Heads up, Hillsborough. Via a negotiated agreement between the Rays and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, the Rays have until Dec. 21, 2017 to settle on a new regional stadium site, if city council signs off.
But here’s the reality that assuredly hasn’t changed: a bad, incumbent business model.
It’s long been a given that the Rays were destined to leave the Trop well before that lease was up. The question: Is it because Stu Sternberg has found a deal in the more centrally-located business hub that is Tampa? Or is it because a relocating outsider has made him an offer he couldn’t refuse–and a lease buyout would simply be part of the cost of doing business?
As we know, Tampa Bay is a weird, asymmetrical market minus mass transit and corporate headquarters. Spring training–a tourism staple–always gave a false sense of market viability. We also know that historic parochialism is enabled by a bay that can be a de facto second gulf.
And we haven’t yet mentioned that obsolete, revenue-stream-challenged, catwalked Tropicana Field on the western fringe of the market. Only 600,000 people live within a 30-minute drive, the fewest among all MLB franchises
The quirks and incongruities of this hybrid market are well chronicled, including: *Fan allegiance. More than most MLB markets, Tampa Bay is home to relocatees. *Lifestyle. It has a lot to do with why folks live here. It’s not for summer Trop baseball.
Any wonder–competitive baseball notwithstanding–that attendance has been a disappointment since year two (1999), and last year the Rays were last in MLB average attendance (17,857).
Yes, these challenges are beyond sobering. Many can’t be addressed in the short term, if at all. But one will have to be–a new facility in Tampa. It’s the variable that matters most. Tampa is more than a hockey and bad-football town.
Obviously locale, land accumulation, logistics and financing, most notably private, are more than mere details. Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn can’t promise tax revenues he doesn’t have.
Regional leaders want to keep the Rays in the area, but it’s the Rays and the private sector that will have to pony up big time for that to happen. This is 2014 and the days of RayJay deals are over. The challenge, as Mayor Bob puts it, is nothing less than finding “a location that maximizes all the redevelopment potential that a stadium offers.”
The Rays have a three-year window to basically find something from Westshore to the Community Redevelopment Area between downtown and Ybor City. The promise of a mass transit station would help. Another enlightened self-interest gambit by Jeff Vinik would be providential. The proactivity of Mayor Bob, Ken Hagan, Eric Hart & Co. is a given.
Ultimately it’s about more than the Rays’ call. It’s about the Rays’ investment in Tampa. It works both ways.