Time for the Rays to cut bait
As Tampa Bay's stadium plan runs aground, this overachieving franchise needs to be welcomed somewhere.
Baseball fever invaded the Tampa-St. Petersburg area in 1998, when the brand new Devil Rays drew 2.5 million fans.
Then the vaccines came.
A million fewer fans watched Tampa Bay win 63 games in 1999, after a 69-win inaugural season. The club topped 1.8 million beginning in 2008, when the Rays shockingly and simultaneously had their first winning season and won their first American League pennant. They haven’t approached it since, despite a remarkable insistence on grinding out five consecutive playoff appearances beginning in 2019, with a Wal-Mart payroll. Covid-19 dealt the Rays a blow by arriving in 2020, when they got to their second World Series, and doused the residual enthusiasm in 2021.
Only seven times have the Rays finished higher than 13th in American League attendance. Last year they drew 1.34 million, an average house of 16,514 rattling around in Tropicana Field, watching Tampa Bay’s first losing season (80-82) since 2017.
The Rays have been demanding a new ballpark since Jon Gruden was coaching the Buccaneers, if not longer. The Trop was unsightly, but at least it guaranteed that a game would be played and batting practice would be conducted, because of the roof. Meanwhile, Rays’ fans resented the general accusation that baseball was irrelevant to the area. Look at our local TV ratings, they said. And try to get from Tampa to St. Pete at dinnertime, on the causeways and bridges that waste the precious hours of people’s lives. St. Petersburg’s traffic was ranked 7th worst in America last year, with an average 52-minute commute.
All of that became somewhat academic when Hurricane Milton savaged the Trop last October. Although the city said it could be repaired for $55 million and spruced up in time for the 2026 season, that plan was scuttled in favor of a new stadium, also in St. Petersburg. And that plan hit the bricks when the Rays backed out of the new stadium deal altogether this week.
Stuart Sternberg, the principal owner, is loath to devote $700 million to the project because he feels it will mushroom to far more than that, thanks to cost overruns and the effect of steel tariffs. Matt Silverman, the co-president, emphasized that the Rays do have the money but defended their right to spend it as they wish.
Major League Baseball has responded by encouraging Sternberg to sell the club, and it’s reported that former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo, 78, is interested. The interest from the Tampa side of the bay is lukewarm, at least when it comes to dealing with Sternberg.
Meanwhile, the Rays will play at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, spring training home of the Yankees. Although the ballpark has major league amenities for the players, it only seats a little over 11,000, and a site for postseason games is TBD (same for the Athletics in Sacramento). We’ll know the true nature of the fans’ excuse-making if Steinbrenner Field begins sprouting empty seats, since the stadium is easy to access, near the Tampa airport.
This just deepens Major League Baseball’s Florida problem. The Marlins, who won two World Series and then alienated their fans by stripping both rosters, have a luxurious new ballpark on the site of the old Orange Bowl, convenient to most of Miami. They drew 2.2 million when they moved there in 2012 and have ranked dead last, among N.L. teams, in every non-Covid season since. They still serve as a survival kit for the rest of baseball, purging themselves of the players they develop and sending them to riches and victories elsewhere. Last year their average house was 13,425.
The Marlins probably aren’t going anywhere, but the sharks are circling Tampa Bay. Barry Larkin is the front man for the Orlando Dreamers, who already have a mockup of a domed stadium, right there at Sea World, and say they’re ready to meet the $1.3 billion franchise valuation. The smartest ballpark location has always been just east of Tampa on Interstate 4, so Orlando fans could get there, but this makes even more sense. It has the support of Ron DeSantis, the book-banning governor of the Free State of Florida.
An Orlando franchise with actual money could take advantage of Florida’s sales tax situation (i.e., none) and build something substantial. Players like golf and sunshine, and they have kids that like Disney. At the grassroots and in the colleges, baseball is a powerful force in Florida. But Floridians are notoriously picky about buying tickets, and many of their residents are loyal to the fans from whence they came. Plus, if you want to see major league baseball, half the teams spend spring training there. Maybe Orlando could call their bluff.
Nashville, Portland, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham also have ownership groups in various states of readiness. Who wouldn’t want a well-managed contender with a payroll that ranked 28th, among 30, at the end of last season?
These, of course, are First-World Problems. MLB is eager to get the Rays and Athletics settled so it can hang out its expansion shingle.
But if this is it for Tampa Bay baseball, and we’re a long way from that, one should raise a glass to Sternberg, Silverman, former boss Andrew Friedman, managers Joe Maddon and Kevin Cash, and vital personnel like Stan Meek, Chaim Bloom, Larry Doughty and R.J. Harrison. The Rays have regularly inspired the downtrodden and given the lie to the myth that payroll dictates performance.
Better yet, they’ve sustained it against the monolithic Yankees and Red Sox and have somehow juggled enough plates to make sure the incoming kids can replace the outgoing vets.
Here’s hoping they find somebody to watch them, while they dance.
Back in the olden days, we covered Orlando's bid-that-didn't-happen very thoroughly. The only reason St. Pete got the team was because the stadium was built and baseball felt guilty about Carl Pohlad's Twins tease. The decision was ridiculous. Tampa was the better option in the area, but Orlando was the long-range bet. If ownership is in place, the timing might be right. We can dream.
When I wrote in Miami in the eighties, I did series about when Florida would get a team, and where, and if ever. I'd covered spring training all over the state enough to know, when Miami and Tampa finally arrived, they were misbegotten. The ethnic baseball lovers in Miami, it turned out, loved baseball, yes, but not the American pro version; their own. And to the north, travelling all over the state every spring I came to believe that Floridians loved their month of exhibition games, but definitely weren't the kind of people who'd commit on the MLB level for five months. It's a football state. Nashville, yes! Portland!