Rays employees get SHOCKING bonuses after team sold

Rays employees get SHOCKING bonuses after team sold

Here’s Brody Brazil. You know, I just wanted to start off this video with a little self-awareness. I fully realize how much coverage we’ve done on the Rays and how many videos I’ve made here on this YouTube channel in recent months and years because there was a lot going on with this baseball team and questionable decisions, indecisiveness maybe by the Ray’s front office and ownership. And so their owner Steuart Sternberg, actually now former owner Steuart Sternberg, was not always painted in the best light. But this was coming from a lot of different places. This was not just me. This was a national media type baseball story. Well, now I’m also here to say it’s okay to ask questions about somebody. It’s okay to maybe question what was going on internally, externally, how the legacy is going to look. But I also want to carve out this very important time to recognize something I think Stuart Sternberg has done very well in a very classy way. Reportedly, bonuses going to everybody in the raise organization now that he’s outgoing, now that he has officially sold the team. Wait until I tell you how many bonuses this amounts to and how much money each employee is going to get as a bonus from the now former majority owner Steuart Sternberg. So again, we just need to go back and cover all of the criticisms because I think they were fair, right? The raise following that moneyball theme and pattern just like the Oakland A’s invented of the early 2000s, not paying players. Well, quick turnovers of the roster, almost like being a a farm team to the New York Yankees or the Dodgers or the Cubs or you name it. The Rays produced talent. Other teams poached it because the Rays payroll was never near what a lot of other competitive teams were. But the Rays found a way to be successful for short stints in between. The Rays did baseball things like kind of inventing the opener where a relief pitcher starts a game like a starter would or almost like a closer would, but it’s the opener. You only pitch inning number one maybe into inning number two and then you bring in the next guy, the headliner, whatever we called that second guy in. So, as much as the A’s might have invented Moneyball, the Rays kind of invented the opener. And to not a lot of fanfare, not a lot of pleasure among baseball traditionalists or those who want to understand the game. It just it was an interesting idea, but and I’m not saying ownership had the idea. I’m saying the baseball side had the idea. Obviously, ownership went with it. So, I’m not sure people loved the opener that the Rays started that trend in baseball. This franchise also flirted with splitting full seasons in Montreal. Now, that’s a a baseball community up there in Quebec that has obviously gone through a lot in losing the Expos. And then the Rays were talking about, hey, half the season in Florida, half the season in Montreal because Stuart Sternberg at one point said that the Tampa Bay region just could not support a baseball team like it was supposed to anymore. So, how do you think fans in Tampa felt about that? How do you think fans in Montreal felt about, wait, is this an actual chance? Are you just using us? Are you teasing us? All of this coming from the ownership and front office. In fact, Stuart Sternberg at one point was sued by former partial owners of the team. This was in the early 2010s because there was some alleged scheming on his behalf to acquire more of the franchise, which he ultimately did. and they said that he was talking behind closed doors and behind everybody’s back to people in Montreal about potentially moving the team, splitting the team, you name it. So, there was there was legal action taken by other owners, co-owners of the team against Stuart Sternberg. And then obviously the multiple stadium project failures. This site, that site, Tampa, St. Pete, and how about the most recent one in late 2024 that kind of bled into 2025, literally approved by St. Petersburg. literally approved by Penllis County. The plan that Steuart Sternberg and the Rays pitched to them. They said, “Okay.” And then Hurricane Milton happened and then costs went up and then the Rays had to back out of all that hard work and all the approvals and they said, “Actually, we can’t do this anymore.” Again, with a lot of question and criticism. I just want to point all that out. But I also want you to see this. This is the final Rays home game or final home series of the season. They’re outdoors in Tampa. They’re giving a standing ovation to departing owner Steuart Sternberg. The hat tip, the custom stew hats that they made. Look how the fans are embracing him now. In part because he’s bowing out after more than 20 years. He’s selling the team. He’s selling to a group that’s going to keep it in Tampa. The players responding, the fans responding. I just want to point all of that out. But then we get to this, right? So, a goodbye, a sentimental weekend, but now there’s this. The sale has gone through the brand new group. They just held a press conference earlier this week to introduce themselves. Now, we find this out via The Athletic and reporter Ken Rosenthal. After completing the $ 1.7 billion dollar sale of the club to an ownership group led by developer Patrick Zalupski, Sternberg awarded cash bonuses to every full-time member of the organization. More than 500 employees in all cash bonuses to more than 500 full-time team employees. I want to pause right there. I don’t know who you work for. I don’t know your employment situation, but I want you to transpose this on to what it would be like if you put your blood, sweat, and tears into a franchise. And you were compensated well, and you appreciated the opportunity and the role in the job. But then this just arrived one day. The owner did so well on the sale. I mean, Sternberg’s planning to make about $1.5 billion off this overtime. It doesn’t just pay out immediately. He’s still going to own a little bit of the team for a bit until he fully divests. But imagine this in your own life. How would you feel to get this news if you were one of those 500 employees? A lot of money, too. Wait until I get to that. The bonuses were tenure-based, and that is very rightful. I mean, if you’ve been there a year, you shouldn’t get as much as somebody who’s been there 15 years or all 20 plus years of of the Sternberg era. The bonuses were tenure-based, according to sources briefed on how the money was distributed. Some long-standing employees, including scouts and minor league coaches who spent more than a decade with the club, received a full year’s salary. No, not just this year’s salary, a full year’s salary in addition to that. Again, let me transpose this onto maybe your situation, my situation. What if somebody walked in and said, “I’ll give you a full year of your pay. I’ll double what you make this year.” basically a full year’s pay to just throw away and save or pay off something or help a kid through college. Imagine what that does for more than 500 full-time employees. Now, I realize not everybody’s getting a full year salary, but some do. And the minimum amount is also going to shock you here. The total payout by Sternberg was in the tens of millions, sources said. I know. I I get it. Like you’re saying, well, he’s just made a billion dollars. He was a billionaire to begin with. Still, tens of millions of dollars that he didn’t have to do. The lowest bonuses, the lowest bonuses were believed to be in the 25 to $50,000 range. Come on. I know. I know what happened. I’m not saying any of that was right. and how he ran the team and uh changing directions quickly and and not spending and frustrating fans and they had the sell signs. But I’m going to get to my takeaways like this. There was a point where the Rays had that slogan here to stay. Uh-oh. And now Orlando’s in the mix and now Steu’s not going to sell the team and it’s not working out here. And how are they going to stay if they can’t work it out? Reminds me a lot of rooted in Oakland and that slogan how the A’s put that out until they weren’t rooted in Oakland anymore. Here to Stay almost felt like a curse. But you know what? Here to Stay actually worked out because Stu sold the team to a Tampa focused group. And I I can’t speak for them entirely, but certainly what their initial ambition is to go right at it and keep the team and stay in Tampa or St. Pete or the Tampa Bay region. They are here to stay. It wasn’t the most um straightforward direction. like there were a couple twists and turns, but I guess the Rays were here to stay. Even though Sternberg wasn’t here to stay, the Rays were. He actually kind of kept that promise. This baseball team still has a very talented front office, a baseball operation side, the decisions they make, how they identify talent. That’s always been one of the things about going back to the A’s situation, which I understand quite intimately. The criticism is never on the scouts, the baseball side, the baseball people. They what is it? They they punch harder than their weight. What am I trying to say? Like they do a better job than quite honestly they should in I almost said Oakland. In wherever the athletics play, but also in St. Pete where the Rays play, their baseball side, they’ve always brought up the right players. It’s only a matter of resigning them, keeping them, building the team instead of selling off pieces here and there when it makes, I guess, financial sense. So Stu leaves a franchise still with a very good baseball side. And again, the last thing here to just center in on, he’s going to end up making eventually about a billion half dollars of profit off this, maybe even a billion right away. So what’s I don’t know, 15, 20 million to give his bonuses. But again, he did not have to do that. In the end, his last act as owner of the team or now former owner of the team was to show this generosity. So, I just want to say as much as we talked about this from a business perspective and the business things that Stuart Sternberg was doing and the criticisms of him and all of that and and you know what, all of that can live on too like the videos don’t go away and the questions even from back then, some of them kind of still remain. That’s fine. But on the personal side, we don’t know much. We do know this. He didn’t have to do this. He could have just faded off into the sunset. I don’t know if he even wanted this publicized or if other people said, “You know what? We got to share what he’s doing.” I like I doubt he was the one to say, “Hey, guess what? I’m giving out bonuses.” I think this came out because people were like, “You know what? He treated us well as an employee and look what he just did for us on the way out.” So, you know what? Congratulations to you, Stuart Sternberg, for doing this in a very classy way. Ultimately, it’s all going to shake out well for Ray’s fans and especially now for Ray’s employees. Let me know what you think about all this in the comments section below. And maybe have you had a change of feeling on some things, maybe not everything, but some things now that you know this. Also, thumbs up down there helps me the video and the channel. Don’t forget to subscribe. I would love to see you back here next time.

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In his final act with the Rays, Stuart Sternberg outdid himself.

After completing the $1.7 billion sale of the club to an ownership group led by developer Patrick Zalupski, Sternberg awarded cash bonuses to every full-time member of the organization, more than 500 employees in all.

The bonuses were tenure-based, according to sources briefed on how the money was distributed. Some longstanding employees, including scouts and minor-league coaches who spent more than a decade with the club, received a full year’s salary.

The total payout by Sternberg was in the tens of millions, sources said. The lowest bonuses were believed to be in the $25,000 to $50,000 range.

Read More: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6707644/2025/10/10/tampa-bay-rays-stu-sternberg-employee-bonuses/

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