Friday afternoon the Tampa Bay Rays will begin their 2025 regular season against the Colorado Rockies not at Tropicana Field, but at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. The Trop was badly damaged by Hurricane Milton in October and the Rays will play their home games this season at GMS Field, the spring training home of the New York Yankees.
The Rays’ Opening Day game comes two weeks after owner Stu Sternberg backed out of a deal to build a new $1.3 billion ballpark in St. Petersburg, essentially on the other side of the Trop’s parking lot. “After careful deliberation, we have concluded we cannot move forward with the new ballpark and development project at this moment,” Sternberg wrote in a statement.
What comes next for the Rays is unclear. They will play 2025 home games in GMS Field and hope to play in a repaired Tropicana Field in 2026. What happens long-term is anyone’s guess. This week, commissioner Rob Manfred put the onus on Sternberg to come up with a plan for the future. Here’s what Manfred said on a SiriusXM Radio interview (via the Tampa Bay Times):
“I think the most important point now is that the Rays and Mr. Sternberg have to come up with a ‘go forward’ plan, what it is they intend to do. I don’t think it’s realistic to play indefinitely in a repaired (Tropicana Field). But they’ve got to tell the other clubs and I think they’ve got to tell their fan base that they have a plan for making it work in Tampa Bay.”
Manfred reiterated that he seems the Tampa-St. Petersburg region as a major-league market even though the Rays have ranked near the bottom of the league in attendance even when they were among the league’s best teams. A move into Tampa itself, allowing the team to draw from the larger population center, would be ideal, though efforts to do so have failed to progress.
Earlier this month it was reported Manfred and “some other owners” are pushing Sternberg to sell the Rays. That was even before Sternberg backed out of the ballpark deal. A new owner could rekindle the St. Petersburg project, try for a new ballpark in Tampa or the surrounding area, or relocate the team entirely. Anything becomes possible once a sale happens.
The Rays went 80-82 last season and reduced their Opening Day payroll from $98.9 million last year to $74.9 million this year, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Season ticket sales at GMS Field, which seats just over 11,000, are reportedly very strong.
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