Plan to have Rays play in Montreal resurfaces

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred sees the season-sharing plan with Montreal proposed by the Tampa Bay Rays as the “100 per cent” best way to keep the Rays in the Tampa market, the Tampa Bay Times reported on Thursday.

“People continue to believe that the two-city alternative they’re exploring is viable and could be a really good solution for keeping baseball in Tampa Bay (on a part-time basis),’’ Manfred told the Tampa Bay Times after a scheduled owners meeting.

“I continue to be impressed by the energy that they’ve devoted to the project. And to the fact there is significant receptivity among our group, and excitement in some quarters about the possibility.’’

The team is contractually obligated to play all their home games at Tropicana Field through the 2027 season, and are forbidden from negotiating to play elsewhere through the end of the contract term.

In June, the team announced its wish to explore playing half the season’s home games in two new, open air ballparks, one in the Tampa Bay area and the other in Montreal. The team’s desire, Rays principal owner Stu Sternberg said at the time, was to have the arrangement in place in time for the 2024 season, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

A key element of the splitteam plan is that both cities would build open-air ballparks at a cost of about $600 million.

At the time, Montreal businessman Stephen Bronfman expressed potential interest, saying: “We’ve got the approval from baseball to do the exploration, now Tampa has to get their approvals from the city.

“Once they get that done, then we really start to share information and do our due diligence to work together and to prove it all out.”

However, the plan appeared dead in December, when St. Petersburg, Fla., Mayor Rick Kriseman, wrote in a memo to city council: “Both parties have agreed that the best path forward is to abide by the existing use agreement. In accordance with the existing use agreement, should the Rays organization wish to continue exploration of the shared season concept with Montreal, that exploration must be limited to the 2028 season and beyond.”

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