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Tampa Bay Rays --Tropicana Field

tbolt909 said:
The A's owner screwed the Oakland fan base. Tropicana Field was damaged by a hurricane. 2 different situations, but I suppose no viable options existed for other venues. The Rays had small crowds at Tropicana anyway, so a minor league park will suffice...
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Given the tiny Rays fan base, why not move the team to Miami or Atlanta for the season?
 
So over 55 million will be spent to renovate Tropicana field so the Rays can play there for 2 more seasons, 2026-2027.
And a new ballpark that almost nobody is going to go to is still being built across the street.
 
CTListener said:
The real problem for MLB is if either team makes the postseason. It's a real long shot for the A's, although they have spent money this off-season and should be improved, but the Rays will be getting several valuable pitchers back from injuries and could be in the wild card picture if they can add anything to their weak offense. I recall a few instances in which minor league playoff series have been contested at one team's ballpark, but those were cases in which one franchise was being sold or moved and the owners didn't want the expense of hosting additional games. Would MLB consider moving the Rays' or A's' home games in a hypothetical series to the other team's stadium? What if (gasp!) either team were to reach the World Series?
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What if the A's and Rays played each other in The AL Championship series? Baseball would have egg on their face. It won't happen, but the venue issue would be interesting...😑
 
TheBigA said:
Update: Tampa Bay Rays pull out of building new stadium. Will return to the Trop when the roof is repaired.

www.nbcnews.com

Tampa Bay Rays withdraw from planned $1.3 billion ballpark, citing storms and delays

Displaced from their home stadium in St. Petersburg, the Rays are set to play this season’s home games across Tampa Bay at the New York Yankees’ spring training facility.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
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And then, likely, be sold and moved, as other owners reportedly would prefer. First, though, MLB must find a way to avoid a potential "nuclear winter" in the form of lost 2027 season after the current CBA expires.
 
DToTheJ said:
And the Rays might be leaving St. Pete!

Beacon Media

www.tbnweekly.com www.tbnweekly.com

Article lists five potential sites including an old racetrack.
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Since St. Petersburg and the hassle of getting to the Trop from Tampa has been cited as a reason for the Rays' poor attendance for years, I never understood why a new ballpark in St. Pete, near the Trop, was thought to be a solution at all. Build in Tampa and see if all those closet Rays fans who've been following the team on TV and radio will finally turn out.
 
Stuart Sternberg was rich, but not REAL rich. He needed investors, either the Pinellas County (St Petersburg) Tourist Bed Tax to help fund any deal he had, or he needed private investors for a stadium in Tampa. He could get the former, but despite years of trying, not the latter. And I suspect he could only make the last deal he had go because he had massive development around the stadium, apartments and retail, for which he would have been the primary beneficiary. However, that last deal with Pinellas County required him to come up with evidence of his own financing, which he couldn't do. Sternberg blamed the County Commission on its pausing on approving the bonds as being a deal breaking delay money wise. But to figure that there wouldn't have been another storm related delay stopping construction over the next three years really meant he just didn't have the money.

Patrick Zalupski is Rich-Rich, and he has Tampa Bay area investors beside him. Provided that he doesn't need Hillsborough County Tax money too much, if at all, the stadium will be in Tampa. And with the Trop getting repaired, there won't be any Athletics-type Sacramento problems. The stadium will go up in Tampa, and the Rays will play in St Pete until it is ready, even if that takes longer than the lease expiration of 2028.

The Rays drew at best 22-23 K at the Trop during the Joe Maddon years. In Tampa they are mostly selling out Steinbrenner Field at 10K, although not every game, which if Tampa was where it needed to be all along, should not happen. One question, if the Rays do go to Tampa, what will become of the Yankees Steinbrenner field? I don't know of other MLB cities where a minor league team is allowed to play. The Brooklyn Cyclones are maybe kind of an exception, but NYC is not a typical MLB city.
 
SCMcKinney said:
One question, if the Rays do go to Tampa, what will become of the Yankees Steinbrenner field?
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It returns to its previous incarnation as the spring training home of the Yankees and the main office of the NY Yankees. That's actually where a lot of the trade deals originated that were finalized yesterday. There's a museum there as well. The single A Tampa Tarpons have been playing at GMS Field this season.
 
Steinbrenner is a lot of stadium and pristine field to be used only 40 or 50 days a year. Is GMS stadium in Tampa or someplace else? If it is a practice field part of Steinbrenner, I go back to my question as to whether the Tarpons and the Rays could co-exist in the same city.
 
SCMcKinney said:
I go back to my question as to whether the Tarpons and the Rays could co-exist in the same city.
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Right now, they are, because GMS Field is next door to Steinbrenner.

Is there an actual MLB rule? Because if there isn't. i don't see how a single A team competes with major league.

If there is, perhaps a deal can be made with Trop Field for occasional games since it will be available.
 
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SCMcKinney said:
The Rays drew at best 22-23 K at the Trop during the Joe Maddon years. In Tampa they are mostly selling out Steinbrenner Field at 10K, although not every game, which if Tampa was where it needed to be all along, should not happen. One question, if the Rays do go to Tampa, what will become of the Yankees Steinbrenner field? I don't know of other MLB cities where a minor league team is allowed to play. The Brooklyn Cyclones are maybe kind of an exception, but NYC is not a typical MLB city.
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I'm not sure about minor league teams in the same legal city, but there are several examples of minor league teams being in the same geographic area as a major league team.

- The Minnesota Twins (in Minneapolis) and the St. Paul Saints in St. Paul
- SF Giants and San Jose Giants
- Atlanta Braves and Gwinnett Stripers
- Baltimore Orioles and Chesapeake Baysox

However, all have in common an affiliation agreement. The Saints are the AAA affiliate to the Twins, the Bayssox are the AA affilate of the Orioles, and so on. Many of them would have been co-owned at one time, if not currently. The Mets and Cyclones are another example of this.
 
In the '80s, there was an Eastern League (Class AA) team in Lynn, Mass., only a dozen or so miles from Fenway Park, affiliated with the Mariners for two years and the Pirates for one before moving due to low attendance. No idea if the rules have changed since then.
 


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