- November 15, 2024
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Just shy of four months after the Tampa Bay Rays got the final approval for a long awaited (or, depending on your perspective, long-delayed) new ballpark, the team announced last week that it would play the 2025 season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.
The team made the decision to hold its home games at the the New York Yankees’ Spring Training facility because of extensive damage to its current ballpark, St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field, caused by Hurricane Milton in October.
“We deeply appreciate that the Yankees have graciously allowed us to play at” the park, Stuart Sternberg, the Rays principal owner, says in a statement. But the decision couldn’t have been an easy one.
The Yankees, who are coming of a World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, are a rival and having to play in their smaller, training ballpark seems akin to a younger brother getting an older brother’s hand me downs.
But the words easy and ballpark have never fit together well in a sentence for the Tampa Bay Ray.
Being forced to move out of Tropicana Field, even if it winds up being for only one season, is just the latest twist in a nearly 20-year-old saga filled with all the bombshells of a Harlan Coben novel.
This is a story which has included announcements saying that a deal was in place for a ballpark in Ybor City, that playing in Montreal half the season was the solution and threats that the future may involve leaving Tampa altogether.
This as the team was a perennial winner and fans stayed home — leaving the stands embarrassingly empty.
But all that seemed to be in the past after this summer when Pinellas County and St. Petersburg elected leaders voted on funding packages that would go toward building a new $1.3 billion stadium as part of an 86-acre redevelopment of a historical city neighborhood.
About $600 million of funds would come from the localities with the team paying the other half and footing the bill for any overruns.
“It literally has taken a village and a city to get to this point right now,” Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said in July.
The plan calls for construction of the new ballpark to begin early next year on a site adjacent to the current Tropicana Field and for it to be done in time for the start of the 2028 season.
The team will play out its lease at Tropicana Field, which expires at the end of the 2027 season and the building is to be demolished shortly thereafter.
But that timeline could be delayed for a year or two.
And there is another possibility: A new stadium may never be built and the Rays may never play in St. Petersburg again.
Just a couple of days after announcing the move to Steinbrenner Field, Sternberg told the Tampa Bay Times that a decision to postpone a vote to approve bonds to fund the ballpark threatened to derail the deal.
He told the paper that the delay “sent a clear message that we had lost the county as a partner” and the “future of baseball in Tampa Bay became less certain after that vote.”
There is also a concern that if the out-of-pocket costs to repair Tropicana Field are higher than expected, St. Petersburg’s City Council may not approve the fix to a building which is slated for demolition.
This would mean the team would be without a major league stadium longer than a season, cutting deeply into its revenue.
“We’ve been in that sort of position before, in a sense, but without an expiring clock. An expiring clock that just exploded, basically,” Sternberg told the Times, adding that “it’s a confluence of events and without the minds here coming together, (relocation) is not an unlikely conclusion.”
The storm tore off massive chunks of the stadium’s roof, also causing damage to the interior of the building, leaving it uninhabitable for the Rays.
Its front office staff recently moved into rented space.
According to a report to the city, it is going to cost $55.7 million to repair the building. The city of St. Petersburg, which is the landlord, is responsible for the repairs and FEMA and insurance monies are likely to defray the costs.
But with the work not likely to be completed until well after the 2025 baseball season starts in March, the Rays, after searching for a permanent home for 20 years, had to find a temporary place to play.
Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ managing general partner, says in a statement that his organization and family “have deep roots in the Tampa Bay region, and we understand how meaningful it is for Rays players, employees and fans” to have games next season played close to home.
“In times like these, rivalry and competition take a back seat to doing what’s right for our community — which is continuing to help families and businesses rebound from the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.’’
Steinbrenner Field is on North Dale Mabry Highway, across from Raymond James Stadium, and sits about 11,000 people.
The Yankees, according to a statement from the Rays, will continue to play there next spring as the Rays train in Port Charlottes, as per usual.
The move will happen when Spring Training breaks.
The team, in a statement, says Steinbrenner Field was the best-prepared stadium in the region to host regular-season games and is already undergoing renovations to improve its clubhouse and playing facilities. That project includes upgraded field lighting, expanded home locker rooms and improved training and rehabilitation capabilities.
Additional improvements are expected to be made before the regular season.
The Rays did not discuss financial terms, nor did it say what would happen to Yankees’ branding currently covering much of Steinbrenner Field.
As for the team playing at Steinbrenner Field during the playoffs or World Series, a Rays spokesperson says in an email that team has no comment beyond what’s been announced.
