This week, Tampa Bay Rays staff presidents, Brian Auld and Matt Silverman, went on a neighborhood radio present and spent the primary a part of the interview discussing the problems going through the staff due to Hurricane Milton. Each males adopted up this primary half with a second half that included some tone-deaf feedback and quite a few preposterous lies.
Earlier than we focus on what the Rays stated not too long ago, let’s again up a bit. Final yr, the Rays and native officers agreed on how either side would pay for a $1.3 billion, 30,000-seat ballpark. Pinellas County agreed to chip in $312.5 million. St. Petersburg Metropolis officers agreed to place in $417.5 million. This new ballpark was going to be a part of an enormous $6.5 billion redevelopment project. The plan was to have this new ballpark constructed for the 2028 season and for the Rays to pay for all value overruns. General, this settlement had little to no probability of ever serving to the native space by any means financially talking. This deal promised comical and unrealistic economic development estimates and empty job numbers with no guarantees.
Over the previous couple of months, the $6.5 billion greenback settlement has gone by metropolis and county leaders to get their approval. However after Hurricane Milton hit central and south Florida final summer season, there was a delay by Pinellas County in getting the bonds issued. The county was nonetheless making an attempt to cope with all the problems introduced onto them by the hurricane. This delay meant that new commissioners would vote on whether or not to subject the bonds when the county subsequent met due to latest elections. Pinellas delayed the vote but once more by 30 days. Nonetheless, they’d lastly comply with subject the bonds the subsequent time that they met. Needless to say the ballpark settlement doesn’t give the town or county any deadlines to agree or subject the bonds.
The staff claims that this 30 day delay has prompted monetary harm to them and that the county “broke” the ballpark deal. The town and county have requested many instances to indicate them the place or how this delay prompted monetary harm, but as of at the moment, the staff has proven nobody a single piece of proof that they misplaced extra cash. Because the Tampa Bay Rays SB Nation wrote in a recent article, the staff presidents had been merely giving off “bold face lies”. A 30+ day delay in a course of that may take 18–24 months to finish will “not kill a 30+ year investment strategy”. Whereas the staff retains giving public interviews and saying that Pinellas County “effectively broke the deal and turned their back on the commitment”, there was completely nothing carried out that confirmed any abandonment of the settlement by the County. The Tampa Bay Rays acquired all the cash that they had been promised within the settlement.
But, the staff needs much more public cash…why? As a result of the staff says so? All whereas refusing to indicate anybody how or why they misplaced any cash from the delay? The Tampa Bay Occasions wrote an article yesterday that just about begged the Rays to please clarify “how a minimal delay could wreak havoc on a generational project that was expected to take 20 years to complete”. Effectively, one native commissioner admitted in an interview that the Rays staff president, Auld, advised him not too long ago that “he was trying to hold the deal together amid revenue projections and cost estimates both moving in the wrong directions”. The Rays are accountable for all value overruns and have one of many least expensive and worst house owners in all sports activities.
So, it will make sense that Sternberg is getting nervous and looking for any approach attainable to get out of this deal. Residents and leaders blasted Sternberg in 2018 for saying a brand new $900 million greenback ballpark but claiming that the staff would solely be placing in between $150—$400 million dollars. Uh, that’s fairly an infinite distinction between the 2. Is it any surprise why this 2018 deal fell aside so rapidly? Let me put it this manner. In 2018, as Sternberg was saying the brand new ballpark…“no one had any idea who would pay for it”. Sternberg doesn’t need to pay a single greenback greater than he has to. Multiple deals with Tampa have fallen through as a result of Sternberg refusing to offer an precise variety of how a lot cash he would put into a brand new ballpark. One of many Rays staff presidents, Silverman, not that way back said how the present deal is probably not good for the Rays “in the context of Major League Baseball and fielding a competitive team for the next 30 years”. I don’t perceive the final a part of this remark. Is he saying that this deal is not going to enable the staff to compete transferring ahead? What? How?
However right here is the place I get irritated with the Rays. Auld says the Rays are annoyed as a result of native leaders solely made minimal repairs to Tropicana Area. Besides, wait a second, who stopped the town from fixing the Rays ballpark months in the past?
“Restore plans slowed down after Auld advised the council in November it was a “bad use of funds”. Two months later, the Rays modified their place and now need repairs carried out in time for the 2026 season… Metropolis Council chairperson Copley Gerdes…who ran level on negotiations, stated that the council had voted to approve $24 million to restore the Tropicana’s roof till Auld spoke up. The council then held one other vote to show down that funding, however has permitted some cash for preliminary steps towards restore since. “It was them who requested us to backtrack on the very starting. It looks like we’re doing it the way in which they requested us to”, Gerdes stated. “In the event that they don’t prefer it now, the Rays shouldn’t have communicated throughout that Metropolis Council assembly again in November that they didn’t need us to repair it unexpectedly” — Tampa Bay Times, 02/14/25
Talking of naked minimal, it seems that the proprietor of the Tampa Bay Rays has been related to that phrase previously. When giving out the award to the Tampa Sportsman of the 12 months, one site was quite clear that the Rays proprietor, Stu Sternberg, wouldn’t be getting this award anytime quickly.
“Stu Sternberg is an absentee proprietor who not often attends video games…bemoan(s) the attendance at Tropicana Area…slashed payroll, feuded with the mayor of St. Petersburg and has issued a risk that the league could “vaporize” the franchise…Sternberg’s therapy of the followers and the group can’t go unnoticed. He whines about attendance however not often do you see billboards on the Tampa facet…Sternberg is doing the naked minimal to make sure attendance is low and he can get his shiny new stadium on the Tampa facet of the bay” — Tampa Bay Sportsman of 2011: Jeff Vinik, Owner, Tampa Bay Lightning, JC De La Torre, 12/26/11
However Auld was not carried out. He moved on from this matter to different claims that proceed to make no sense by any means. In a single breath, Auld claims that doing the naked minimal “doesn’t synch with what I think our community is all about” and “just not how we run our organization”. I have no idea what that first declare means. How precisely does the group spirit must do with the Tropicana Area repairs? Auld stated the staff’s skepticism is due to the “respect and understanding we have of the democratic process”. Once more, what? I’m not certain the place to begin on this one. Is Auld’s understanding of the method an excessive amount of for him? Why are we speaking about respect? Please. Cease speaking.
The Tampa Bay Rays are price around $1.25 billion dollars in keeping with Forbes. Yearly, the worth of the staff will increase. The staff’s yearly revenues from video games and MLB’s luxurious tax additionally enhance just about yearly (besides COVID-19’s yr). Has the staff returned $1 greenback to native taxpayers over the past 20 years?
