Rays announce a new stadium in St. Petersburg
The Tampa Bay Rays are going to have a new home, and no, it won’t be in Montreal.
After over a decade of attempting to fix the Rays’ problem of finding a long-term home, it appears the baseball team is close to finding a solution. According to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, the Rays will soon announce a deal for a new stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Topkin notes that the stadium will seat around 30,000 and cost over $1.2 billion to build. The team will “pay for half or more” of the cost, according to Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, with the city of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County paying for the rest.
The new stadium will be built near Tropicana Field and is estimated to be ready by the 2028 season. Its construction will be part of the redevelopment of St. Petersburg’s Historic Gas Plant District.
Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium plans
One of the biggest drivers for the Rays to complete a new ballpark was to bring in increased attendance to home games.
Despite having made the playoffs for four consecutive years, the team is averaging fewer than 18,000 fans in attendance at their home games this year, according to ESPN. That’s the fourth-lowest mark in baseball and better than only Oakland, Miami and Kansas City.
In January 2022, MLB officials nixed a plan the Rays had been working on for over two years that would see the team split home games between new stadiums in Montreal and Tampa to drive attendance. It was MLB’s rejection that forced the Rays to look for solutions in and around Tampa.
Tampa Bay Rays’ ballpark issues
Since the Rays joined MLB as an expansion team in 1998, they have played their home games at Tropicana Field.
And for years, the stadium and its location have drawn the ire of MLB players and fans.
Despite “Tampa Bay” being in the name of the baseball team, Tropicana Field (or “The Trop”) is located across the bay in St. Petersburg. The only way for a sizable part of its fan base – those living in Tampa proper – to get to their team’s home games is by crossing a bridge.
Without traffic, Google Maps estimates a 26-minute drive from downtown Tampa to the field. For those without a car, public transportation could take anywhere between 45-90 minutes.
“Nobody wants to come over the bridge and sit in traffic for three hours,” Rays starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow once said of the commute.
In addition to the distance from the park to downtown, there has been much criticism over the design of the park itself.
Four catwalks hang from the ceiling of the tilted dome at Tropicana Field. Since the dome is tilted, the catwalks are lower in some places. More specifically, they’re lower in the outfield.
The unique design quirk of Tropicana Field has forced MLB to institute ground rules regarding whether batted balls are in play when they hit the catwalks.
On several occasions, balls have hit the catwalk and resulted in a controversial play that determined a game’s outcome.
The Rays’ 30-year lease with Tropicana Field is set to end in 2027.