Major League Baseball's shaky future in Tampa

On October 9, when Hurricane Milton plowed into Florida's west coast, winds destroyed the roof of Tropicana Field, the domed stadium that has been home to Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays since 1998. The Tampa Bay Times reported on October 15 that the field could not be repaired in time for the team to play its 2025 season there. Most surprisingly, Pinellas County officials recently cast doubt on whether they will move forward with the planned new facility that was set to open in 2028, throwing the team's future in the area in doubt.

A troubled history

The story of the Rays embodied the idea of "If you build it, they will come." Boosters who wanted to attract an MLB expansion franchise spearheaded the construction of a domed facility (then called the Florida Suncoast Dome) in St. Petersburg, which was finished in 1990 without a professional sports tenant. Baseball owners blocked the relocation of the San Francisco Giants to the area in 1992, and it was not until 1995 that MLB announced its expansion into the Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg and Phoenix markets. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays began playing at the newly renamed Tropicana Field in 1998.

From the get-go, the Trop was regarded as one of the least attractive facilities in North American professional sports. The team (renamed the Rays before the 2008 season), has ranked last or next-to-last in the American League in attendance almost every year of its existence, despite a long run of innovative management and competitiveness that began in 2008 and has seen the team reach the World Series twice. The stadium's artificial turf is disliked by players, the catwalks that held up the now-destroyed roof hung so low that they frequently interfered with batted balls in play during games and there are no public transit options for fans. "The Trop is a bad facility in a bad location," said sports economist Andrew Zimbalist in The Tampa Tribune in 2013.

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In 2023, the Rays announced an agreement to build a $1.3 billion fixed roof stadium in neighboring St. Petersburg with $600 million in public financing. That seemed to secure the team's future in Florida. Then came Hurricane Milton.

And where to now, Tampa Rays?

After the Trop's roof was destroyed, the league scrambled to choose a stadium somewhere near the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area that could accommodate the team in 2025, settling on the Yankees' 11,000-seat spring training facility in Tampa. But on November 19th, the Pinellas County Commission pushed back a vote to issue bonds for the new stadium and also did not allocate the estimated $55 million needed to repair the Trop for the Rays' final two seasons there in 2026 and 2027. The new stadium deal is perhaps not dead, but it has put relocation of the franchise back on the table. "The future of baseball in Tampa Bay became less certain after that vote," said Rays owner Stu Sternberg in the Tampa Bay Times.

Franchise relocations require the support of 75% of the sport's 30 franchise owners, and in the past, such moves have been stymied by turf wars related to attendance or TV rights. The 2023 decision to move the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas was the first relocation in nearly 20 years. Baseball may now have to do it again. Potential legal battles between the Rays and the city of St. Petersburg, which is obligated to provide a stadium for the Rays in 2026 and 2027, loom large. "I think Major League Baseball in the Tampa Bay Area is at greater risk today than it's ever been," said Tampa Bay Times sports columnist John Romano in an interview with WUSF radio.

The North Carolina cities Charlotte and Raleigh, as well as Nashville, Tennessee, have been the subject of speculation if the Rays decide to move, but that process would likely take years to play out. The Rays, in the meantime, open the 2025 season in their temporary Tampa home on March 27.