NEW YORK — The Tampa Bay Rays likely need a plan for their permanent home no later than 2026, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday, appearing to give the team at least a year’s grace to sort through an increasingly confrontational dispute with government officials over financing for a new park.
But Manfred, not necessarily known for empathetic tones, took a gentler approach to the Rays’ stadium drama than the team’s owner, Stu Sternberg, and other team executives have in the wake of Hurricane Milton.
“I’m not going to speculate about what can or can’t happen in Tampa Bay,” Manfred said at MLB’s headquarters. “Given the devastation in that area, it’s kind of only fair to give the local governments in the Tampa Bay region opportunity to sort of figure out where they are, what they have available in terms of resources, what’s doable.”
Hurricane Milton severely damaged Tropicana Field, the team’s regular home in St. Petersburg, Fla., forcing the Rays to relocate to the New York Yankees’ minor-league stadium, Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, for the 2025 season. The Rays were planning to move to a new stadium in St. Petersburg for 2028, but in the wake of the hurricane, government financing for the project is on hold.
“I think it’s one thing to make an interim arrangement for 2025, which we’ve done,” Manfred said. “When you get into another year, there’s obviously going to be another interim arrangement, unless they get they get the Trop fixed. And I think that second year of an interim arrangement, you need a plan as to how you’re going to get into a permanent facility.”
On Tuesday, the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners in Florida postponed a vote on bonds for the park for the second time. It’s now slated for Dec. 17.
Ahead of the hearing, top team officials Brian Auld and Matt Silverman wrote a letter to the commissioner criticizing the delay, noting the Rays organization was “saddened and stunned.” Earlier in the week, Sternberg told the local paper, the Tampa Bay Times, that the team had received “a clear message that we had lost the county as a partner.”
Some county commissioners shot back in various ways at Tuesday’s hearing.
“To be clear, we did not vote to kill the deal, nor should a three-week delay in a 30-plus year commitment be a deal-killer to begin with,” said Brian Scott, the board’s vice chair, during the hearing. “That’s just a totally ridiculous statement.”
When asked if he was considering giving the Rays permission to look for a new permanent home elsewhere, Manfred said the league is “committed to the fans in Tampa Bay.”
“Financial issues are financial issues,” he said. “They’re resolvable in some way, shape and form. Whether these get resolved or not remains to be seen.”
Expansion goal unchanged
The Rays’ stadium uncertainty isn’t putting MLB’s plans for expansion on hold at this point.
The commissioner wants to have two new teams’ locations picked out by the time he retires in 2029, although the clubs won’t yet be playing. But Manfred has long pegged league expansion to the Rays and the Athletics completing their long-running quests for new stadiums.
The A’s, who are moving to Sacramento, Calif., for at least three seasons starting in 2025, are “100 percent full steam ahead” with their planned subsequent move to Las Vegas for 2028, Manfred said Wednesday.
“Las Vegas is going to happen,” Manfred said. “I’m not worried about the outcome in Las Vegas. Tampa, we got thrown — and the Rays more importantly got thrown — a curveball by weather developments. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to work through the situation in Tampa Bay in a way that keeps me on the timetable that I’ve articulated, which is to have an expansion decision made before I leave in four years.”
Manfred acknowledged he’s aware of skepticism from fans and others as to whether the A’s will actually complete their move to Las Vegas.
“I understand there seems to be some sense of doubt that persists out there, but (owner) John Fisher is completely committed to the process,” Manfred said. “The building’s been demolished. The site’s available. They are on track for a 2028 opening. They’ve gone through the process of demonstrating that whether or not he takes local (investment) partners, he has the capacity to build the stadium. We’re full speed ahead.”
(Photo: Kim Klement Neitzel / USA Today)
