location or we share locations for some of our other sister institutions like the University of Tampa or like USF, which may be a possibility,” Atwater said. “We will adjust accordingly, but believe me we will remain open and available to deliver the instruction we do.”…

“There are deals that we’re making in order to maintain all of our program, especially our athletic program. You will see that we’ll be using community gyms, high school facilities, and other facilities here in the area to help support making that happen.”

Some students raised questions about all this, with Hillsborough student government member Echo Durham asking why the college needed to turn over most of its campus to the Rays instead of simply renovating its campus itself. Atwater, according to the Tampa Bay Times, replied that the campus is heavily dependent on state funding, which seems to be a way of saying that Gov. Ron DeSantis wanted this for his pal and campaign donor Rays owner Zalupski, nobody’s gonna stop him from bigfooting his way to this project, even if his feet are growing smaller by the day during his last year in office.

If all this wasn’t enough distraction, the Rays also introduced a new vaportecture video featuring creepy AI-generated people doing barely sports-related things in slow motion. I’m not sure which is my favorite bit, the seemingly 10-foot-tall performers moving about a distant stage or the lovingly generated steam emerging from coffee cups and food truck items in the Florida chill (?), but I can assure you I will be rewatching it with awe, if maybe not precisely the kind of awe that Rays officials were hoping for.

Two more public sessions are on the calendar, next Tuesday and Wednesday evenings — can’t wait to see what tricks team and college officials pull out of their hats for those.

With the Hillsborough County Commission set to meet to discuss plans for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium yesterday, on Tuesday Rob Manfred showed up in Tampa to meet with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and generally do Rob Manfred things. “Baseball belongs in Tampa Bay. Baseball can succeed in Tampa Bay,” DeSantis told reporters, while Manfred took on the more difficult jobs of trying to impose a sense of urgency in a stadium battle that’s been going on for decades, saying, “We’re at a point in the history of the club that something needs to get done.” DeSantis also said that he would be “looking to help” fund new Hillsborough College buildings on one portion of its Dale Mabry campus with state money, so the rest of the site can be handed over to the Rays.

As for how the public’s expected $1.15 billion share of the $2.3 billion stadium would be paid for, DeSantis didn’t breathe a word. So when the county commission sat down to discuss the plan yesterday, they had some questions. In particular, commissioners wondered if it would be kosher to use money from the county Community Investment Tax — a half-cent sales tax surcharge first approved back in 1996 — for a Rays stadium, given that when the CIT was renewed in 2024 two years before its initially planned expiration, it was designated “to fund infrastructure for transportation and public works, public safety, public facilities, public utilities and public schools” and the commission specifically promised that it wouldn’t be used for new sports facilities:

“We promised everyone on the public record that the CIT numbers would be ineligible,” [Commissioner Joshua] Wostal said. “We have not even began to collect that tax, and here is a suggestion that we already deceive the taxpayers that we made a promise to no less than two years ago.”

Commissioner Chris Boles echoed the concern.

“When voters approved the CIT, the discussion language primarily focused on maintaining the existing facilities, strengthening public safety and supporting core infrastructure,” said Boles, who was not on the board at the time. “And that, I believe, intent still matters today.”

Both Wostal and Boles stressed that they still might vote for a stadium deal, and indeed the commission voted unanimously to move ahead with negotiations with Rays ownership. But with Commissioner Ken Hagan already declaring that “this agreement does not happen without the CIT,” it looks like the first negotiations will be among county commissioners about whether it’s okay for a county without a ton of tax revenue streams to scrounge up $1.15 billion by first raiding the infrastructure and schools budget.

The Tampa Sports Authority, meanwhile, also met this week to discuss the Rays plans, and revealed that it will eventually release two, let’s call them “reports”, by their favorite consultants Skanska and AECOM — one on whether the $2.3 billion stadium will actually cost $2.3 billion, the other reviewing the Rays’ own economic projections for the project. (The AECOM report is expected to be ready by April 1, the Skanska one will be sometime later.) Board member Andy Scaglione also asked if anyone had appraised the value of the Dale Mabry campus (nope) and how much money was available in hotel tax funds for tourism spending that could go toward a stadium ($11-12 million, which won’t go far toward that $1.15 billion nut).

There’s still a lot to be worked out here, in other words, and while there’s no real deadline, presumably Rays owner Patrick Zalupski wants to get everything settled while his pal/$250,000 campaign PAC donation recipient DeSantis is still in his last year in office. Resolving a decades-old stadium demand by having a county with limited tax resources fund the biggest MLB subsidy in history will be no easy needle to thread, but you can bet that everyone involved is busy warming up their needle-threading fingers.

We finally have a price tag on how much Tampa Bay Rays owner Patrick Zalupski wants in spending by Hillsborough County to help build a $2.3 billion stadium in Tampa:

A notice for the meeting says the Rays would pay at least half the cost of a stadium. The rest could come from tourist bed taxes or increases in property taxes collected from the surrounding area after a stadium is built.

So if Zalupski is asking for the county to cover half the cost of building a $2.3 billion stadium, that’s $1.15 billion. (Whether county hotel tax receipts plus increased property tax proceeds would be enough to raise $1.15 billion is a question no one appears to have asked yet, though I suppose they could always just make the stadium tax district the size of the entire county, as one does. WUSF also suggests several other funding options that could be on the table, including a Community Development District and hotel and car rental tax surcharges.) The cost of providing state-owned land has previously been estimated to be at minimum $250 million, plus the Rays would duck out of $839 million worth of future property taxes and parcel fees over the course of their 99-year lease. Add it all up, and you’re at something like $2.25 billion in taxpayer subsidies that Zalupski is requesting, which would be by far the biggest public spend on a stadium deal in MLB history.

Or, if you’re the Tampa Bay Times, you go with this glass-half-full headline:

Rays tell Hillsborough they’ll cover at least 50% of Tampa stadium cost

Focusing on the fact that the billionaire who just bought the local sports team plans to cover half the cost of a stadium that he’ll receive all the revenues from, instead of the fact that he’s asking the public to cover the other half, is certainly a choice. (As is describing the team as having “honed in on” Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus, which is not the actual phrase, but that’s a separate issue.)

The meeting referenced above is tomorrow’s Hillsborough County commission meeting, which kicks off at 9 a.m. — the official agenda doesn’t actually mention anything about a Rays stadium, though it does helpfully include a link to a giant image of an American flag. With any luck, we’ll get some questions then about why the county should gift Zalupski more than $2 billion just so the baseball team he bought for $1.7 billion can increase in value; maybe we can even hope to get some answers, but we probably shouldn’t push our luck.

The proposed Tampa Bay Rays stadium at Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry Campus in Tampa may not have a design or a funding plan, but it does now have a price tag: $2.3 billion, according to Tampa Sports Authority CEO Eric Hart. And that’s just the stadium itself, before the cost of a planned surrounding mixed-use development, or the cost of relocating college facilities to one corner of the campus to make room for the stadium district, or the cost of acquiring the land from the state in the first place (assuming Rays owner Patrick Zalupski plans on paying anything for that, which only he and his lame-duck pal Gov. Ron DeSantis know).

As for where the money for all this would come from, Rays CEO Ken Babby made clear that a bunch of it would be on taxpayers’ tab:

“We need a great public/private partnership where the community, whether it be the county or the city or both, the state, all come together to build something really special here for Tampa Bay. That’s how we’re thinking about it.”

Fox13’s Evan Axelbank has a little more on possible revenue sources: The Rays owners, he said, are “considering a host of options, including community redevelopment funds, hotel taxes, car rental fees and the creation of special taxing districts that would take money from the development itself.” (Note to Evan: A special taxing district doesn’t really take the money from the development itself.) There would also be the value of getting to use all that state land — somewhere between $250 million and $1.7 billion, according to economist Geoffrey Propheter — plus getting out of paying property taxes for 99 years and parcel fees, which he just guesstimated at $839 million in present value. Total public price tag: Who the hell knows, but “way over $1 billion” seems a fair bet.

Tampa and Hillsborough County elected officials, who would have to sign off on any stadium subsidies, are so far saying all the right things about how any plan has “gotta be good for taxpayers, it can’t just be good for [the Rays],” but there’s still a long ways to go. After Hart added that the Rays would provide an economic analysis of the stadium project, the sports authority voted unanimously Tuesday to recommend that the city and county conduct their own study. Hart again:

“That’s why you’re seeing me doing economic analysis, because I think that would give better answers to be able to answer all your questions,” Hart said. “So right now, I would tell you that there’s ingredients, but there’s no soup. So it might be premature for us to say they’re at a point or not. There’s nothing like that at that level.”

I’m not sure there’s even ingredients yet, really, but it’s your metaphor, go with it. One thing’s for sure: Whatever the mystery soup ends up having in it, it’s likely to be really, really expensive.

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.

The Tampa Bay Rays‘ proposed memorandum of understanding with Hillsborough College on a site for a new stadium is out, and the initial news coverage of same tells us next to nothing we want to know about who’ll actually pay for what. So let’s go to the actual document and see what’s what, then reconvene at the bottom to try to estimate a total subsidy cost:

The Property is an approximately 113 acre-site located in Tampa, Florida, bounded by W. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, N. Lois Avenue, W. Tampa Bay Boulevard., and N. Dale Mabry Highway

This is Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry Campus, which would largely be turned over to the Rays, with the college building new facilities on one corner of the property. How much room the campus will get to retain “shall be agreed to in the Definitive Agreements,” which are TBD.

HC and the Rays will negotiate in good faith to agree on an ownership and financing structure and the conditions precedent for the contribution of the Property by HC.

I.e,, final lease terms, including things like whether the Rays will pay any rent for the state-owned site, are also TBD.

The Rays will construct a mixed-use development that may consist of, but is not limited to, hotels, retail space, multifamily buildings, sports and health related buildings, commercial buildings, parking structures, restaurants and other related buildings (“Mixed-Use Development”). The Parties acknowledge that the Rays will have sole and exclusive control over the Mixed-Use Development, during and after construction. The scope of the Mixed-Use Development will be determined as part of the Definitive Agreements

In addition to a stadium, Rays owner Patrick Zalupski will get to build a whole new neighborhood, as former team owner Stuart Sternberg planned to do at St. Petersburg’s Gas Plant District before backing out of that deal early last year. All revenues from that project will go to Zalupski, nothing to the land’s state taxpayer owners.

HC will ground lease the entire Property, except for the College District, to the Rays or a Rays’ affiliate by long-term lease of not less than 99 years.

Since Hillsborough College is a state facility, the property will be exempt from property taxes, including the parcel the team plans to build its mixed-use district on. Also, hey, it’s another 90-plus-year lease, just like the Washington Commanders deal! Lease terms TBD, of course, but it means that any discounted rent could add up to one hell of a lot, as it did for the $6.6 billion Commanders subsidy.

(Economist Geoff Propheter, who crunched the numbers for the Commanders deal, delivers the mic drop on this via email: “If there’s an upside to all of these stupidly long land leases that are so common in sports, I won’t be alive to remind people that I told them so.”)

The Parties anticipate the prominence and activity generated by the Project that will significantly enhance HC’s visibility, strengthen its community presence, and create valuable opportunities for outreach, partnerships, and student engagement.

LOL.

The Rays will pursue various economic incentive programs at the local and state levels in connection with the Project

You didn’t think Zalupski would be content with getting to build his stadium on state-provided tax-free land, did you? Florida already has a sports slush fund that draws on state sales tax dollars, and Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa could always offer tax breaks as well.

The MOU has already been unanimously approved by Hillsborough College’s board of trustees and has the backing of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has a long history with Zalupski, appointing him to the University of Florida’s board of trustees after Zalupski gave $250,000 to his Super PAC. DeSantis said yesterday that while he wouldn’t help fund the stadium itself, he would consider spending to move a juvenile jail currently on the site and, in the words of the Tampa Bay Times, “help pay for roads and sewers to prevent traffic jams,” which suggests some innovative mass transit solutions.

So, what are we talking about in terms of public cost? It’s hard to say until we see the final lease agreement, but Propheter does provide a figure for the value of the land itself: $250 million if the college were to sell it, between $582 million and $1.7 billion (in present value) if they leased it. Add in whatever Zalupski would get in tax breaks (Propheter can’t estimate those yet because he doesn’t know how much the stadium and development would be appraised at), state road and sewer spending, and any “economic incentives,” and it all seems very likely to exceed the $1 billion that Sternberg rejected one year ago. All this has to get approved by the state and likely Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa as well, of course, but never bet against team owners finding a greater fool.