Three days after the New York Yankees conclude spring training at Steinbrenner Field in Florida, the Tampa Bay Rays and their fans will flock to that same venue for Opening Day. There, they’ll be welcomed by a statue of the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and a lawn adorned with plaques honoring the retired numbers of Yankees legends.
This is the reality the Rays will face in 2025: Their landlord is also direct competition in the American League East. Despite the rivalry, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner didn’t hesitate to offer assistance to the Rays after Tropicana Field was damaged by Hurricane Milton.
“It’s the right thing to do for their fanbase, many of whom are my neighbors and friends,” Steinbrenner said on Wednesday at MLB’s owners’ meetings in New York. “I live in Tampa. Really, if it wasn’t for (Steinbrenner Field), they would’ve been moving out of Tampa because there’s no other site size-wise — the amount of premium and club space we have, major league-ready fields, major league-ready lights, all of that and everything we’ve done for the clubhouse. It made sense. I’m happy to be doing it.”
The Rays declined to answer a detailed list of questions from The Athletic regarding specifics of the setup, and team president Matt Silverman did not respond to an interview request.
The Yankees will receive around $15 million for hosting the Rays, but the payment won’t come from the club — it will be covered by insurance, according to a league source. Before selecting Steinbrenner Field as the Rays’ temporary home, Major League Baseball staff visited the Yankees’ spring training complex to assess what upgrades were needed.
Ahead of this past spring training, the Yankees renovated their home clubhouse, which is now state-of-the-art. Additionally, Steinbrenner Field recently upgraded its lighting and is in the process of building an on-site training and rehab center. The Rays will have full access to all the facilities the Yankees offer their players during spring training.
However, some upgrades are still necessary before the start of the season. The visitors’ clubhouse must be renovated to meet MLB standards, Steinbrenner said. There’s also insufficient storage for concessions, and the lighting on an adjacent field, where the Tampa Tarpons (the Yankees’ Low-A team) will play their home games, needs improvement. The Yankees and Rays will work together to ensure Steinbrenner Field is ready for MLB games.
“The Rays have been great,” Steinbrenner said. “They’ve been gracious. Their people are going to do the majority of the work.
“These are the things that will be the responsibility of the Rays. They know that.”
Many uncertainties remain regarding how things will unfold for the Rays this season and beyond, and both clubs still lack answers to numerous key questions.
Rain, rain go away
There’s a reason Tropicana Field had a roof. From June through September, Tampa is impacted by consistent rain, with an average of more than 30 inches of precipitation accumulating during that period. During the other eight months, there are just a total of 20 inches of rain.
Beyond rain, dark clouds can be a daily occurrence in the Sunshine State throughout the summer.
So it’s fair to expect that weather — both extreme heat and heavy rains — will be a significant backdrop to the 2025 season.
For reference, the Tarpons had 15 games either suspended, postponed or canceled last season because of inclement weather. That includes both home and road games, all of which are played in rainy Florida.
On six of those instances, the games were postponed on back-to-back days, including a stretch of three consecutive days of washouts. The issue can be mitigated somewhat at the minor-league level because series are week-long, six-game sets. Because teams often make multiple trips to each city, there is ample opportunity for makeup games.
That is not the case in MLB, where the schedule could also be working against the Rays. Ahead of the 2023 season, the league changed the scheduling format to allow every team to play the other 29 clubs at least once a season. That, in turn, has created tighter windows for makeup games.
A look at the Rays’ schedule from July through September shows that every game that Tampa Bay will host will be against a team making either its only or final trip to the area for 2025. Any inclement weather would cause havoc.
It also remains unclear if the Rays will be using their own grounds crew — who would, in theory, have limited experience in dealing with the elements.
Will an minor league stadium host the World Series?
This question has also come up in the context of the A’s, who are also playing their home games at Sutter Health Park, a minor league stadium in West Sacramento, Calif.
While it’s unlikely the A’s will make the postseason in 2025, the same cannot be said for the Rays, who are always in the mix despite limited resources.
With the Rays expected to be in better health in 2025, it stands to reason that the subject of the playoffs will be important for the team and league down the stretch. More specifically, is it possible the World Series is played in an 11,000-seat spring training venue?
Though laughable, the prospect could come to fruition. Alternatively, the Rays and MLB could work to find a larger venue in the wider region, like Miami’s loanDepot Park or Atlanta’s Truist Park. However, that would require those stadiums to be available, another complication.
A World Series featuring one neutral site, however, would do wrong by a team that found a way to reach the pinnacle of the sport. In that scenario, a team would deserve to play its games at home. Or, at least, wherever it’s calling home.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall in commissioner Rob Manfred’s office should the Rays and A’s meet up in the postseason.
Steinbrenner Field will get a makeover
It’s impossible to miss the giant “YANKEES” lettering prominently displayed on both sides of the stadium. The Rays will either need to remove the paneling or cover it, a change they are free to make.
As for Steinbrenner’s statue, it’s unlikely that Tampa Bay will cover it. And there’s little that the Rays could do about the Yankees’ grassy monuments as well.
What the Rays will need to do is rebrand the Yankees’ team store, removing Yankees iconography, along with pictures and posters of current players. The dugouts will also need to be rebranded to remove any “New York Yankees” script.
The Rays can bring in signage from their own sponsors that they can display in the stadium, which could help them bring in additional revenue.
Beyond adjusting to sitting in Yankee-blue seats, however, fans should find the experience at Steinbrenner Field enjoyable. The seating arrangement creates the feeling of being right on top of the action.
There are other financial elements to all of this. The Rays have their own sponsorship agreements and their own team employees. This chaotic setup, by nature, makes honoring those advertising agreements more difficult. And the new location under different ownership creates a headache as to whether Tropicana Field employees will have jobs waiting for them at Steinbrenner Field.
Will fans show up?
This has long been the question for the Rays, who infamously played in a fairly empty venue for the 2023 AL Wild Card games at Tropicana Field.
The Rays averaged just 16,515 fans this season — in a ballpark that often covers many of its upper deck seats with a tarp.
Among the most significant hindrances to in-person popularity, however, has been St. Petersburg, Fla. It’s difficult to get from Tampa to St. Pete, so not that many people make the trek. Now, the Rays will be playing their games in the city of Tampa across the street from where the NFL’s Buccaneers play and a few miles from the downtown home of the NHL’s Lightning.
With Steinbrenner Field seating just 11,026 fans, consistent sell-outs are possible. Location will work in the team’s favor, and fans will likely be intrigued by meaningful games in a ballpark that’s never hosted them at the major-league level before. The only other comparable example was the Blue Jays playing 21 home games at their spring training complex in Dunedin, Fla., in 2021 — though capacity was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Working against larger attendance will be that a significant portion of the team’s regular fan base is located in St. Petersburg. It is also unclear how the team will handle new season ticket sales or how it will honor season ticket commitments from those with plans at Tropicana Field.
What happens after 2025?
Manfred was asked about the Rays’ long-term situation at the owners’ meetings in New York on Wednesday.
“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 the Trop fixed. 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.”
Numerous factors make this question unanswerable, at least for now. A damage assessment report released last week estimated that repairing Tropicana Field would cost nearly $56 million and the process would not be complete until mere days before the start of the 2026 season. The Rays’ lease at Tropicana Field expires after the 2027 season.
In July, the city approved funding for a new ballpark to be built in the Gas Plant District of St. Petersburg with plans to open in 2028. That entire plan is now in jeopardy, the team says, after the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners twice delayed a vote to approve the bonds necessary to fund the project.
All of that leads to a very odd question about 2026. To have a permanent home, the Rays would need to pay for the Trop’s repairs. But they might not feel compelled to do so if their lease is set to expire soon, and there’s no pathway for a new stadium.
So the team could up and play in a new city, it could stay at Steinbrenner Field, or it could play at a repaired Tropicana Field.
(Photo of Steinbrenner Field: Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)
