Rays’ Reality Closing In

The ice-breaking discussion venues alternate. The rhetoric nuances up. The ante is raised. The endgame approaches.

Anyone outside of St. Petersburg City Hall knows the script. At some point the Tampa Bay Rays will no longer call Tropicana Field home. And it will happen well in advance of when its 2027 lease is up. And the team will then re-locate: either across the bay or across state lines. For the right relocating player(s), a lease buyout is part of the cost of doing business.

In the mean time, the rhetoric of leverage–whether from St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster, Rays’ owner Stu Sternberg or Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig–whether legal, fiduciary or portentous–will play out.

The landscape is an all-too-familiar one. First, some history. St. Pete built a domed, revenue-stream-challenged, now woefully inadequate facility on spec that opened in 1990. The city unsuccessfully wooed the Chicago White Sox, the Seattle Mariners, the San Francisco Giants and the Minnesota Twins before the expansion Devil Rays arrived in 1998. The resultant, long-term lease was the quid pro quo for letting the Rays keep the bulk of revenues from a public building. There were no attendance clauses for the Rays to invoke just in case.

Well, “just in case” happened. In year two. The reasons are manifold and more than manifest by now.

The Rays play in an asymmetrical, hybrid market. One where home is a much maligned, catwalked facility on the fringe of the region. The nearest city to the west is Corpus Christi, Texas. Historic parochialism is enabled by a bay that can be a de facto gulf. It’s an area that lacks mass transit–in a market where only 600,000 people live within a 30-minute drive of the Trop, the fewest among all MLB franchises. In fact, eight minor league teams have better 30-minute drive numbers.

Moreover, the Tampa Bay market is corporate-headquarters challenged. That’s significant because the business community is typically responsible for at least a third of season-ticket sales. Those decisions–and those purchases–are made at headquarters, not in regional offices.

There’s also fan allegiance. As in elsewhere. More than most major markets, Tampa Bay is home to relocatees. Many keep up with their old teams. For a number, the Rays are not a big enough draw unless their Yankees or Sox are in town.

And you can’t forget lifestyle. It has a lot to do with why a lot of folks are here. And that means boating, fishing, golf, tennis and summering in the Carolinas. Indoor baseball at the Trop doesn’t make as many short lists.

All of which means baseball has formidable challenges in this sprawling market as seen by the Rays’ disappointing attendance numbers–last in MLB–despite being a low-budget, winning team.

To be successful, this baseball franchise must control the key variable. In a geographically and demographically skewed market that means a Sternbergian “pitch perfect” new stadium site. It only makes sense for that to be in Tampa, the business hub of a market that is among the 20 largest in the country. A market where hockey, mind you, is succeeding.

Obviously locale, land accumulation, logistics and financing, most notably private, are more than mere details. Mayor Bob Buckhorn, to be sure, can’t promise tax revenues he doesn’t have. But it has to happen here–or it will happen in Charlotte, Las Vegas, San Antonio or even New York.

The ultimate goal is not to keep the Rays in St. Pete. That’s oxymoronic. Neither is it to placate the Rays at all cost. The goal is to do what’s necessary for Tampa Bay to retain a key regional asset.