The Rays are formally headed to a new, $2.36 billion ballpark in Tampa after the Hillsborough County Commission approved a public funding plan for the project.
The commission’s 5–2 vote on Friday followed a narrow approval on Thursday by the City of Tampa council. The two jurisdictions will combine to supply up to $876 million toward the stadium, and the approval seemingly brings an end to an oft-twisting saga that had involved two decades of fruitless searching for a new stadium, an abandoned deal to stay in St. Petersburg, Florida, and an ownership shift to a Patrick Zalupski-led group,
Groundbreaking is targeted for later this year at a site at Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry Campus in advance of a planned ballpark opening in 2029. With that shift, the Rays will be much more centrally located in the Tampa region, and very close toTampa International Airport, and the Buccaneers’ Raymond James Stadium. The mixed-use development surrounding the stadium will be inspired in part by The Battery in Atlanta.
“Today our entire region can celebrate the coming of a private finance and mixed-use neighborhood, a reinvested Hillsborough College campus, and a new ballpark that secures the long-term future of Major League Baseball here in Tampa,” said Rays CEO Ken Babby.
As with nearly any debate surrounding taxpayer support of stadium and arena projects, Hillsborough County’s deliberation regarding the Rays was fraught with tension, including the optics of supporting a private business owned by a billionaire.
Ultimately, though, changes in the final deal shifted more financial responsibility to the club, and the Rays will pay 63% of the ballpark construction costs—a percentage that is higher than what the Rangers and Braves paid, respectively, for Globe Life Field and Truist Park, MLB’s two newest stadiums.
“I’ve wondered what I would say if we ever got to the position of being able to discuss and hopefully approve a ballpark agreement,” said county commissioner Ken Hagan, a key figure in the legislative approval process. “Do we want Tampa to be a world-class community? What side of history do you want to be on?”
Looking Ahead
These two political approvals in Tampa also will likely help accelerate MLB’s path toward expansion. For many years, the league’s consideration of adding teams was held up by facility issues with the A’s and Rays. The A’s, however, are now well along in construction for a new ballpark in Las Vegas, with the facility targeted for a 2028 opening.
The Rays now have their situation settled, too, and interest is set to rise around expansion candidates such as Nashville, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Raleigh, Vancouver, Montreal, and Mexico City.
As of now, though, there is no formal process for MLB to expand, and one will almost certainly wait until after the league resolves a difficult labor negotiation with the MLB Players Association.
“There’s a lot of markets in the United States and North America, quite frankly, Canada and Mexico, that would like to add Major League Baseball,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said earlier this year. “When people want your product, I think it’s kind of incumbent on you to try to figure out a way if you can deliver that product to them.”
Manfred said last year at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit that he would like to have two new markets selected before he finishes his tenure in early 2029. Those teams would likely not be on the field before then, though.
MLB last expanded with the arrival of the Diamondbacks and Rays in 1998.
